Stop Schemes and Crimes Against Medicare and Seniors (Stop SCAMS) Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5739) to amend the Social Security Act to provide for the termination of social security benefits for individuals who participated in Nazi persecution, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise as chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security--the committee of jurisdiction over Social Security benefits--in support of the No Social Security for Nazis Act, legislation I introduced along with Ranking Member Xavier Becerra.

The world must never forget the 6 million Jews and other innocents murdered in the Holocaust. America has worked hard to prevent Nazis from entering the country and reaping the benefits of U.S. citizenship, including Social Security. Social Security is an earned benefit. Hardworking Americans pay a portion of their wages for promises of future benefits. However, it is a benefit that was never intended for those who participated in the horrific acts of the Holocaust.

Under the Social Security Act, Social Security benefits are terminated when individuals are deported due to participating in Nazi persecutions. Some individuals whom the Department of Justice identified as Nazi persecutors were denaturalized or voluntarily renounced their citizenship and left the country to avoid formal deportation proceedings. However, due to a loophole, certain Nazi persecutors have continued to receive Social Security benefits. Today we will put an end to this loophole.

The bill amends the law to stop benefit payments to those denaturalized due to participation in Nazi persecutions or who voluntarily renounced their citizenship as part of a settlement with the Attorney General related to participating in Nazi persecution.

The bill also makes sure that these individuals do not receive spousal benefits due to a marriage to a Social Security beneficiary.

Lastly, the bill requires the Attorney General to certify to the Ways and Means Committee and Finance Committee that Social Security has been notified of all those whose benefits should be terminated due to participation in Nazi persecutions. It also requires the Commissioner of Social Security to certify that benefits were terminated.

This legislation is currently cosponsored by over 47 Members of the Congress. Also, letters of support have been received from some of the following organizations: The Association of Mature American Citizens, B'nai B'rith International, Jewish Federations of North America, J Street, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Republican Jewish Coalition, Strengthen Social Security Coalition, and the Zionist Organization of America.

Mr. Speaker, I insert these letters in the Record as well.

American Jewish Committee,

Global Jewish Advocacy,

Washington, DC, November 24, 2014.

Dear Chairman Johnson and Ranking Member Becerra, I write

on behalf of AJC, the global Jewish advocacy organization, to

urge your support of legislation to deny federal benefits to

individuals who participated in Nazi persecution. There are

two House measures that seek to accomplish this: the Nazi

Social Security Benefits Termination Act of 2014, introduced

by Representatives Carolyn Maloney, Leonard Lance, and Jason

Chaffetz, and the No Social Security for Nazis Act,

introduced by Representatives Sam Johnson and Xavier Becerra.

For many years, Nazi extermination camp personnel and

others who found refuge in the United States after World War

II--individuals who perpetrated some of the worst crimes

known to humanity, including the execution of millions of

innocent civilians--have received various benefits, including

Social Security payments, from the United States government.

While the number of Nazi recipients of Social Security

payments may not be large, the continuance of this practice

is an intolerable insult to those, living and dead, who

suffered at the hands of the Nazis, is an affront to American

taxpayers, and contradicts our nation's core values.

The Nazi Social Security Benefits Termination Act will deny

receipt of federal benefits to those who were accused of

taking part in Nazi criminal acts and were either stripped of

their citizenship or voluntarily renounced it. The No Social

Security for Nazis Act amends the Social Security Act to

cease payments to those stripped of U.S. citizenship as a

result of participation in Nazi activities, and those who

voluntarily renounced citizenship due to such participation.

The United States should not be lending material support to

individuals whose crimes were so egregious that a new word

had to be coined to describe them: genocide. On behalf of

AJC, I urge you to support legislation to deny federal

benefits to individuals who participated in Nazi persecution.

Thank you for considering our views on this important

matter.

Respectfully,

Jason Isaacson.

For many years a loophole has allowed those who perpetrated horrific crimes against humanity to receive benefits paid by the United States Government. While the number of Nazi recipients of Social Security benefits may be few now, allowing payments to continue is an inexcusable insult to those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members of the House to vote ``yes'' and pass the No Social Security to Nazis Act today so the Senate can take action soon and that the President can sign it into law without delay.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Thank you, Mr. Becerra. I appreciate your remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Lance).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank Mr. Becerra.

It takes two to tango, and fortunately, we have a compatible interest on this committee. I thank Ranking Member Xavier Becerra and his staff for working with us on this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members of the House to vote ``yes'' and pass the No Social Security for Nazis Act today, so the Senate can take action soon and that the President can sign it into law without delay.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me begin, Mr. Speaker, by thanking my colleague, but, more importantly, my dear friend, Mr. Sam Johnson from Texas, for the work that he did to move so quickly working with his able staff to try to make sure we had a bill come before us. I also want to make sure that I salute the staff on this side of the aisle for the work they did in partnership to make sure that we could quickly put a bill on the floor of this House that could address what all of us agree is a glaring omission.

And so I am pleased to stand here to say, Mr. Speaker, that we have a bill that not only will take care of those dollars that Americans contributed to Social Security on a daily basis as they go to work and pay into the system, but it also will protect the dollars that so many Americans now rely on to receive their benefits.

Today, Mr. Speaker, 160 million Americans work and pay into Social Security. They know that because they do that their families will be protected if they happen to die or if they happen to become disabled or if they decide to retire. Now, for most of the 58 million Americans who are already retired or currently receiving Social Security benefits of some sort, that Social Security benefit is the most important source of income for them.

One of the greatest privileges we have as Americans living here in the U.S. is the opportunity to work and earn this Social Security protection for ourselves and for our families.

We recently learned, as Mr. Johnson has mentioned, that Nazi war criminals and collaborators slipped through a loophole in our laws and began receiving Social Security benefits. The record is clear: Congress never intended for the perpetrators of the Holocaust--the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored murder of more than 6 million Jews and millions of other innocents--to be allowed to enter the U.S., let alone to participate in Social Security. It has been our longstanding policy that when Nazi persecutors who came under false pretenses are discovered that they be deported and stripped of all their privileges of U.S. citizenship and residency, including, of course, Social Security.

I am pleased to be here today because today what we are saying is we are ready to act. This legislation will tightly close the loophole that allows some individuals to use and retain Social Security benefits even after their Holocaust crimes have been proven and their citizenship has been revoked. As the chairman has mentioned, and as we are trying to make clear today, it is critically important that we make everyone aware that when you work for Social Security, you have earned it, and only then will you get it. So when someone comes in, uses a loophole, tries to take advantage, and then believes that they can get away with it, we want to be able to act quickly and make it clear that it will never happen again. We want those safeguards to be in place for everyone who has been working hard and paying into Social

Security for years and years. They are the ones that own it, not people who have defrauded our government.

Like past Congresses, we believe that we must act quickly because the issue of the Holocaust is not unresolved in our minds. We know what we must do to anyone who perpetrated those heinous acts. We must act as quickly as we can. And so, Mr. Speaker, I say with a great deal of pride and friendship that I stand with the chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee today, Mr. Sam Johnson, to urge my colleagues to join us in closing this loophole now before Social Security has to pay another dime to a Nazi war criminal.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we are expecting another speaker, but I reserve the balance of my time and let the gentleman from Texas proceed if he has another speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney), who has been very active on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I think it is important to close on a particular note. I don't think it gets lost on the chairman or me that, when we sit as the chairman and ranking member on the Social Security Subcommittee, we have a major responsibility, and that is to make sure that what people expect when they allow a good chunk of money to come out of their paycheck, it is going to be used for what they believe, and that is for Social Security benefits for those who have earned them.

When something like this comes along and you find out that someone found out a way to circumvent the laws and the process and take advantage of getting dollars out of America that have been put in for the purpose of providing security to those who retire or become disabled or who die, it really makes you want to act, but when you realize that, on top of that, the folks who are gaming the system are folks who should never have been in this country in the first place because they committed heinous crimes and were perpetrators of some of the worst evils we have seen in our history, then it makes you want to work doubly fast.

At a time when we deal with major issues and oftentimes have challenges in reaching agreement, the American people should watch for a second because, in this case, we are coming together to say that we understand the purpose of Social Security.

It is important to extend a thank you to the chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee for making sure that, before we ended this year and before we ended this session, we had an opportunity to put our vote on the floor saying, ``No, if you don't earn your benefits, you won't get them, and if you shouldn't have been here in the first place, then you certainly shouldn't get Social Security as well.''

It is important to get this done, and we hope the Senate will act quickly. Hopefully, before too long, the President will have an opportunity to sign this, and forever, we will be able to say that we know that no perpetrator of the Holocaust will ever have an opportunity to steal Social Security from those who worked hard to earn it.

With that, Mr. Speaker, and thanking the staff on both sides of the aisle for the work they have done so diligently and to my friend and chairman, Mr. Johnson, I say thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank my friend and colleague on the other side of the aisle, Leonard Lance, for coming to New York, for working in meetings, and for advancing this issue before the Social Security Administration and also the Justice Department.

Mr. Speaker, for decades, former Nazis complicit in war crimes have been given monthly Social Security benefit checks due to a loophole in the law. It is an outrage that began at the end of World War II, when thousands of Nazis fled to the United States.

Many lied about their past, so that they could become American citizens, take jobs, and try to just blend in, but most were eventually identified and deported, and some were tried for their crimes; however, dozens were never formally deported. If a former Nazi left the U.S. on his own before a final order of removal was issued, the law allowed him to keep receiving his Social Security benefits.

As the author of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998, which opened up all of the files of the CIA on the Nazis and what they were doing in the United States and in Europe, I have been working on this issue for decades.

In 1991, I cowrote a bill to close this loophole by creating a new legal process to terminate benefits. Earlier this year, I wrote the Social Security Administration, seeking more information on former Nazis who continue to receive Social Security benefits. They will be issuing a report to me and others on exactly how much money is involved.

After an investigative report by the Associated Press revealed new details of Nazis receiving Social Security benefits, I wrote to the IG of the Justice Department and have had meetings with them and the Social Security Administration to investigate exactly how this all occurred.

I also worked with my colleagues, Republican Congressmen Leonard Lance of New Jersey and Jason Chaffetz of Utah, to craft the Nazi Benefits Termination Act of 2014. It was supported by editorials across this Nation. We received a total of 19 editorials in support of our bill.

In the interest of time, I will just put in the Record roughly five of them because I think it is important that across this Nation, from the South, the West, the East, the North, all of them have come out strongly in support of not spending one taxpayer dime to support Nazis.

The Ways and Means Committee took on this same effort. Our bills are similar, and either would be sufficient to address the problem. Both would affirmatively declare individuals who have been denaturalized or renounced citizenship on the grounds of participation in Nazi persecution ineligible for Social Security benefits.

I urge my colleagues to end this outrage, close this loophole, and send a message that when we say we will never forget, we mean we will never forget and that we will stop this terrible abuse of taxpayer money going to Social Security benefits for Nazis.

I commend all of my colleagues who have worked on this important issue.

[From mydailynews.com]

No SSNs for the SS

A search for some small measure of justice will go on as

long as Nazi war criminals remain alive and unpunished. Never

mind that almost seven decades have passed since they

participated in the Holocaust. Never mind that they are well

up in years, perhaps approaching 100.

The outrage is that some of the guilty are living out their

last days with the help of Social Security payments sent out

by Uncle Sam.

After World War II, former SS death camp guards and others

made their way to America in the hope of leaving their crimes

behind. Rather than fight to boot the group, the government

made odious deals: If they left the country, they would keep

their Social Security benefits.

As reported by the Associated Press, troops who worked in

the camps, a rocket scientist

accused of using slave labor to do his research, a Polish

Nazi collaborator who facilitated the murder of thousands of

Jews and others fled and kept their cash.

At least four are still alive--and collecting. Rep. Carolyn

Maloney said she will draft legislation to strip benefits

from Nazis.

Better late than never.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge passage of H.R. 5739, the No Social Security for Nazis Act, which will correct an injustice of two generations and right a terrible wrong in the name of the lives that were lost as a result of the Holocaust.

To think Nazis are receiving Social Security benefits derived from tax receipts of the American people is sickening and morally wrong. Today, Congress will move to put an end to it.

This effort was originally championed in the 1990s by my predecessor from the district I have the honor of serving, the late Congressman Bob Franks, and I am proud to continue his effort and see this legislation pass on the floor of the House today.

The United States, including my home State of New Jersey, stands in solidarity with the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the decades-long struggle for peace in the world following the Nazi atrocities.

This action is yet another step in demonstrating that our resolve for justice is unyielding and our commitment to pursue what is right continues even 70 years after World War II.

I thank my colleague, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York City, for her leadership on this issue and for asking me to cosponsor the original bill that she had initiated. I also thank Congressman Sam Johnson and the Ways and Means Committee for taking up this effort.

The world can never forget the hate and intolerance of the 1930s and 1940s that claimed the lives of millions of people of the Jewish faith and forever scarred the face of mankind. Let this effort be another chapter in the healing that has brought vigor to the pursuit of justice, attention and care to all human suffering and the work toward a world of greater understanding and peace.

When given the chance to put an end to an egregious practice, we must act. I urge passage today of this important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, for many today, the heinous acts of the Nazi party in the World War II era are a story relegated to the history books and museums. But the fact is some of these war criminals are still alive, and they are even getting a monthly check from Uncle Sam.

An Associated Press investigation found that dozens of Nazi suspects have collected Social Security benefits due to a loophole in our laws. And the cost to the taxpayers has reportedly reached into the millions.

Seniors in my district already have concerns about the future of Social Security. The last thing that they want to see is their government using scarce taxpayer dollars for this purpose. That is why I was proud to cosponsor Congressman Sam Johnson's No Social Security for Nazis Act, legislation to cut off benefits to anyone stripped of their U.S. citizenship related to their participation in Nazi crimes.

No act of Congress could ever make right the atrocities of the Holocaust or bring justice to its 6 million victims. But ending the flow of the payments to those human rights violators would sure be a step in the right direction.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his good work on this issue and this bipartisan measure and look forward to voting in support.