Congressional Budget for the Unites States Government for the Fiscal Year 2006
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 2006 -- (Senate - March 15, 2005)
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Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I wish to make some remarks to Senator Graham for a moment, if I could get his attention. I wanted to direct some remarks to the Senator. First, I wish to thank the Senator. I think what he is doing here is quite different than what we have been getting from this White House. The Senator is being very careful to essentially say, let's get together and work together to solve the problem.
I also believe that the word ``permanently'' is a little naive. I don't mind it, but the point is, nothing is permanent around here except we are going to die one day. We cannot bind future Congresses. I get the Senator's point that we want to make sure this challenge is met. Believe me, I intend to meet it. I intend to meet it without putting us in debt, and the Senator is totally silent on that; I appreciate that. This country is in debt now $7.7 trillion. This administration has turned it around. We started to balance the budget, pay back Social Security. It has been turned around.
We have the highest debt ever. A child born today has about $40,000 worth of debt on his or her back. This is painful for our country: $7.7 trillion of debt is $1 million a day for 21,000 years. That is what it is. I appreciate the fact that unlike the President's plan, the Senator from South Carolina does not talk about borrowing those staggering sums of money because there are a lot of us who will not do that to the American people. They are being burdened enough with this debt now.
The Senator is also silent on privatization. My hat is off to him on that because, as we know, the Democrats are saying, if you want to privatize this system, the only way you are going to do that is to put us deeper in debt, and you are going to take an overhead of one-half of 1 percent and turn it into a 20-percent overhead. That is according to a University of Chicago study.
I so appreciate that the Senator does not mention borrowing because we are staggering in red ink, and he does not mention privatization because it is a nonstarter. When you privatize, you take a guaranteed benefit and turn it into a guaranteed gamble. I have nothing against Wall Street, I once worked on Wall Street. I was a stockbroker. Sometimes it works out great, but you cannot count on it, not at all. So why would we take a system that has worked perfectly and turn it into a gamble, except if we really wanted to get some of that money away from the trust fund and into the hands of Wall Street.
I was in the House of Representatives in 1983, and I supported two icons in politics: Ronald Reagan, a Republican icon, and Tip O'Neill, a Democratic icon. They followed the spirit of the approach of Senator Graham, which is we get together because, guess what. The people are more important than the politics.
We have a President who is doing his round of townhall meetings all across this great Nation. I think it is great. He is working hard to sell his privatization plan, to tell people they better listen to him or else they are going to be sorry. But do you know what the President did not count on? That the people understand what Social Security is.
So you can do a song and dance about privatization, you can talk about it in poetry, you can talk about an ownership society, but they are not fooled because this is what the people know: They pay a portion of their check over to the Social Security trust fund, and when they retire, they get a safety net retirement. It is safe, and it is sure. It has never defaulted. It is there.
And guess what. If the head of household dies and there are kids, they get a benefit. A lot of my constituents understand this. My own husband's father died when he was 10 years old. His mother had three kids. She was a stay-at-home mom. What would she do? Social Security. One of those kids, my husband's brother, was mentally disabled. What would she do? Social Security.
I praise my friend for not talking about putting this country into deeper debt--we are not going to go there--and for not mentioning privatization because we are not going to go there. We are not going to take money out of the trust fund and give it to Wall Street. We are not going to have a Social Security system that has an overhead cost one-half of 1 percent and turn it into a 20-percent overhead and turn it into a gamble. We are not going to do it.
The people are smart. They get it. I do not care how many townhall meetings any of us has, this is one the people understand. I have my own townhall meetings. The people get it, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, or Independents. They say Social Security works and why would we turn our back on it.
Watch out for the word ``reform.'' If it is truly reform, we should do it. But if it is repeal, which is what privatization is, we are not going to do it.
Again, with the same reservations that my friend has, I read this amendment and I say, bravo, we can talk, if we are not going to borrow. We can talk, if we are not going to privatize. We can talk, if we are not going to set up a two-tier system that hurts people. We can talk. And we can do what we did in the eighties. I was proud to stand with my President at that time, Ronald Reagan, and my Speaker at that time, Tip O'Neill, these icons who got behind a very simple plan.
And by the way, there are many civil ways. My friend has outlined one. We can step to the plate on this challenge.
Let's stop using the word ``crisis'' because you are not fooling anybody. Mr. President, 22 years ago the Cato Institute put out a paper. They said: Make people think it is a crisis as soon as you can. If they think it is a crisis, they may accept the end of Social Security. Tell them it is an iceberg coming.
That is what the White House secret little memo did.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask for 30 seconds, and then I will stop.
Mr. CONRAD. I yield 30 seconds to the Senator from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for an additional 30 seconds.
Mrs. BOXER. The people are smart. They know there are some people around here who have been trying to get rid of Social Security for decades. We cannot trust this matter to people who have wanted to do away with Social Security. The President himself said in 1978 that Social Security will go broke by 1988 unless it is privatized. He was wrong then; he is wrong now. He said in the year 2000 that people act as if Social Security is a Federal program or something. How do we trust someone who does not know Social Security is a Federal program where people pay their insurance, they pay for it, and they get back what they put in, plus a safety net?
I thank my colleague for yielding. I thank my friend, Senator Graham, for offering us something that I think many of us will be able to vote for.
I yield the floor.
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