Enhancing Social Security

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Larson for yielding. I wonder if he would submit himself to a few questions and engage in a colloquy.

Will the gentleman yield?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. The first question I have, and we heard it tonight, we heard the statement, the assertion that Social Security for generations has been the single most important income support program in America and has lifted millions upon millions of seniors out of poverty.

Is that true?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. We have also heard talk about this Republican Study Committee, which is a group of 80 percent of the Republicans here in the United States House of Representatives, and it is a committee that came up with a proposal about Social Security to raise the retirement age and require seniors to continue working into their senior years.

Is that true?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Mr. Speaker, I have one final question for Ranking Member Larson.

This idea of raising the retirement age, as the gentleman has explained very well, constitutes a cut in benefits for every year Republicans raise it. Economists have worked out how much that is going to cost out of the Social Security system.

The majority's plan is to raise the retirement age and cut Social Security benefits by $1.5 trillion, with a t. That is what happens when you raise the retirement age to 69 the way Republicans want to. Is that right?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Mr. Speaker, Ranking Member Larson has that right, and I thank the gentleman for answering my questions.

Tonight, I am here to speak on behalf of 191,000 people from northeastern Pennsylvania who depend on Social Security checks coming in to keep them alive. Probably over 40 percent of them look to those checks as the only visible means of support that they have.

Now, the Republican Study Committee's fiscal year 2025 proposal comes along and talks about raising the retirement age to 69. That is fine if, like us, you fly a desk for a living, but if you do what so many Americans do, the people who paid paycheck after paycheck after paycheck into this sacred promise, this insurance program, FICA, if you do what they do--they have to lift and climb and carry and dig. These are the people doing manual labor, and they are expected to work well into their senior years, according to the Republican Study Committee.

Mr. Speaker, this is a breach of a promise. It is a betrayal of the Americans who paid into this system their entire working lives. It is unacceptable, and it is something that the Republicans have done year in and year out.

Remember when, in 2006, Republicans were proposing privatizing the entire Social Security system, saying that will free up people to invest their money in the stock market. Then what happened to the stock market a couple of years later? It cratered. People would have lost their entire lifesavings, and there would have been no checks of any nature coming into their post office boxes.

Mr. Speaker, the answer is not cutting benefits. The answer is Social Security 2100, Mr. Larson's bill, something that I have proudly supported for over 10 years now.

This bill would increase benefits by 2 percent for all Social Security beneficiaries for the first time in 52 years. It would eliminate the WEP, which hurts policemen, firemen, prison correctional officers, all sorts of public employees.

Rather than cutting benefits, Representative Larson and the Democratic Party have a plan to protect and enhance Social Security. It is a plan to put people over politics and make good on our promise to put American seniors first and pass Social Security 2100.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source