Social Security

SOCIAL SECURITY -- (House of Representatives - March 16, 2005)

(Mr. PRICE of Georgia asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, in 2008, only 3 years from now, the first baby boomers will start collecting retirement benefits from Social Security, and for these people the system has worked very well, but when our children and grandchildren get set to retire, the only thing that will greet them is frustration, grief and heartache at what we did today or, better yet, what we did not do to fix Social Security.

Mr. Speaker, I have practiced medicine for over 20 years, and I know that in order to treat the right disease you have got to make the right diagnosis, and the right diagnosis for the Social Security system is that we are on an unsustainable course. The right treatment is to fix the problem today rather than passing the problem on to future generations.

If we continue to postpone solutions, our only alternatives will be large tax increases or significant benefit reductions.

The goal of our ongoing discussion is not to pin blame on anyone. The goal is to have a system that will work for our children and our grandchildren, one that is stable, funded and secure.

A Social Security system that was designed for the world of 1935 will not work for the world of 2035 and beyond. Changes must be made, and the sooner we act the more secure we all will be.

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