Protect and Enhance Social Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I begin by thanking my colleague, Congressman John Larson, for his thoughtful, courageous leadership on this issue, crafting Social Security 2100, which is the only comprehensive, paid-for measure which enhances Social Security and averts the 2034 cliff that this country is going to encounter if Congress does not act.

As Mr. Larson stated, when the social insurance program was created in 1935, signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt, it was created as an insurance program.

Congress, over time and on numerous occasions, has reformed the bill to protect the basic promise, which was made by the Congress and by President Roosevelt, to make sure that people who are retired, children who have lost a parent, and in recent times, people with disability are protected from the vagaries of life.

Again, we have stepped forward and taken care of challenges, fiscal challenges, that the law has encountered.

What John's bill would do, in essence, is extend the solvency of Social Security to 2066. We would avoid the cliff that we are going to hit in 2035. It would not gouge or cut any benefits.

The Republican Study Committee is talking about raising the retirement age. That is a Social Security cut for people who have paid into this program out of payroll year in and year out.

It increases the benefits by 2 percent on average for all beneficiaries. It rebases the program so that people will not receive Social Security and be below the poverty line.

It is exactly, in other words, what this country is looking for, a program that affects every single American, every single family member.

Everybody cares about Social Security. It is our job, just like prior Congresses when they have been approaching these fiscal challenges, to act.

What we need is for John's bill to be taken up and voted on. We don't need commissions that are going to take this bill behind closed doors with no transparency, which again is exactly the opposite of what the people of this country want.

They want to see what we are doing because this affects them and all those years of insurance payments that they have put into this program.

We need to take up John Larson's bill, Social Security 2100. Again, I implore the leadership of this Congress to move and to act and to not go down the path of a nontransparent commission, which is going to shut out the American people. That is not how we fix Social Security.

I thank Mr. Larson for his leadership. Let's move forward on Social Security 2100.

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