Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I want to spend a minute saying a special commendation to Senators Brown and Casey, two exceptionally valuable members of the Senate Finance Committee who are going to be departing the Senate at the end of the year.

Nobody in the Senate understands the importance of Social Security for seniors and Americans with disabilities better than Senators Brown and Casey. They have been leading the fight for years to protect and strengthen Social Security for current and future generations of Americans, and they have done it for their entire careers. That includes battling those who would want to privatize the system, those who would raise the retirement age or advance schemes that would otherwise cut benefits.

It strikes me as particularly fitting that one of the final votes this body takes--and the first time the Senate votes to increase benefits in decades--will be a vote to ensure everyday Americans receive their earned benefits.

I was director of the Oregon Gray Panthers for almost 7 years before coming into public life, and I long ago decided that protecting Americans' earned benefits has been a lodestar, and Senators Casey and Brown have followed that through their public service.

This vote is also a chance for the American people to see clearly who is fighting for middle-class families, because what the Senate is doing is preventing across-the-board cuts to Social Security benefits for public servants like firefighters and nurses and busdrivers and police officers and teachers. These are all individuals who work in crucial professions, paying into Social Security out of every paycheck. They went into their line of work not to strike it rich but to answer the call to serve their communities.

As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I would urge all Members of the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, to stand with Senators Brown and Casey and all our colleagues who have been working to pass this legislation. It is long overdue.

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