Seniors Protection Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. WEINER. Thank you very much. I appreciate the sponsor of the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, what it comes down to is that it is not as my good friend characterized it: throwing money away or giving money away. This is whether you consider people who have helped build this country to what it is, who have paid into the Social Security Trust Fund, and who very often rely entirely on Social Security for their support. These are people who, frankly, on average, are making in the magnitude of $16,000, $17,000, $20,000 for the entire year.

The Social Security COLA was passed in the 1970s with a very logical rationale, which was to allow seniors to keep up with the high cost of living. The mistake that we continually make--and perhaps it's because the law is written incorrectly or perhaps it's a misinterpretation--is that we assume for a moment that, when inflation is at a very low level like it is today, it means costs haven't risen for seniors; but if you look at the things that seniors are actually buying and if you look at the things that they need in order to survive--housing, health care, their very basics for food--all of these things are actually experiencing rising costs.

You know, it is somewhat ironic that, when I hear my good friends on the other side talk about the need for austerity, it always seems to be that it is the people who are in the middle class and struggling to make it who are the ones who are supposed to take the hit. Social Security beneficiaries are the broad cross section of this country, and we have made a contract with them.

I have to tell you that I know the new Republican Congress was elected on a platform of eviscerating Social Security as we know it. That is not a rhetorical talking point. If you look at the book quite literally, the book written by the person who is going to be the chairman of the Budget Committee on the Republican side, he suggests turning large portions of the Social Security Trust Fund to the stock market.

Yes, that is their belief. That is what they think the lesson is that was learned.

So there really is a question here about who we are fighting for. Mr. Pomeroy and the people who are going to vote ``yes'' on this bill say we want to fight for senior citizens who are struggling to make it each and every day. They are the ones who believe that Social Security isn't some kind of bizarre Socialist plot but is a way that we have created a safety net. That's all it is.

Nobody, I say to my colleagues, collects their Social Security checks and says, ``Woo-hoo, I'm rich.'' They collect them and say, ``Oh, what a relief. I can get through to the next month. I can continue with the standard of living that I have without its being chipped away.''

Well, now, after 2 consecutive years, we will see the Social Security cost-of-living increase, which is going to inch up to keep track of costs that they have elsewhere in life, be restored. We are doing the best we can. I believe, frankly, the COLA law needs to be rewritten. I believe it did not contemplate the type of scenario we have today in which overall inflation rates are going down and the costs for seniors are staying high.

As other speakers have pointed out, there are two fundamental mistakes that get made when the Social Security Trust Fund is calculated:

One, the basket of things that a senior actually buys is entirely different from what a teenager buys or from what a businessperson buys. They have very discrete costs, and those costs are going up.

It is also important to know that there are sometimes regional differences. In the part of the country that Mr. Pomeroy comes from, energy costs are sometimes exceedingly high because of cold winters. In the parts of the country that I represent and that Congressman Pascrell represents, the cost of housing is extraordinarily high. It is definitely going up more than 0 percent a year.

I would also remind my Republican colleagues of one other thing. A lot of them did not like the Social Security program from the word ``go.'' They didn't like it even then. There is a schizophrenia inherent in the Republican position about Social Security. They really nailed, or actually got it in their bones, that having a safety net program for senior citizens was really something government should not be doing. They didn't like it. Go take a look at the debate back in 1933 when it began. Yet, from 1935, which is when the checks started coming, until today, one thing has been consistently true: month after month, year after year, this program has worked exactly how it was designed. It was designed to allow one generation to help provide a safety net for the next--year after year, generation after generation.

I want to say one other thing.

This whole idea that the apocalypse is arriving and Social Security is coming undone at the seams is wildly, wildly overblown. Today, the Social Security program will add to the deficit exactly zero dollars and zero cents. That's more than I can say about the tax cuts for billionaires, which is going to add $700 billion to the deficit over 10 years.

So what we are saying is that we Democrats, we who will vote ``yes'' on this bill, are standing up and fighting for senior citizens. We are standing up and fighting for every Social Security beneficiary, even the ones who are Republicans and Independents from all parts of the country, because we fundamentally believe the program works. If you believe that the Social Security program is a good and virtuous program, this is your chance to show it, by voting ``yes,'' because this is a chance to improve it.

If you believe that the Social Security program is some kind of hoax or a fraud or you believe what many of my Republican friends believe, that it should be privatized, dismantled, eliminated, tossed in the trash can, then you should probably vote ``no'' on this because this bill only strengthens Social Security.

Now let me make one final remark--and I thank very much Mr. Pomeroy for being the sponsor of this legislation. He has never lost sight of the fact that the senior citizens that we help with Social Security are exactly the ones who helped put us in a position to build this country to what it is today.

Let me make one final point. You know, in all of the political back and forth that very often happens during campaign season, I think that we really did just see a campaign where one side operated almost entirely from a position of what they were against--they're against strengthening Social Security, they're against health care reform, they're against financial reform, they're against a reduction of taxes on the middle class.

We know precious little about what the new incoming Republican Congress is in favor of. This is an interesting test, where they are on Social Security. The chairman of their incoming Budget Committee believes in privatizing it. Many of their candidates kind of hemmed and hawed when asked. This is it, this is a good early test. And I would want to remind the American people that if you believe Social Security is one of those programs you really think should be protected and strengthened, this is the team that's fighting for you, the one that's offering this piece of legislation.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I urge my Republican colleagues to finally realize that supporting senior citizens and Social Security is a virtuous and good thing to do, even from their perspective.

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