Congress of Cliffs

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of talk of cliffs here in
our Nation's Capital. We have fiscal cliffs that we faced with the debt
ceiling. There was the sequestration cliff. We had, obviously, the
cliffs surrounding the government shutdown.

This week, we face a Homeland Security cliff. Because our Republican
friends have been unable to reach agreement and have held hostage the
budget of the Department of Homeland Security, we face a situation
where we will either shut down those operations or, hopefully, people
will come to their senses and take action. But, again, it is government
by cliff.

In March, we are facing the SGR cliff. If the government doesn't move
forward to deal with a meaningful solution to the sustainable growth
rate, we are going to see a dramatic reduction in government
reimbursement under Medicare to providers.

And looming in the background--something that we talked about last
summer because Congress refused to deal meaningfully with
transportation funding--there will be another cliff May 31 as the
transportation fund loses its ability to fund. Already, there are
programs around the country in local and State government that are
trying to factor in reductions of important construction work that they
aren't certain they can do this summer.

Well, we are putting in the background another cliff. It is one that
will probably not get the attention that it deserves, but one that
deserves people to focus on because it will impact 11 million of our
most vulnerable citizens.

Over the course of the years, there have been opportunities within
the trust fund that funds retirement and disability, which are
basically, for most people, synonymous--they are paid for by the same
tax on our earnings and that our employers pay, but they have been
segregated into two accounts, one dealing with disability and one
dealing with retirement.

Over the history of these two programs they have spent at different
rates. Eleven times in the past, under Republican and Democratic
Presidents alike, Congress has moved to shift money from one trust fund
to another to be able to even it out and not run out of the ability to
pay benefits. The last adjustment was made in 1994, but the disability
account was only adjusted for about 20 years.

At the time, it was understood that there would be a need for more
action dealing with disability because of a very fundamental
demographic change: we have a lot more women in the workforce and the
baby boom generation is moving into the years in their careers where
they are more prone to disability claims. And, sure enough, that
projection is right. Around December of next year, we will no longer be
able to pay full disability payments unless there is an adjustment.

Well, the fix that has been done 11 times over the years, on a
bipartisan basis, has been made infinitely more difficult because of a
rule change that our friends on the Republican side have adopted for
this Congress. Under what they have approved, it will be impossible to
make that simple adjustment that we have done time and time again if a
single Member of the House of Representatives objects.

This is setting up an artificial crisis. There is a need to adjust
funding for both Social Security and disability because, combined, in
about 2033 or 2034 they will not be able to pay out full benefits. That
is why it is important for Congress to be able to step forward and deal
with it meaningfully, but it is not something you do in a crisis, and
it is not something that should be done by picking out the one area in
which 11 million citizens rely on these for disability payments. It
should be done thoughtfully and carefully.

If people are concerned about fraud and misuse, I would suggest that
my Republican friends look at what they did in the budget process. Over
the last 3 years, they have cut 7 percent out of the budget for the
Social Security Administration that could have gone to deal with
enforcement and that could have gone to deal with fraud and abuse. It
could have gone to make sure that the program is operating properly.

Instead, we have set up a crisis to try and force reductions in
benefits for some of our most vulnerable. I think it is not the way we should go. We shouldn't be having government by cliff, but we also ought to be
dealing with it in a thoughtful and reasonable fashion to make the
adjustments that make it sustainable.

In the meantime, the Republican leadership ought to waive that rule--
like they routinely do for things that they care about, like passing
billions of dollars of unfunded tax cuts--to be able to allow the
rebalancing to occur and the decisionmaking to be made in a thoughtful
and reasonable fashion.

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