Posted on 02/03/2005 6:06:36 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
I think Harry Reid may soon be joining Tom Daschle on the has beens list.
We ahve to remember our COngress Critters who have brought this all about. I think we need to remove these Professional Eletist from Congress and go back to our beginnigs and put in the Common Man and Women in the Congress. They were goos in the beginning and would probably be even better now. At least they would have "COMMON" Sense!
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Representative Sanford. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Representative Charles Rangel from New York.
(applause)
REPRESENTATIVE RANGEL: Thank you. Mr. Vice President, my distinguished partners in the Congress, this great audience that we have on this exciting moment, this morning in Rhode Island. Mo Udall, a former member of the Congress had to wrap up a debate in the House of Representatives not too long ago, and because people had argued all day and all night, he said that everything that had to be said about the subject matter had already been said. And we paused with great relief until he concluded, "but not everybody has said it."
Well, on the question of Social Security, you bet your life not everybody has said it.
(applause)
It's a very sensitive subject, and we are here because it is an emotional subject that Americans have to understand, and Americans have to be heard as to what they got, and what they are willing to risk to get something else. You may not know how much you have invested in the Social Security system over your lives, but there is one thing that you do know-that every month, of every year, or everyone's lifetime-that you can depend, that you're going to get that Social Security check.
(applause)
And while it is true that the economy has so improved, that you may think that you're entitled to a better deal- and you may be right-you also have to remember that people in your family, your parents and your grandparents, they were promised that check and that check also was in the mail and they could depend on the fact that it was there for them.
If we're going to discuss this, what a better time to do it. When the President of the United States, and the Vice President, and the administration has given us this economic opportunity-and for us in politics, the political cover to fix the roof while the sun is shining.
(applause)
Which means what? It means that the back room of the Ways and Means Committee, or the rooms in the House and the Senate will not be making the decisions. You will be making decisions as this debate is heard throughout the United States, as the Concord Coalition and AARP provides this forum for you to better to understand the issues-but more importantly, to direct your members of Congress to do what you think is in the best interest of the program for the people of these United States. So what do we have to do? We have to make certain that those of us who drink from the well don't poison it for the generation that follows.
(applause)
We have to make certain that the dependency that those who retire today, or that check for a basic income where two-thirds of retired Americans depend on it-that we don't change that. We have to make certain that those that survive-the widows, the children, those that have been sick and disabled-that we don't change the rules of the game for them. And we also have to make certain for our younger people who are investing in the system, that they be assured that when the time comes for them to retire, or when the time comes for them to receive the benefits, that the United States government will be there for them, as has been for us and for our parents, and for our grandparents.
(applause)
Now, I'm in a unique position, because my district is one half of the borough of Manhattan. One-half of it is low-income, moderate-income, hardworking people-and the other half of it is the financial district of New York. Everybody in the upper half of my congressional district wished they could take advantage of the boom and this robust economy, but they never had the chance to have the money to take the risk, to take advantage of this great economy. Now that we are reviewing the system, there are some people who said that reliance and government bonds, and the boom of people that will be taking a benefit, will cause us now to reform the system.
And I think that this is what this debate is involved. Because nobody is prepared to embrace a system that is broken-until we make a commitment that we're going to fix it. Now comes the real question, the political question, the sensitive question: "How do we fix it?" I would suggest this, for those who would want to go to the private sector, to privatize, and to make certain that you have your own individual private savings account: God bless them, as long as they're able to say, that you're not going to lose one nickel of benefits as a result of you being involved in this.
(applause)
And if indeed, the way it used to be with people that used to sell Wall Street, they would say that, "this is not an offer, this is not an invitation for you to buy, we're not asking you to invest-if we were to do this, we would have an obligation to tell you what the risk is all about." And that's what this debate is, if you want to shoot craps understand that you could win-or you could lose.
(applause)
The greatest thing-the greatest thing in my district about this debate, because they all are really private-investment type people, is that they think that they're going to go into the market with someone else's money. And if that was possible, I would be with them too. But when they understand the money that's going to be invested will be taken away from your account-whether you know what it is or not-then the question is how do you pay for it. And I suggest to you, if it means that we're going to repair the system by increasing taxes-and especially the regressive payroll taxes-that's a rough option.
If it means that we're going to reduce the benefit for those people, when we know now that two-thirds of retired people rely on that, that would be a rough option.
If it means that we're going to the goal post back, and make it longer before you're entitled-being 68 years old I don't even understand that logic-if all of America is now saying, retire earlier. And if it means, of course, that I have to take some risk as to whether or not my check is going to be in the mail as I used to know it, I want to hear more about the privatization.
And so that is why these debates are so important, so that when the Congress makes a decision that you would know that it's not just going to be a prospectus that is given to you to take advantage of the robust economy. That when we fix the roof, we fix it together, and all of you know that we haven't taken anything away as we attempted to improve the system as we know it.
(applause)
ANNOUNCER: Thank you Representative Rangel. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in a hand of applause for the Vice President and our Congressional presenters.
Back in 1998 Rep Rangle was willing to admit that the system needed to be fixed.Now he does`nt
No, the really scary part is that 50 million of my so-called "fellow Americans" voted for that traitorous scum sKerry, almost elected him President of my country, by virtue of shear ignorance and/or leftist propaganda.
What scares me more is that they might actually accomplish their goal the next time.
Keep up the fight, people like you give us hope.
p.s.
If you want to get really depressed, read (or re-read) "Sins of the Father" by Ronald Kessler, the story of Joseph P. Kennedy (I got halfway through it last night and couldn't bring myself to go to work and face my liberal clients today).
It's not that I don't know that such depraved beings as the Kennedy clan exist, it's the thought that my neighboors are so ignorant as to blindly revere them AND keep re-electing them.
Drat! My blood is boiling just thinking about it.
I need to go for brisk walk in the freezing rain. And have a weeks ration of grog.
Isn't the title a bit redundant?
You really got a put a barf alert. I mean I almost barfed. These people are exponentially sicker than I thought which puts them pretty close to infinte sickness.
Hot lead through the brain pan......or is that too mean?
Grown? It started with LBJ.
I certainly agree with your premise, but I believe the liability to which you refer is $10 Trillion, not $10 Billion.
"Have these people never read Aristotle, John Locke, Montesquieu, Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln? Dictatorships are the most common government in history and are still a majority of the United Nations. But do these Democrats really think human beings prefer to live under dictatorships, rather than have elections and a free press?"
These people LOVE dictatorships...where have YOU been for the last 100 years? They don't read things about freedom because they think that people really DO love being held captive instead of living free. I think these people suffer from a brain disconnect at birth and cannot see good, but adore evil. They seem to love the real-life macabre.
Bump!!!!
I think it's mandatory that Harry Reid join Daschle in retirement. Along with Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi. It is a target-rich environment, so we need to prioritize. I submit the top priority should be Reid, chiefly because he is so stupid and really unsightly - then Boxer, then Pelosi. We got Daschle, let's keep on truckin'.
These people are not the 'resistance'. They are raving psychopaths who think only of mayhem and death.
Perhaps, but they prefer Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Che, and Fidel.
While we’re taking about Harry Reid’s lies, add this. Today, he claims that allowing younger workers to put some of their money into private accounts will “destroy” the system. But on Fox News Sunday, on 14 February, 1999, Reid said
Yes. Destroy the system. You know, the one where the polits have this huge slush fund that they use to pay for needed expenses in their states, because most of the normally allocated money went to pork projects. Don't want the public noticing how much they have been 'borrowing'.
“Most of us have no problem with taking a small amount of the social security proceeds and putting them into the private sector.”
Yeah, no problem taking some small amount out of the SS funds, and putting them in the private sector (of his pocket).
See, he wasn't lying.
DEVO said it.
Freedom of choice is what we got.
Freedom from choice is what we want.
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