Social Security is the Nation's Premier Insurance Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be on this floor and to hear the eloquence of Jim Clyburn talking about a legend in Senator Fritz Hollings.

Mr. Speaker, it gives us pause this evening, and I am honored to be joined by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, a young man who has served his Nation with dignity as well, as we talk about something equally important and near and dear to Fritz Hollings' heart as it is to all America: Social Security.

We have introduced a bill. On Wednesday at 2 o'clock we will be having our fourth hearing on the subject matter of Social Security. We are honored to see that that is going forward, because there haven't been hearings for some time on the matter of expanding Social Security.

Under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and now Rich Neal on the Ways and Means Committee and a return to regular order, we are focusing on the needs of the American people, and nothing is more important than Social Security.

Let me start by underscoring something that should be intuitively obvious to everyone, but oftentimes is overlooked: Social Security is not an entitlement. Social Security is the insurance that people have paid for.

How do we know this? We know it simply because you only have to look as far as your pay stub, whether it is weekly, biweekly, or monthly, under the definition of FICA.

FICA stands for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. Whose? Yours.

Citizens all across this Nation understand that they have contributed to this program.

I want to give the President of the United States a shout-out here, because even under the intense scrutiny of the campaign, when challenged by 16 other Republicans, President Trump alone amongst the Republicans said: No, this is not an entitlement. This is an earned benefit, and I intend to protect it.

Not only does Social Security need protection, as Conor Lamb understands, but it needs to be expanded. It needs this, because the last time that this Congress did anything significant with respect to Social Security was in 1983.

In 1983, Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States, Tip O'Neill was the Speaker of the House. And you know what? A Democrat and Republican were able to come together and change Social Security and make sure that it would be there for future generations.

However, they didn't do a number of things that would have enhanced the program, and it has been 36 years since there has been any change to Social Security, the Nation's premier insurance program.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the viewing audience: Have any of your insurance premiums gone up since 1983? And, of course, everyone knows what the answer is.

It is not the people's fault at home or citizens all across this Nation. It is the responsibility of the United States Congress to make sure that the Nation's premier program, a program that not only provides a pension, but provides disability and spousal and dependent coverage, is there.

It is the only program out there that provides the full faith and credit of the United States Government, and, by the way, has never missed a payment.

Yet, if we do nothing, if we continue to kick the can down the road, then by as soon as 2034, just 15 years from now, there will be a 21 percent cut in the program, sending many people on the program currently into poverty.

That cannot stand. The time for us to act is now.

That is especially true given the circumstances that have taken place in this Nation, especially as recent as 2008.

If you will observe the chart on my left here, what this demonstrates is essentially from 2007 to 2010, the Great Recession, what we have witnessed happen to Americans with respect to their overall wealth and assets.

What we see is that only 10 percent of the people of this country, and they happen to be in the top 10 percent of wealth, have recovered from the Great Recession. Just 10 percent.

Imagine if Social Security had been privatized, as was intended by the Bush administration in 2005. Thankfully, it was not, because people depend on Social Security. They depend on Social Security because they know it is the only guarantee that is there for them.

I have gone across this country speaking to people about Social Security and our enhancements and what we do, and I take with me two props: one is the actuary report of Social Security 2100, the bill that Conor Lamb and 206 other Members of this body are original cosponsors of; and I also carry with me this Starbucks coffee. This happens to be empty, but it is part of my prop, and I will get to that shortly.

But what we said to the actuary is that what we wanted to do is make sure that Social Security not only remains solvent for beyond the 75 years, as it is required by law, but we needed to enhance it. The last time it was enhanced by this body was 36 years ago.

So that is why Conor Lamb and myself and so many others have stepped forward to say, let's add and enhance this, and let's do it in four ways.

Number 1, let's have a 2 percent across-the-board increase for all Social Security recipients.

Number 2, let's not let anyone who has paid their quarters into Social Security, who has worked hard all of their lives, retire into poverty.

Unfortunately for many Americans, especially women, that is the case. Why would that be so? It is so because women have been the caregivers in our society and had to take time off to raise families, to take care of children. Also, unfortunately, women have found themselves in the workplace earning 77 cents for every dollar their male counterpart was. This change in the law will correct that.

We also found, and Conor Lamb pointed this out several times, that there were people that he talked to who were still working, many out of necessity, some because of the joy that they find and the fulfillment of their lives in being active and busy, but nonetheless, they found that they were being taxed on their Social Security, because back in 1983, we did not index Social Security, so that back then, if you were single and making more than $24,000, you were taxed, if you were a married couple and making more than $32,000, you were taxed.

So what Conor and others said is, let's raise that to $50,000 for an individual and $100,000 for a couple, and immediately 12 million Americans will get a tax break under this bill.

We also wanted to adopt something that the AARP has fought for, which is to have a COLA that actually reflects the costs that you incur when you are older, whether that is doctor visits, whether it is nutritional concerns, whether it is physical therapy, or whether it is heating and cooling your home. These are the things that you need and are important to you, and that is what the COLA should reflect, and that is what we put in the bill.

Most of all, we have to make sure that the bill is sustainably solvent beyond 75 years, as is required by law, so that no one in any generation could say that it won't be there in the future.

In fact, it has always been there. It has never missed a payment. It has a 99 percent loss ratio.

What does that mean? That means it is the most efficient government program there is. It is the Nation's insurance program.

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, no question about it. We were just at a senior center in Elmwood on Friday and had the same experience.

I think, really, people find it annoying when this is called an entitlement, especially when they know they have worked all of their lives for this. They only had to look at their pay stub to know that they had made these contributions.

To say that this is an entitlement, when you look at the investment that you have made over a lifetime, nothing could be further from the truth, and that is why it is so important that we get the Social Security 2100 Act passed into law.

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the gentleman points that out because people, oftentimes, think of Social Security only as a pension benefit. As he just pointed out, one in five recipients are currently on Social Security who are not retired, who are spouses, or there are children because of a death in the family that took place.

So here it is, the Nation's single most important insurance program taking care of those individuals, even in cases of calamity, whether it be through the opioid crisis or whatever the case may be. That is why Social Security remains so vitally important to all generations, at all ages.

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman makes an excellent point. There is nobody who is getting wealthy on the Social Security program, but it is essential to their very existence and essential to our economy. Every penny that goes into Social Security comes right back and is recirculated through our economy because these are the things that are needed to sustain life.

It is such an important point, Mr. Speaker. I said earlier that I carry this Starbucks, and you make an apt comparison here. In terms of the $2 trillion tax cut that was passed in the previous session, 83 percent of that tax cut goes to the Nation's wealthiest 1 percent. When you contrast that to the bill we are proposing that says that we want to make sure that people are able to subsist on a program of insurance that they have paid into, it seems utterly cruel that this hasn't already taken effect and taken hold. What is even more, we are not going to do it by passing on debt to a future generation. It is paid for.

All those recipients, I know they say it in Connecticut, and I heard it again in West Hartford, and I know the gentleman has heard it as well in his communities: We don't want to be a burden, not to our families or future generations.

Well, they have never been a burden. They were the generations that made this Nation what we are today, so we paid for this bill. We paid for it in two ways.

Number one, we lift the cap over $400,000. So if you are one of the six-tenths of 1 percent in this Nation who make over $400,000, we are going to lift the cap off that Social Security so that you are paying what the guy making $50,000 is.

Then we do something else. We do what Roosevelt intended and what every American knows because they consult their bill. We increase the contribution that you make in your paycheck by 1 percent.

But then we say: No, even 1 percent is a lot. We are going to phase that in over 25 years to accomplish what should have been done in 1983, indexing it and phasing it in slowly over time.

What does that mean? That means a person earning $50,000 a year would pay 50 cents a week to make sure that he gets all the benefits we have described for Social Security and that it is solvent beyond 75 years. For 50 cents a week, a disability policy, dependent coverage, spousal coverage, and a pension, you could not purchase that in the private market. It is the full faith and credit of the United States Government that makes it possible because of the individual contribution.

That is where this Starbucks comes in. When I am at a public forum and when I am doing a townhall, I say to people: How much is this Starbucks?

They will ask if it is a latte. I say yes. They say $4.50.

I go: You are right. Or 9 weeks of Social Security payments if you are making $50,000 a year. Or if you are that individual making over $400,000 a year, it costs more to buy this Starbucks latte than it will to save Social Security.

We can do this together. This is why we have been going all across the country. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, as well, for going out and putting this online and on Facebook, making sure that we are getting the message out that, no, you are not a burden to us; you are our fellow Americans.

This isn't a Democratic or a Republican or an independent plan; this is the American plan. In fact, it was President Reagan who enhanced it, and it was President Eisenhower who enhanced and grew the program of Social Security. That is why it becomes vitally important that we help out our fellow citizens, especially with this disparity and, as in the chart we showed before, with many Americans still not recovered from the Great Recession of 2008.

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for joining me.

I thank Social Security Works, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, AFL-CIO, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Arc of the United States, American Federation of Government Employees, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Social Security Task Force, Justice in Aging, Association of University Centers on Disability, and The Senior Citizens League for their endorsement of this outstanding piece of legislation. I thank Mr. Lamb and the 206 other original cosponsors of the Social Security 2100 Act.

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