Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of the comments of the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn). It is too bad more Members are not here, but I think it is proper for the Democrat Members of this Chamber to demand an apology of their Democrat leader, rather than the endorsement the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) has given him when he dismissed the Republican Party as a bunch of white Christians.

I am not worried as a Republican. I am offended as a white Christian. I know that the season is always open for people like Mr. Dean who loves divisive politics. It is always open season on Christian and on white folks because they are the group you can kick and you can get away with it. It is politically correct.

But I am sick and tired of it, and I would call on my Democrat colleagues to ask the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) to rethink her assessment of Mr. Dean when she says he is doing a good job representing their party. And I would also call on my Democrat friends to ask Mr. Dean to apologize, maybe not to the Christians of the world, because, obviously, he does not care about them, but maybe to any of the other groups that he seems to constantly offend as each week goes by while he is chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the proceedings had during the recess be printed in the Congressional Record and that all Members and former Members who spoke during the recess have the privilege of revising and extending their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, the United States Senate leadership wants to have an up or down vote on Supreme Court nominees. Why? Because that is what the Senate should be doing: voting yes, voting no.

We have heard that the President is promoting extreme fringe members of the judiciary for appointments on his court. That being the case, why do the Democrats not have the guts to just go ahead and debate it in public, instead of hiding behind the cloak of committee? It is incumbent protection. Let us bring the votes to the floor.

I want to introduce to my colleagues one of these nominees, Justice Janice Rogers Brown. She was elected with 76 percent of the State-wide vote in California, hardly an extremist if one gets 76 percent of the vote in California. She was born the daughter of a sharecropper in Alabama in 1948 and grew up under Jim Crow laws in the South. She is a self-made woman. She is a fighter. She is a mainstreamer. She deserves an up or down vote.

That is all the Senate majority leader is asking for, asking these very cowardly Democrats to say you know what, if you believe that somebody elected with 76 percent of the vote in California is an extremist, have the guts to put it on the board and vote yes and vote no, but let us see where you stand.

Mr. Speaker, SGT Adam Plumondore of Gresham, Oregon, was killed

in action on 16 February 2005, and SPC Clinton Gertson of Houston Texas, was killed in action on 19 February 2005. Both men were snipers assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Ft. Lewis, Washington. Lieutenant Colonel Michael E. Kurilla commands the 1-24 Infantry Regiment and he shares his comments made at the memorial service for these Great Americans.

GEN Bergner, COL Brown, SGTs Major, friends of Deuce Four,

and most importantly the men of Deuce Four. Thank you for

coming today to honor two of the finest warriors that I have

had the privilege and honor to serve beside.

GEN William T. Sherman stated that War is Hell. My friends,

he was right. It affects all those in its all consuming

grasp. It affects us physically, mentally, emotionally, and

spiritually--it does not differentiate between civilian or

soldier. No one wishes for war--to do so is sheer madness.

GEN MacArthur said it best--The soldier above all others

prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and

bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

To the men of Deuce Four, we now honor our 7th warrior to

die defending the freedom of a people we neither know nor

completely understand. But such action is truly the nobility

of our profession. We sacrifice all for a people that do not

fully understand the extent of our sacrifice. A people that

had never tasted the sweet waters of freedom until 30 Jan of

this year. And it is because of your valiant actions, the

valiant actions of heroes like SGT Adam Plumondore and SPC

Clint Gertson.

I would like to tell you about what kind of men they were

as I remembered them--for these were extraordinary men that

accomplished extraordinary things.

Clint Gertson was the first man I met from Deuce Four three

weeks before I took command of the Battalion. I was visiting

Deuce Four in Feb 2004 conducting live fires at Yakima

Training Center. I approached the support by fire position

and this 6'4'' square jawed PFC stood up and greeted me with

that big Texas smile and asked me if I wanted a clinic on how

to shoot; he subsequently proceeded to hit a man sized target

at 500m. I immediately knew that I would love this battalion

and that if the rest of the soldiers were half as impressive

as he was, I would have the best battalion in the Army.

Gerty became a main stay of motivation for me. If one ever

needed to know why it is a privilege and honor to command the

sons and daughters of America they only needed to meet Clint

Gertson.

I remember 11 Nov like it was yesterday. What started as a

raid to kill or capture an HVT turned into a 6 hour firefight

with 60 insurgents, leaving 25 confirmed enemy dead and

estimates of up to 40 killed. This was only because of men

like Clint Gertson. We were taking significant small arms,

RPG and mortar fire when we moved to the top of a building to

get better fields of fire. As we arrived at the top of the

building, I heard the distinctive bark of the .50 Cal sniper

rifle from the corner and looked over to see Gerty in all his

glory. Gerty and the sniper crew were killing RPG gunners as

they moved between buildings in an attempt to reposition on

Apache company. At one point he turned around and gave that

big Texas smile and turned back to administering death to the

enemy.

I also remember one month later when Gerty missed a shot on

an enemy mortar team only 300m from his hide site (I think it

was closer to 250m)--I teased him that he needed more range

time but he quickly reminded me that at least it scared the

shit out of the enemy to drop the mortar tube and we did

capture it. Good point Gerty. Clint Gertson was the kind of

man that made you proud to say that you served with him.

SGT Adam Plumondore was also such a man. An extraordinary

leader that did extraordinary things. I had the privilege to

observe the actions of SGT Plumondore on a daily basis--and

stand back in awe and wonder.

Plum was a walking uniform violation--but strangely, that

is one of the things I loved about this man. I do not think a

day would go by where I did not tell him to roll down his

sleeves, buckle his chin strap, or trim up his Delta Force

mustache. Sure enough, he would make the correction and in

the thick of a fire fight there would be Plum with sleeves

up, chin strap unbuckled, a big smile on his face and a

weapon that never missed--unless he was firing 40mm from his

M203 which he often reminded me was an area weapon.

I remember 3 Dec like it was yesterday. Sixty to seventy

enemy had set up a 2km ambush along Route Tampa and the Recon

platoon and TAC found itself running a 2km gauntlet of 15

IEDs, over 30 RPGs, hand grenades and significant machinegun

and AK47 fire. Six soldiers were wounded including SPC Moore

who was blown from the hatch of his Stryker that was now

running on 8 flat tires--without missing a beat SGT

Plumondore immediately jumped up and manned the MK19 and

suppressed and killed enemy positions allowing the platoon to

get casualties to the CSH and then launch a Battalion counter

attack that killed 22 enemy.

I remember 11 Dec like it was yesterday. As we were

beginning to exfil from destroying a weapons cache a suicide

car bomb slammed into the side of Hunter 1. The entire

vehicle was in flames, 6 soldiers were wounded. The enemy

then engaged with mortars, RPGs, and machinegun fire from 3

directions. Without even thinking twice, SGT Plumondore

jumped from his vehicle with fire extinguishers in his hands

and his weapon slung on his back. Without hesitation he began

to put out the Stryker on fire and assist in the evacuation

of the wounded from the Stryker. The fire out, Plum then

turned his attention to the enemy and began to engage them

with precision fires. Because of his actions, Plum saved

soldiers lives and the Stryker did not burn to the ground--in

fact his determined face was back in the gunner's hatch of

his vehicle engaging an enemy RPG team that tried to ambush

the platoon during exfil--complete with sleeves rolled up to

the elbows.

How do you honor such heroes as Clint Gertson and Adam

Plumondore? You honor them by telling the stories of their

friendship, camaraderie, and fierce bravery. You honor them

by continuing to fight to protect the man on your left and

right who would lay down his life so that others might live.

You honor them by continuing in this noble endeavor providing

freedom to a people we do not know or understand the

sacrifices that are made--but that is what makes America the

greatest nation on earth.

We will miss them both terribly, but I know that our Deuce

Four snipers, Gerty and Plum, are looking down from Heaven

continuing to look out for us--that voice you hear in your

head is Gerty calling the winds, Plum ensuring you have the

correct distance, and both always reminding you to always

look for the positive in life.

On this day, we ask almighty God to grant us patience and

steadfast resolve in all that is to come. May God Bless Deuce

Four, 1st Brigade, and may God Bless America.

If the gentleman will yield, I think it is important to think in terms of Social Security, there are two problems. One is of generational fairness, which we can talk about a little bit later. The other one is solvency, which you have been discussing. We have dealt with the solvency issue by cutting benefits and raising taxes many times over the years. In fact, since 1937 we have raised the taxes on Social Security 20 different times. That is the amount of your money that is taken out of your paycheck by the Federal Government, that FICA tax that all these 23-year-olds getting out of college have their first job and they discover somebody named FICA is sharing in their efforts, their sweat equity.

But that started out, as the gentleman knows, 1 percent and 1 percent in 1937; employer 1 percent, employee 1 percent. In 1960, it was 3 percent, 3 percent. In 1978, 5 percent, 5 percent. Today, it is over 6 percent. We have done that 20 different times.

We have also cut benefits. In 1983, we actually raised the retirement age from 65 to 67. That is a benefit cut because, over one's lifetime in receiving benefits, if they have to wait 2 more years, that is a reduction of their benefit.

So we have done that traditional solution, short-term political fix, which gets most politicians through their next term. And I am glad to hear the gentleman say that we have got to look for a different way to work on the solvency issue.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say that the plans the gentleman from North Carolina is talking about are similar to mutual funds, which they, up here, are selling. But I wanted to mention this generational fairness issue because I think that is part of the kitchen table discussion, and I always say Social Security needs a kitchen table solution because, if we are talking with other seniors, we are not moving the ball down the road. If we are talking to college students, we are not moving the ball down the road. We have got to have Mom and Dad, grandparents and grandchildren at the kitchen table and say, What is fair? And this is why it is important: If one retired in 1980, they got all their benefits back. Every nickel that they paid into the system, they got it all back within 3 years. If one retired in 2003, it will take them 17 years.

And if the gentleman does not mind my getting personal, as I recall, his magic retirement age is 2041.

Mr. Speaker, that is the year we cut benefits 27 percent unless we do something to protect and preserve the system. So for somebody like the gentleman who retires in 2041, it is going to take them probably 30 years. I do not know the mathematics. He may have figured it out, if he knows. But I know it will take him about 20 to 25 years at minimum to get all of his investment into it, and that means he can actually have a negative return; whereas there are a lot of people who have gotten a decent return out of Social Security, 5, 10 percent. But today, it is a 1 percent return, getting worse, and that is why there is a generational fairness.

My experience has been, when we talk to seniors and seniors who might even say, let us just raise taxes like we have in the past, we say, yes, but that does not solve the problem of the gentleman from North Carolina's (Mr. McHenry) friends. We are not worried about the gentleman from North Carolina, but we are going to worry about his friends. And the truth of the matter is when seniors say, Well, wait a second, you mean to tell me I have already gotten all my money back, but my kids will probably never get their money back? We say yes. Then we get into a real generational fairness. And that is why it is so important to have everybody at the kitchen table when we work on it.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to mention, if I can, that we met with the AARP, American Association for Retired People, the largest retirement group in America, and did it on a bipartisan basis. And the gentleman mentioned that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway) pulled that group together. One of the things I was glad to hear AARP say is, We admit there is a problem; there is a problem with Social Security. I can tell my colleagues, in Washington, that is a huge first step because, months ago, we were hearing, No, there is no problem, that the President is exaggerating. So let us say we have got a little bipartisan glimmer of hope here that there is a problem.

The next question might be then should we address it now or wait and punt for future Congresses and elections. AARP was a little more, Hey, it is probably right to discuss it now and try to get something done. The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery) of the Committee on Ways and Means is going to start having hearings on it. In fact, I think he will this week, if I am not mistaken. Lots of hearings are good. Lots of thought, because, personally speaking, and I think I speak for my two colleagues, we do want Democrats at the table. We want this idea to say, Go into the meeting, but do not say these are my lines in the sand. Let us go into the meetings open minded.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I wanted to say I think there are some real opportunities here to address a number of the issues. The gentlewoman has mentioned the diversion of some of the Social Security surplus fund. Our Democrat colleague, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), has a bill I am interested in, and that bill has to do with a constitutional amendment that says any proceeds in the Social Security trust fund have to actually be taken completely off budget.

It does not really say where it could be held, because the problem is if the Federal Government has all that surplus, where do they put it? Do they invest it, do they buy gold with it, do they bury it in the ground, do they put it in a vault somewhere? You hate to think of billions and billions of dollars not earning interest. But I think the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) has an interesting bill. I am looking at it.

I also tried to figure out how do you do the lockbox. We have worked to try to get some sort of lockbox passed in the House in the past, and I am not sure we should reopen it. I have had some discussions about it, and it always boils down to, okay, you have a lockbox. What do you do with the money? I am a believer that if you almost did nothing with it, you would be better off than what we are doing now.

But I think that part of the Social Security solution is we should have a real discussion on what do you do with the temporary surplus. I say ``temporary surplus,'' because it will start to be gone in the year 2018, rapidly diminishing going to 2041.

But I think all these things, if we can get some bipartisan discussions going, I believe we will find some things we agree with the other party about.

The gentlewoman from Kentucky knows that when we sat down with the AARP and they showed us their set of core principles and we showed them our core principles, there was a lot of overlap. It was not perfect, ,but there was plenty to stay in the room and keep talking about.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman would yield, I am glad the gentlewoman brought that up, because one of the things that is interesting, and I have traveled in some of the Eastern Bloc countries, and one thing that really amazes me when you talk to countries like Bulgaria or Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, these countries that only 10 to 15 years ago were freed from Soviet oppression and they are now out experimenting with democracy and the rule of law, one of the things they realize is if you have absolute security for everybody in terms of government-sustained programs, then you do not have any work base and your economy does not move forward. You have done a lot of things at the cost of opportunity.

I think France is a miserable country in terms of an economic role model. I see a lot of these other countries that are really growing and making some huge changes and taking some bold steps.

I think one of the things we have to do is realize that decisions of 1937, do you want to still be driving a car and relying on communications or medical systems from 1937? Yet when it comes to social programs, we think a 1937 social model is the best thing in the world, the best we can do.

That is what bothers me. Because we are Americans. We should not fear. We should be able to be world leaders and not have to point to other countries and say, well, you know, look, this is what we want to do. We need to be braver and stronger and not become a nanny state.

If the gentlewoman will yield, I again want to say that we often get bogged down in the politics of the moment, the politics of the next election, the politics of the current 5 years or whatever; and we should be thinking in terms of the next generation rather than the next election.

But the other thing that I keep coming back to is because there are two issues, a solvency issue and a generational fairness issue, what my job assignment, my homework assignment is, when I have a town meeting I say to everybody, what I really want to ask you, sit down at the kitchen table with the parents, with the grandkids and the grandparents, and figure it out. Just see if you can find that balance.

I had one guy in a town meeting say, This is all about greed. All you have to do is increase the taxes 1 percent. He was 70 years old. He would not be paying taxes. The guy behind him was 30 years old and said, Sir, respectfully, I have to tell you that is not acceptable for me, because I am going to be the one paying.

Similarly, a lot of people think the golden arrow here is taking the cap off it. But if you take the cap off it, people get more benefits.

One thing to keep in mind, anytime you make it more expensive to hire an employee, then our folks are going to be going offshore with the jobs. We are already losing too many jobs offshore. Furthermore, there will be a lot of illegal aliens in America not paying into the system. I think part of Social Security should be tied into illegal immigration. It is actually not immigration if it is illegal; you are here as an illegal alien.

All of this stuff, we should get the best ideas of the Democrats and Republicans, throw them on the table, get the folks back home to say this is the direction we want, and that is what we are trying to accomplish here.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to have been a part of this resolution as we recognize the 60th anniversary of the victory in Europe and, really, the liberation of Western Bohemia as it signaled the end of the war in Europe and the defeat of the Third Reich.

On May 4, 1945, General George Patton gave the order for the American Third Army, consisting of 18 divisions and 500,000 men, to resume the allied offensive in Western Bohemia. The following day, Patton's Third Army liberated the city of Pilsen in the westernmost section of then Czechoslovakia. As the Americans entered Pilsen, flowers were strewn in their path and into vehicles for the troops. Young girls and old men and women ran out to kiss the soldiers. People who had been oppressed for all of the Nazi occupation and people who had had an underground resistance came out to welcome these soldiers.

Even today, thousands of American veterans of the liberation of Western Bohemia will travel to Pilsen to honor their fallen comrades.

The people of the Czech Republic symbolize their friendship and gratitude toward the American soldiers who fought to secure their freedom, having graciously hosted thousands and countless veteran groups over the many years.

Between April 25 and May 9, 2005, some 50 communities across the western part of the Czech Republic will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of their liberation by the United States, Czech and Belgium soldiers under the command of General Patton.

The citizens of Pilsen will dedicate a statue of General Patton to be unveiled on the town square on the 60th anniversary of the liberation, commemorating the liberation. One footnote that is very significant for all of us, though, is that while America liberated Pilsen and the Czech Republic in 1945, in 1948, the Iron Curtain fell upon it.

And at that point, the historians and the photographers and the people who knew that America had played such a major role in their liberation, those people were sometimes arrested, often intimidated, and even the photographs of the liberation were destroyed. So for 3 years, the people of Czech Republic in Pilsen enjoyed the fresh air of liberation and freedom; and then from 1945 to 1948, that ended with the Iron Curtain.

And the Soviet Government came in and wiped out all traces of the American liberation, even to the extent of tearing down statues and changing the history books. And yet through the dark period, the many years and decades that followed, the people of the Czech Republic still remembered that day.

Maybe it was not in their textbooks, maybe they did not have access to the photographs anymore, and maybe the stories were held down to whispers; yet they still remember what happened. The Czech people, and Czechoslovakia, have had a great role in the development of the United States of America.

Czech immigrants are all over our country. Our country is better because of the Czech influence that we have. And because we were so significant in their liberation in 1945, they never let the Soviet Union wipe out the memory of our contribution to their country either.

I am proud to be going there on Thursday with a bipartisan delegation to present this resolution. And I am proud that Congress and this subcommittee is passing this bill, because it makes a very significant statement on what we feel and how we feel, what we feel about what happened in 1945, in 1948, and in 1989, and today as we celebrate this important anniversary with our Czech brothers and sisters.

Mr. Speaker, several years ago, I went to a ribbon- cutting on a new road and the road had taken many, many years to build, yet all the politicians who participated in the ribbon-cutting were newly-elected. But in

great political fashion, we all stood up there and took the bows for it. That is the rules of the game.

Another part about that is you do not see the staff up there cutting the ribbon, taking the bows, getting the applause. Kathryn Lehman is one of those staff members who has not been in the forefront of the limelight and yet, should. She has worked for every significant Republican leader in this House of Representatives for the last 10 years or more. Every critical decision of this House, every major piece of legislation was worked on on a team in which she was a staff member, anything from the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Henry Hyde) to the Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, and, most recently, our conference Chair, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce). The legislation that we moved all had the invisible fingerprint of Kathryn Lehman.

I, as vice chairman of the Republican Conference, have had a chance to work with her. I can tell my colleagues she is intelligent, she is well versed, she is in the background, and she is a pro. One thing I will say, though, that is also significant about her, she works hard and, at times, when she has that rare opportunity to play and relax, she plays hard. I remember one occasion with her, getting the chance to see her shoot skeet. We were with some people who were pretty hotshot skeet shooters, and I looked over there and she was shooting a 28 gauge, which means you have to shoot a clay pigeon practically with a BB gun. It is impossible to do. I think out of 25 she hit 24 of them, and maybe I bumped her on that 25th.

But she is kind of a true renaissance person of today, somebody who knows how to enjoy life, get out and relax and mix and mingle with different types of people; yet, when it comes time to work, she is a hard-core, very straightforward professional.

We will miss her, Democrats and Republicans alike. She has been an institutionalist, somebody who has made this place better because of her presence.

Kathryn, we wish you the best. Have fun over across the street or whatever street you are going to be on.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway) and I would like to make a few remarks on Social Security. Before doing so I wanted to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), the doctor, I should say, for the good work he is doing on health care reform, making health care more affordable and accessible to the American people and working through the private sector rather than going through a Canadian or English style of government-sponsored health care. We do have a great health care system but also one that needs improvement.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Members of Congress who are working on immigration reform. We have 8 million illegal aliens in the United States of America. That is about the size of the State of Georgia which is about 8 million people. A big issue.

I am very pleased that the gentleman from Wisconsin's (Mr. Sensenbrenner) language will be in the supplemental appropriations bill which we will vote on on Thursday. It is a major victory for those of us who are pushing for immigration reform.

Mr. Speaker, I will speak on Social Security reform as well. The last time Social Security was taken up by this Congress was in 1983. At that time, the Members of Congress thought that they had fixed Social Security for another 75 years, but unfortunately that is not the case.

In less than a decade, Social Security will begin to spend out more money than it brings in. Insolvency is not the only issue, although it is a major one. We know that in the year 2018, when the baby boomers start to retire, more money will go out than is coming in. And we know by 2041, if we do not cut benefits by 27 percent, Social Security will be bankrupt. The math is simple to follow.

In 1937, when Social Security was started, we had 60 workers for every one retiree. And by 1950, it was 16 workers to every retiree, and today it is 3.3 to 1. And during that period-of-time life span, life expectancy has increased. In 1937 folks lived to be 59 year old. Today they live to be 77 years old. The math is even easy for a Democrat to follow, Mr. Speaker. You can see why we are having solvency problems.

There is also an issue of generational fairness. As my friends know, if you retired in the year 1980, you got all your money out of Social Security in 12.8 years. But if you retire in 2003, it will take you 17 years to get your money out. Most Americans do not mind. They do not need to have every dime accounted for, every penny accounted for, but generally people expect to get at least the money they put into the system out of it. But that is not going to be the case for today's 20- and 30-year-olds who, in addition to having to live longer, past the retirement to get their money back, they are also going to have this great benefit cut. So we have a great challenge. And to the Republican party, the choice is simple.

We need to do it together. We need Democrats and Republicans to come to the House Chamber with the best of their ideas, put them on the table and let us cobble out something that does not focus on the next election, but on the next generation. Something that is fair at the kitchen table where mom and dad and the kids and the grandparents can sit down and agree on it. Because if we can get the agreement square on the kitchen table, it will not be any problem to get it passed in the House Chamber.

Last week under the gentleman from Texas' (Mr. Conaway) leadership a number of House Republicans and Democrats sat down together with Bill Novelli, the chairman and CEO of the AARP which is the largest older Americans advocacy group in the United States of America. We sat down, Democrats and Republicans, together with the AARP, to talk about core principles, talk about what could be a solution and what could not. And we knew at the time we were not going to walk out of the room with hands held and all kinds of bipartisan unity. We knew that this was just the first step.

I have got to say that I have a lot of appreciation for those Members who showed up from the Democrat side. But unfortunately, the Democrat leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) decided that this meeting for some reason was off limits, for some reason it is a bad thing for Democrats to sit down with Republicans. And yet publicly she calls for bipartisanship, but here in the House Chamber when the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway) tried to get this meeting together, of the five original Members only two actually came. The other three were intimidated by Democrat leadership. Do not come because we can talk publicly about bipartisanship but behind lines, behind the scene we really do not want this.

It is further revealed this week, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democrat leader was on the ABC ``This Week'' show with George Stephanopoulus, actually one of her fellow Democrats, a former Clinton advisor. And yet in this role he was

being an interviewer, and he asked the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) why the Democrats have not put forth their plan. And he asked her a number of times and she would not say. And finally he got so tired of it he said, Why should the American people trust the Democrats if they do not have a specific plan of their own on Social Security? To which the Democrat leader said, ``The American people should trust the Democrats because we originated Social Security.''

I guess the Democrats have gone from the Franklin Roosevelt New Deal to the Pelosi No Deal. Because if we need to go back to 1937 to be the last time we could trust a Democrat, then maybe Ronald Reagan was right. The party left him, he did not leave the party. And I guess that is true with many of us. Because I know in the great State of Texas and in the State of Georgia, they were majority Democrat States until recent years, when the Democrat party refused to come to the table with mainstream ideas and to put politics aside and say, let us sit down and come up with some solutions.

I strongly believe that there are a lot of good Democrats across this country. There are a lot of good Democrats in this House Chamber. I am sad to see so many following lockstep with the radical fringe leadership of their party.

I am sad to see that they are intimidated to the extent they do not even offer a plan. But I would also call on them and their Democrat constituents back home to say, you know what, I am 23 years old; and I know I am faced with a benefit cut; and I know the President has offered me an opportunity to voluntarily enroll in a personal savings account in which I will have a lot more money than I will if I pay 40 years into Social Security. I am interested. At 23 years old I have got a lot at stake.

And I might say, I do not know if I like what the President has offered, and I am hearing a lot of bad things about it from the Democrats, but what is it that they are offering to me as a 23-year-old new worker into this system?

And I look and I search the papers and I turn the pages and I look at the bloggers and I look on the Internet and I check my emails, and I find out the only things the Democrats are offering is that there is no problem with Social Security. Tell that to the 23-year-old new worker because they are not buying it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for pointing it out. But again, I want to emphasize, we have a lot of solutions that Members of Congress are promoting. And they are doing this on their own. They have not officially trolling out in the name of the Republican public. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) being one, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson) being one, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw). They are coming up with solutions.

But to my knowledge, there is not one Democrat who has offered a Social Security plan since I have been a Member of Congress over 10 years, except for Mr. Charlie Stenholm, who is now on the President's bipartisan commission to save Social Security, and Patrick Moynihan, who many years ago as a liberal Democrat from New York, a Senator, said that we have got to act to protect and preserve Social Security because it is going bankrupt.

It is time to do something. Even President Clinton said that. And yet the current membership of the Democrat Senate and House are afraid to offer one plan. And doggone it, if you want to raise taxes, and that is one thing the Democrats are good at, put the plan on the table. It is okay. Let us look at it. A bad plan is better than no plan.

But if you want to be the party that used to proudly say we are the party of the new deal, to now be the party shamelessly of the no deal, then continue on the current leadership path because that is what we are getting from the Democrats.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I think is so important of the Republican model of sitting down at the kitchen table with you as a grandparent, with your children and with your grandchildren to work out something that is fair. That is the approach we need across America. That is the approach that we need in the United States Congress.

But the thing that is important to remember as we look at this, in 1937, the tax on Social Security was 1 percent employer, one percent employee. A 1 percent 1 percent match. In 1960 it was 3 percent and 3 percent. In 1978, 5 percent and 5 percent. Today it is 6.2 and 6.2 percent. We have raised the taxes on Social Security twenty different times since 1937.

Now, there are those on the other side, there is no bill, but they do talk a little bit around the edges, well, they just need to increase taxes.

If you increase taxes 1 percent for you, and you are under 65, I do not know how old the gentleman is. The gentleman is in great shape. I do not know the gentleman had six grandchildren. Let us say he is 45 years old. Let us say he is 50 years old. That means his taxes might go from 6.2 to 7.2 percent. One percent. But think about a 23-year-old entering the workplace, how much that 1 percent means year after year in paying into it.

Okay. Let us just say that is tough, that might just be the way some people think they do not have any sympathy, but one of the things that we have to understand is that if you are an employer and you have 1,000 employees, every time it gets more expensive to

hire an employee, you are going to look for ways to reduce your workforce.

So, if we decide, well, this is the only way out of here is to increase taxes on the workers, which is matched by the employer, then it is going to be a job killer. I do not know how many jobs would be reduced, but we do know from standard economics that the more expensive it gets to hire somebody, the least likely an employer is to hire somebody. They are going to look for ways to reduce the workforce, not to increase it.

One of the things this Republican party has worked very hard on is creating more jobs, and so it is counterintuitive to us to increase taxes on employers and employees.

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to that point, though, because I do think it is something on a bipartisan basis we could probably come up with something.

I have been working on a lock box bill which was originally the idea of the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), a Republican Congressman, and we passed it off the floor of this House, but what a lock box really would do is take that Social Security surplus and keep Congress from spending it. The reason why it is spent now is because the surplus goes out, buys Treasury bills, pays about 4.1 percent on the average right now to the Social Security trust fund, but the revenues that come in from it, do go into general revenue, and then Congress does spend it on veterans and education and health care and so forth.

But I think it is a concept we could work on together on a bipartisan basis to come up with a lock box to discontinue that bipartisan practice which has been the practice for decades and decades.

Yet, to date, I do not have any Democrats who want to work with me on this bill, and again, I am asking the Democrats, just come down here and let us talk, let us engage. That is what they are paid to do, come up with ideas. It is not good enough to come in here and vote in and have a little whining press conference and saying we do not like this or that.

If you look at the Democratic agenda for the year, they have established two major issues. One is we do not want to do anything on Social Security, period. They have gone from New Deal to the no deal, and this is their position; they are not going to offer, they are not going to help on Social Security.

Their second issue was we hate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay). It is not we want to punish somebody who may have an ethics issue. It is, we hate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay). It is the politics of hatred and personal attack, and beyond that, you say to yourself, okay, all right, let us move on.

Transportation: Republicans, here; Democrats, silence in the chamber.

We go on to energy. Republicans, here; Democrats, silence in the chamber.

We go to health care, and the gentleman is chairman of the Health Care Task Force. Health care: Republicans, here; Democrats, nothing.

It goes on down the line, with Iraq and terrorism and issue after issue. Tort reform. None of the leadership have voted for civil liability reform. They have not cosponsored it. On bankruptcy reform, they have not been there. Class action reform, they have not been there. Two things on their agenda and they are both negative noes.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a couple of points. Number one on the compounded interest, at one of my 16 Social Security town meetings, a woman from Douglas, Georgia, came up to me and said, as I got a little older, in 1989 I started saving $200 a month. Compounded daily, that money is now worth $320,000. That is the miracle that Einstein was talking about.

I also wanted to bring out one point here. We focus so much on solvency, but there is also a generational fairness issue, and that is best shown if we think about somebody retiring in 1980, they got all of their money out of Social Security in 2.8 years. If you retire in 2003, it will take you 17 years to get your money back. If you retire in 2020, it is worse than that, it is more like 21 years. One of the things that we have is a solvency challenge, and we also have a generational fairness challenge.

Finally, I want to make the point that we are Republicans. We are the majority. It is going to be a little more difficult because we have to govern and come up with ideas. And it is easier if you are in the minority party to just sit back and criticize and live out there and tell people there is no problem with Social Security. The reality is we need and we want Democratic ideas. I think Social Security should be bipartisan and it should transcend the next election, and you should get the best ideas of the Democrats and of the Republicans, and move forward with the best.

I was disappointed to learn that the meeting which some of us are going to be participating in tomorrow, the bipartisan meeting, now the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) has said to her Members that they cannot go to it.

And I think of the bipartisan meeting that we are going to have with the AARP, an equal number of Democrats, equal number of Republicans, that we now only have two Democrats who are going to go even though others said, yes, we will go, this time works for us.

So I am hoping that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) and the Democrats will back off their extreme obstructionist position and allow Members to sit down and negotiate with the other party and try to come up with ideas, because that kind of partisanship, that kind of silliness, that kind of bitterness is not going to help our seniors and our future generations.

So I am looking forward to this meeting. I know the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup) is going. I do not know if all of my colleagues here are going or not, but we would like to have everybody in attendance there.

Mr. Speaker, we need to ask ourselves every now and then in a moment of truth on a bipartisan basis what this House is doing. Ethics rules should be there to prosecute somebody who has broken them. The same rules should be there to protect somebody who is innocent.

The Democrat members on the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct do not want to meet. They do not want to give the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) due process. They do not want to give him an up- or-down vote. They are very content to discuss it with their allies at The Washington Post or the New York Times. They do not want to talk about how many educational trips they have been on with their families, although there is a list. They do not want to talk about how

many of their family members work in their campaigns and are reimbursed and on their campaign payroll, but there is a list.

Is this what the Democrats really want? I think that the Democrats would be serving this House well if they would say to their ethics committee members, we want you to meet. We want due process for Tom DeLay or any other Member who may have a question about things.

Right now we cannot address that because they will not come to the meetings. I ask my Democrat colleagues to do the right thing, let us move on with the ethics process and take the politics out of this, because there are a lot of questions on both sides of the aisle right now, and the House is being underserved by this committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I am a cosponsors of the Weldon legislation. I respect his opinion as a Floridian and as a doctor, but I am also a cosponsor of the Sensenbrenner legislation, as I respect his lead and opinion as a jurist, a lawyer, and as someone who knows the 14th amendment. And I do believe there is a question about the 14th amendment, due process, being followed or not.

Here is what we do know. Terri is not a PVS, someone in a permanent vegetative state. Florida has a legal definition of this and it states that one has to be permanent or irreversibly unconscious, with no voluntary or cognitive behavior of any kind, and without ability to communicate. Terri is able to laugh, she is able to cry, and she, apparently, can hear. She responds to stimuli, such as voices, touch, and people.

Six neurologists and eight medical professionals have testified that she is not PVS, even though her husband has discontinued valuable therapy now for nearly 10 years. Terri is not terminally ill. She is not in the process of dying. She is not on a respirator, she is not on dialysis, she is not on a pacemaker or any other 24-hour medical equipment. She is not in a coma. And although parts of her brain are permanently damaged, she is not brain dead.

Removing the feeding tube simply kills her by starvation and dehydration. Terri did not have a living will. Even though her husband has now stated that she would have wanted to die, he withheld this information for 9 years and never came forth with it until the State law in Florida said they would now allow hearsay evidence for living wills. But up until then, there was nothing from her husband.

After the heart attack and chemical reaction in 1990, she was taking therapy. And, in fact, she was able to speak and communicate to some degree until 1993, when he discontinued the therapy. Mr. Speaker, if there is a split decision, we should go with the 14th amendment and the desire of the parents.

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up the comments of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), because it is one thing for the Democrat Party and the liberal groups in Washington, D.C., the very, very special interest groups, to say we are against whatever the President wants to do. We understand that. But it is another thing when they do not offer their own plan.

What I would ask the Democrat Party is to put your plan on the table, because most people agree with the facts, and the facts are that Social Security is running out of money.

Most people understand life expectancy has changed since Social Security started in 1937 when folks lived to be 59 years old. Today, they live to be 77 years old.

Most people understand that in 1937 when Social Security started there was 60 workers for every one retiree, and today it is three to one.

Most people understand the changing demographics that caused it so that if you retired in 1980 it took you 2.8 years to get all of your money back that you put into the Social Security Trust Fund, and yet if you retired in 2003 it will take you 17 years to get your money back.

Most people understand that there is a generation-to-generation issue that needs to be addressed.

What I would ask the Democrat Party is just put your plan on the table. Let us take a look at it. Let us take the best of the Democrat ideas, combine them with the best of the Republican ideas for what is best to protect and preserve Social Security for the next generation.

Mr. Speaker, well, the month of January went by and nothing happened. The month of February went by and nothing happened. Here we are, it is March, as a matter of fact, it is March 3rd. It looks like nothing is going to happen from the Democrat side to address Social Security.

One more day has gone, one more day of rhetoric and denouncing what the President is going to do and denouncing what the Republicans are doing and scaring senior citizens. But, still, no plan from the Democrat party to save and protect Social Security.

Now, it is interesting, up until last week they were saying there is no problem, we like it how it is. And yet in a major policy shift for the Democrat party, the Democrat Committee Chairman, Howard Dean, also known as ``Screaming Dean,'' pointed out in a quote at Cornell University, which, as you know, is not exactly a sanctuary for conservative thought in America, Dean pointed out that if Social Security were left alone for 30 years, its benefits would be reduced to 80 percent of what it is now. He acknowledged there were problems.

Thank goodness, hallelujah, we have a Democrat who admits there is a Social Security problem. That means maybe the month of March will not go by. Maybe by the end of March the Democrats will join us and come up with a plan. We welcome their ideas. We solicit their ideas. We want their support.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and want to say to my good friend from Florida that I have always enjoyed working with my distinguished colleague from the south tip of the peninsula of Florida, the great State. But I want to say, even though we are the majority, we still want your ideas. We want the Democrat party to put a plan on the table.

On the subject of town meetings, I personally held nine town meetings. There is a lot of division out there as to what we should do, and that is why it should be done in a bipartisan way, and that is why I think everybody needs to come together.

And Mr. Speaker, I want to say this: I have not introduced the plan. If the gentleman would like to work with me on a plan, I would love to have the Hastings-Kingston bill, or the Kingston-Hastings bill, if we could do that, because I think it is important.

I know the gentleman's fondness for seniors. I have heard the gentleman speak fondly about his mom, and he has heard me speak fondly about my mom, and we owe it to both of them, and that is what we should be doing.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, I am ready to work with the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, last week the Democrats booed when the President laid out his plan for Social Security. I promise one thing: I will not boo when and if they lay out their plan.

I welcome the Democrats' ideas on Social Security. I think it is very important to make a bipartisan reform. We need to protect and preserve Social Security not just for the next election, but for the next generation. I beg my Democrat colleagues to put a plan on the table. We will not boo. We will look at it and take the best of your ideas and combine them with the best ideas of the Senate, the House and the White House.

We all seem to agree, in the year 2018, more money will be going out of the trust fund than is going in. We all agree in the year 2042, if we do not whack benefits 27 percent, the program will be going bankrupt. We all agree that in the 1950s, there were 16 workers for every one retiree, and today there are 3.3 workers for every retiree. And we all know this because the Democrats participate in the Federal Employee Thrift Savings accounts, which allow them to choose interest- earning accounts similar to the personal accounts the President has proposed.

Madam Speaker, I again ask the Democrats, Please put your ideas on the table; we will not boo.