Maintaining America's Infrastructure

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I wish to associate myself with the prior
gentleman's commendation of those who fought on behalf of liberty at
the Battle of the Bulge. We bow before them. They bequeathed liberty to
this generation. It is a heavy burden. Let us hope that we can measure
up to it in tribute to their valor.

At last night's State of the Union Address, passing a transportation
and infrastructure bill to repair America and build forward a new
century, as we create hundreds of thousands of jobs, got the broadest
bipartisan applause. You could hear it on both sides of the aisle. So I
come to the floor this morning to say, Let's do it. Let's do it. Chairman Bill Shuster and Ranking Member Peter DeFazio are two Members who can get us there. We want to help them. I know the majority of Members feel that way. So my words to them are: Onward, gentlemen; lead America forward by passing that bill through us.

On another front, I rise to express deep dismay at what I believe to
be Republican efforts to weaken and begin dismantling the Social
Security and disability insurance program that so many Americans depend
upon. The headline in yesterday's Politico reads: ``Social Security
disability under attack by the GOP.''

As this Congress starts, Republicans have quietly and without
consulting Democrats tucked into the rules of this House a point of
order provision that aims to harm our Nation's 8,950,000 disabled
citizens and weaken the related Social Security earned benefit program.
The number of Americans on disability today in a Nation of over 310
million people amounts to less than 3 percent of our population. That
is actually a very small number when you think about it. God has been
good to most of us, but that isn't true physically and mentally with
many of our fellow citizens.

Mr. Speaker, even though the number of disability approvals has been
declining since 2010, Republicans have begun this Congress by singling
out the disabled. They haven't targeted Wall Street moguls who brought
our economy down and stole trillions of dollars of home equity and the
very homes from our families. No, Republicans are targeting the
injured, the suffering, and those not able to fend for themselves. Even
to touch this subject so callously is a cruelty. It causes worry and
trepidation. It makes life more uncertain.

Why should such an important change not be debated on this House
floor? Republicans instead hope to pull the wool over the eyes of the
American people by hiding it in an obscure rule that was part of a
massive parliamentary package for this 114th Congress. But I tell you
what, not all Americans have been fooled. Despite this subtle attempt
to pit Social Security pensioners against disabled beneficiaries, our
office has already received a great number of calls and letters from
citizens sick over the possibility that a 20 percent benefit cut could
adversely affect our neighbors and relatives most in need.

These proposed cuts in Social Security and disability insurance--and
I underline the word ``insurance''--set the stage for what Republicans
truly want, and I fear: severe cuts, a weakened Social Security system,
and ultimately dismantling one of our greatest American legacies,
earned Social Security benefits and earned disability benefits for our
old, our ill, and our disabled. Our disabled and senior citizens have
the right to live out their lives with dignity. And for so many, their
lives are not easy.

I remind my colleagues who visit nursing homes and who have neighbors
or relatives in their own family who endure pain every day how vital
these programs are. There but for the grace of God go you.

This Congress should oppose these backhanded cuts, and at the same
time we should support the passage of the transportation and
infrastructure jobs bill to build our Nation forward. There are items
we can agree on, and there will be items that we disagree on. But our
roads, our bridges, our harbors, our airports, our rail systems, the
St. Lawrence Seaway System, and navigable waters all deserve our
attention. We can make it happen this year. Let's do it.

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