Date: 2005-04-26
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. what the gentleman is saying is absolutely true. and to just continue on the same theme the gentleman is referring to. if we are going to talk about crisis and things that are looming that we need to deal with. why are we not talking about Medicare? The President should be stumping around the country to get the Congress to address the looming crisis in Medicare because it could be more easily argued that Medicares insolvency. which is much sooner than Social Security. is really going to cause us some tremendous problems. The gentleman from Florida and I are from a State that if Members want to talk about a crisis. if we have a crisis in Medicare. our constituents are really going to have a dire. serious problem. If that problem is not addressed. then there are senior citizens across this country who will die. There is no question if we do not preserve the ability to provide health care to senior citizens who under this proposal are already going to be in jeopardy because their retirement security is going to be pulled out from under them. on top of that if we do not fix Medicare. we will not provide them with health care. I would love to see the President stumping to try to address that problem. I can assure the President he would have a lot more willing participants. at least on our side. at least from me and from Members who represent States with significant senior populations. Social Security is often thought of as just a program that benefits senior citizens. and people think if you did a man or woman interview on the street. and asked people who benefits from Social Security. virtually everyone on the street would say that Social Security benefits senior citizens. In Florida. for example. children who are under 17. there are 174.500 current Social Security beneficiaries. kids who are receiving Social Security either because they are dependents of people receiving SSI because they are disabled or they are survivors of a deceased Social Security recipient. Again. that number is 174.530 kids under 17. And between the ages of 18 and 39. 71.870 Floridians receive Social Security benefits. That is one of the things that has been lost that each week we have been trying to drive home. lost in this privatization debate. The President has basically wiped the table. or essentially wiped the floor. to be a little more direct about it. when it comes to the people who collect Social Security because they are disabled. which is a -third. who are disabled. who are survivors and are receiving survivor benefits. They do not earn an income. so what happens to them when we privatize Social Security? Or when there are annuities and we yank Social Security benefits out from under people who are earning an income. and we are doing nothing for people who are survivors or who are disabled? It is like they do not exist. It is like if we ignore them. maybe they will go away. I have yet to hear a response from the President or the leadership of this Congress about what we are going to do to help people who are disabled and who are survivors of Social Security recipients when Social Security is privatized and then shrivels up and blows away.