Date: 2005-04-05
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman from Ohio . and it is good to be here with you once again. Quite honestly. it is good to be here to talk about once again an extremely important issue and that is Social Security. I can tell you that I wish that that is what we had been able to talk about for the last 2 weeks as opposed to some of the other issues we have been focused on. but I am glad we are able to refocus again. What we have been trying to do in our 30something Working Group over the last several months and prior to my arrival here in Congress. you and our other colleagues have done yeomans work on getting the message out about the facts as its relates to Social Security because our generation. your friends. my friends. when you go home and you. sit down and you are having coffee or you are having a beer. which we may occasionally do among our friends. and the conversation may turn to whether you think or your friends think that there is going to be Social Security there for you when you retire. Most people our age. they believe the myth that has been put out there by the President and by the leadership of the Congress. They believe that Social Security will not be there. My colleague and I being in our 30s and we are trying to get the word out to other people our age across this country. the solvency issue to which you just referred. literally. before there is even a concern about a potential drop in benefits. is not for 37 years from now. at the earliest. More likely. 47 years when in my case. I will be 75 years old in 37 years and 85 years old in 47 years. long past retirement age. long past the point after which I would begin collecting Social Security. So like my colleague said. we are not suggesting that there is not a problem that needs to be addressed. What we are suggesting is that there is not a crisis. that there is no need to sound the alarm bells. that we need to make sure that we approach this problem responsibly. that this is a 70year program of success. probably the most successful program in our Nations history. established as an iron clad safety net that no one should have to worry about it being there upon their retirement. which is why that if weare going to make changes. which we should to ensure its longterm solvency. that we take the time to do it correctly and responsibly and not rush to judgment and not make drastic changes which privatizing Social Security. I think by anyones definition. would be drastic. - We have got to make sure that we preserve Social Security into the fu�ture. and what is ironic is that most of the talk coming from the White House and in the leadership of this body has been about privatizing Social Security. setting up private accounts. and this has just been mindboggling to me because. like you said. privatization does nothing to deal with the solvency issue. We could privatize Social Security. and all we would be doing is adding to our deficit and putting our Nation more in debt than we already are. and we are badly. badly in debt. So you can go that far and still have to address Social Security solvency problems. and we need to make sure that we responsibly make changes to preserve Social Security into the future. Li 2215