Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That may not be the real number. The gentleman is exactly right. That may not be the real number, and why is the President more worried about a deficit in 2041 of maybe $300 billion, which the Social Security trust fund will be running at a deficit, instead of a $600 billion deficit today? I do not understand why he and this administration is so overly concerned with kind of the long-range deficit that can be fixed with tinkering with this program instead of worrying about what is happening every single day, as the heart and soul gets stolen out of the United States economy, with the loss of manufacturing, the loss of business, the jobs placement, the jobs that are leaving, are $10- to $12,000 less without health care benefits. Counties and cities are going bankrupt all over the country. They cannot afford to put on police and fire levies. I think two-thirds of the school property tax levies for schools in Ohio the last election cycle failed. I mean, this is eroding the heart and soul of the country day by day by day. This slow drip keeps happening, and it seems like instead of worrying about 2041 when we are to plug a little leak, we need to address the geyser that is happening right before us.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That was off camera.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. When the gentleman is talking about a program like Social Security, when we are talking about the most productive program, the most efficient program that the government runs and a proposal comes along in which the President has the wherewithal to defend it, the Congress has the ability because of the party structure to pass it, then you can be sure there is going to be a big fight. And you know what, the Founding Fathers would want a big fight about this. You fight about big things. You fight about big ideas. And I do not think there is anything wrong, and I think we have a constitutional responsibility to have a big fight. Article 1, section 1, the people govern, the Congress has a say. And the rules of this House and especially the rules of the Senate protect the views of the minority. So we have an obligation to stand up here at 9:23 at night and try to do our part in communicating our message. And we respect the President, respect the office, respect the other side of the aisle. I have many friends over there. Good friends. But we are allowed to disagree on major issues. And I hope we can get back to what happened in 1983.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We think it is funny anyway.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. He is definitely in the fight to protect Social Security.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this is again another edition of the 30-something Hour where the gentleman from Florida and I will take an opportunity to talk to the 30-somethings, not only of Congress, but of the country, and try to articulate the best we can the issues that are facing the country today and how those issues will affect future generations. I think being in the 30-something Group and being young or being a student in this country, Leader Pelosi has asked us to do our best to reach out to young voters across the country and not only talk about issues like education, budget deficits, the importance of the Pell grant, the importance of No Child Left Behind, but a lot of other issues. Some previous speakers tonight have mentioned a couple of different things on economic policy in the United States of America and why corporations, multinational corporations find it easy to leave the United States, and it is because of the litigation, it is because of the environment, it is because of the overregulation, it is because of the high taxes. But if you look closely at why businesses are leaving the United States of America, you will see that they are going to countries that have no health care program, they do not have any environmental laws, they do not have any human rights laws; and the previous speaker suggested that maybe they go to Africa because they have cheaper natural gas costs, or go to Russia. Russia is a country that is moving away from democracy, moving back to its Communist roots of the past several decades, tightening control of the media. Russia is not exactly a great place to do business. And the wars that are going on in Africa, left and right, and the different countries on the continent, not exactly a good place to do business. What we ask corporations and multinational corporations to do in the United States is to meet your obligation to the country. Corporate profits are the highest they have been in the history of the country, and corporate taxes are the lowest they have been in the history of the country. And if you want to talk about education, we have a No Child Left Behind program that is completely underfunded. It is underfunded in Ohio by over $1 billion a year. Fifty percent of the kids who live in Youngstown City School District, in my district, live in poverty; and 85 percent of the students that go to Youngstown city schools qualify for a free and reduced lunch. The corporations, the multinational corporations have gotten every single thing they have wanted from this Congress. Ninety-three percent of the tax credits and tax breaks out of the energy bill go to subsidize oil and gas companies. The pharmaceutical companies get buyouts, billions of dollars through the Medicare program with no price controls, with no ability to reimport the drugs, without giving the Secretary of Health and Human Services the ability to negotiate down drug prices, and you want us to feel sorry for the pharmaceutical industries, the credit card companies, one of the most profitable businesses in the country, push through a bankruptcy bill that screws consumers to the wall. Fifty percent of the people that file bankruptcy file because of medical reasons, either their own or someone in their family; and you tell me if you have a sick child and there is only one way to pay for it, you do not pull out the credit card and zip it through. You most certainly do. The days of defending the multinational corporations that have no loyalties to this country need to be over. But that is consistently what happens here, because they raise the money, it goes into the coffers, and the majority party runs elections and spends a lot of money and buys a lot of TV ads. Talk about the environment. These businesses are moving, like when they cross the border into Mexico, the maquilladoras that they go to, former American companies that move to Mexico, now leaving Mexico and going to China; the rivers in Mexico are some of the most polluted rivers in the world. Inhumane. You can tell where the people work in Mexico because the little shacks that they assemble have the name of the corporation that they work for. That is where they live. We need to start exporting our values in this country, not just our jobs. And I think that the multinational corporations and the big boys who are here are able to fly their corporate jets into Reagan National Airport and walk around the halls of Congress and spread around a lot of money have gotten everything they want. And it is the small business people in my district who own the mold shops, the machine shops, the small little shops that are in the supply chain who do not have the wherewithal to move to China. Who is sticking up for them? The number one problem in this country is health care. Health care costs are going up 10, 15 percent a year. 45 million people are uninsured, a health care system that is disastrous, and we haven't even touched it in this Congress. Haven't even touched it. And I think it is a shame that we are able to get up here, and some Members of this body are able to get up here and talk about how the poor corporations are not getting a fair break. 85 percent of the kids that get free and reduced lunch in Youngstown, they are not getting a fair break, and in Cleveland and in Akron, and in all other areas of the country, in the urban cores people are not getting a fair break. And until this Congress starts paying attention, you want to compete with the Chinese, you want to compete with the Indians, you better make sure our citizens are healthy and educated, and make sure that we protect a lot of the social safety net that we have in place today, including Social Security. And until we recognize that it is programs like Social Security that have helped lift people out of poverty, or that 5.2 million children live in families that receive Social Security, and that the Social Security benefits in 2002 lifted 1 million children under the age of 18 out of poverty. And now we are talking about getting rid of this system. Now, we are here to talk about Social Security, and the long-term implications of what the President has proposed. Before we get into it, I wanted to make a point that I think is extremely relevant to the debate on Social Security, and something that I hear. And I have had three or four Social Security town hall meetings in my district, and have a couple more coming up. I hear from average people who just come and sit, and afterwards we open it up to question and answers. And inevitably at every meeting, we will have a couple of people who either, from the microphone, or come up to me after, say the way to stop, or the way to fix Social Security is to create more jobs in the United States and have more people working at a higher wage to pay into the Social Security system. Now, I do not know if long term that fixes the whole problem. But I think it makes a tremendous point. And I have spoken here many times at this podium about what is going on with the Chinese. And the Chinese at this point are cleaning our clocks. And I have small business people in my district who are literally months away from folding up the tent because they are not able to compete anymore with the Chinese. And so the first point is, we need to grow the economy. We need to create jobs. We need to increase tax revenues so we can balance our budget. And what is happening? 2004 we had over a $10 billion trade deficit with China, just with China alone. The actual trade deficit is much higher. But, China is flooding our markets with their exports, and we are having very much trouble trying to get our products into their markets. And what becomes scary, as we begin to run these high deficits, not only trade deficits, but budget deficits is that the money we are borrowing, last year close to $450 billion, that was offset by a Social Security surplus, around $450 billion deficit last year, 41 percent of the debt is coming from foreign-owned countries, or is owned by foreign countries, 41 percent. So as we continue to run these deficits, we are borrowing money from the Japanese, from the Chinese, from all kinds of different countries who are getting more and more leverage over the United States, whether it is on domestic policy or foreign policy, and so it becomes very, very important, as we talk about Social Security, to make sure that we do not put ourselves in a position to owe other countries a lot of money. Now, we are going to go over here briefly exactly what President Bush's privatization plan is and what it does and why it is dangerous to the American people, and then talk a little bit about what the President has said over the past week as he began to put some meat on the bones of his proposal. If we privatize the Social Security system, we are going to have to borrow a lot of money, $1.4 trillion in borrowing the first 10 years of the President's plan. So, in addition to the $7.7 trillion, $7.976 trillion debt that we have today, we are going to have go out and borrow another $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years to meet the demands of a privatized Social Security system. This massive borrowing will endanger our economy, and, as I already stated, increase our indebtedness to foreign countries. Why in a time when we are competing against the Chinese in a way we have never had to face this kind of stiff competition, why would we want to go out and put ourselves in a position of economic weakness and go out and have to borrow more money from the Chinese in order to fund our annual deficits? That is bad economic policy. It is bad politics. It is bad geopolicy for the United States of America, because it weakens us when we are trying to deal in the international arena, and it raises taxes on our kids and on our grandkids. Now, we just found out last week in my family that my brother and his lovely wife are going to have a little baby boy. Now, this little baby boy, when it is born in October, will owe $27,000 the minute he is born. Owe $27,000 to the government because of the debt that we have, the $7.97 trillion debt. And then if we tell my brother's little son that we are also going to go out, and we are going to borrow another $1.4 trillion, with a T, over the next 10 years, then all we are telling that newborn baby is, we are going to increase the burden and put it on you. See, we are going to borrow it today, and we are going to leave it for you to fix one day. And that means increased taxes for the next generation. And we are playing today and borrowing all of this money like the bill, like the bills never come due. And that is what is irresponsible. And that is what we want to point out. And I think that is one of the main reasons why the country in some polls even show the President's approval rating at 32 percent. That is why the country is not gravitating towards this program no matter how many cities and how many States the President wants to go to. And I think it becomes evident. Now, here is the chart which is really hard to believe. And I think these numbers have changed slightly. But, this is a ticking clock. This is always moving, and it is moving rather quickly. The national debt today is 7 trillion, $796 billion. $7.97 trillion is what the United States owes other countries. So if you are born today, you owe $26,349 the minute you are born. If you are sitting at home on the couch watching C-SPAN or Everyone Loves Raymond or some other show, you owe $26,349 to the Government. And so add this up to a baby who is born today, factor it out 18 years from now. If we continue running at the clip we are running at $500 billion deficits every year, what is this little baby going to owe when he or she is 18 or 22? And then you add on top of that a family who has to not only pay this back, but also borrow money to go to college, and tuition rates in Ohio, and I know in Florida, have doubled over the past several years, over the past 5 years for sure. If we continue going at that clip, what is that little child going to owe when they are 22 and they graduate college? They are going to owe this, multiple that out 18 years. They are going to owe the money they borrow for college, multiply that out with what the cost of living is going to be 18 years from now. What are we doing to our kids? And that is what this whole debate is about. This debate is about a program that has been successful, and it is about a program that we need to maintain, and we need to project out into the future and make sure that we guarantee the benefits of the recipients of the program. Now, the President last week did a press conference and did several events, my good friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek). Also I see my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is here as well, and the President put a little meat on the bones last week. He took this plan that was a skeleton, and last week he put some meat on the bones. And we had based most of our comments up to this point, not only in the Democratic and Republican caucus, but in the 30-something Working Group, we have made sure that we talked about what the President's blueprint was. But, last week, the President confirmed for us exactly what we had talked about, that a privatized Social Security plan would mean benefit cuts for middle class Americans. And so the President, by outlining his plan last week gave us some figures. And we did some math. He gave us his projections, and we did the math. If the President gets his way, someone earning $37,000 would have a 28 percent benefit cut. That means they would lose one-quarter of their Social Security. One-quarter. And you are not making a lot, you are only making $37,000. Someone earning $45,000 would have a 42 percent benefit cut. 58,000, you would get a 42 percent benefit cut. And, finally, someone earning $90,000 would have a 49 percent benefit cut. So you made $90,000, you would lose half. Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio. Thank you for joining us. I would like to make perfectly clear here that you are not in the 30-something group age range.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) gracing us with his presence and his maturity and his distinguished nature. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) who is also mature, distinguished, and of very good nature.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I do. Does the gentleman watch it?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. What is the gentleman's favorite show?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. SportsCenter.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Does the gentleman watch any of the old shows, the ``Archie Bunker'' reruns and ``Cheers''?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. ``Three's Company.''

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Does the gentleman ever watch ``Married With Children''? It has some very funny reruns.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Ed O'Neill who plays Al Bundy is from Youngstown, Ohio.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. No, we should do that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think that is a great point. We are putting everything on the credit card right now. And in the President's proposal, how does taking money out of Social Security and putting it into the market fix the Social Security system and make it more solvent than it is? As we said many times here, the magic number is $5 trillion over the next 20 years. Five trillion dollars will have to be borrowed by the United States over the next 20 years. How does that make our country stronger, if we are out borrowing?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, that is a great segue into a couple of the e-mails that we received last week that I think put a human face on what you were just speaking about. We got one from Denise Harmon who was from Evanston, Wyoming. She says: ``Hello, I'm 40, so I'm one year over the age group you are looking at.'' But, again, we are here talking about a lot of other issues and not just the people who are in their 30s. ``I have some IRA's, a mutual fund, a retirement plan with stocks, bonds, and annuities started through my previous employment, a 401(k) type plan with my employer, and a pension as a State employee in Wyoming.'' Denise goes on to say, ``I am very uncomfortable with the idea of using private accounts for Social Security. My mutual fund lost half of its value and at the rate it is earning, will take another 5 to 8 years to get to the rate of my deposit.'' So, just as you said, she lost sounds like thousands of dollars here and it is going to take another 5 to 8 years to get to the rate of her deposit. So, if she was planning on retiring in say 2002 and her 401(k) or mutual fund was cut in half, then she would not be able to retire if that was Social Security. It sounds like she has some other things going on here, but what we are saying with the privatization is that your Social Security would be your mutual fund and it would be subject to the whims of the market. It would no longer be a guaranteed benefit, and when the gentleman from New York was here, he explained it great. Here is the stock market up and down, up and down, up and down, but here is the Social Security program, slowly growing, slowly paying out benefits to meet with the wage index so you maintain your buying power, and this is exactly what Denise is talking about. She goes on to say: ``Everyone else I know, from my retired father to my peers to my kids who have mutual funds in their names for college funds have been burned by the private financial sector.'' And this is something that really hits home: ``My grandfather lost his railroad pension in the 1970s (he worked for Rock Island Lines) when Rock Island went out of business. He relied on Social Security and Medicare. He required nursing home care due to dementia and died with nothing, in fact, he probably cost the government because the company he gave his life to defaulted on him. ``Social Security is meant to be the no-risk retirement backup system. You shouldn't allow people to gamble with that money.'' And do not forget to remind Americans that Social Security also pays for the disabled and for children whose parents die early. I want to thank Denise for writing in. That was great. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It has been a beautiful experience; I enjoyed it thoroughly. I want to give everyone at home some e-mails. We also received another e-mail from a Karan Szatko from Overland Park, Kansas, and she wanted to thank us for talking about and to our generation and the issues that really matter. She is hoping to get more involved in government and getting her voice heard and doing what she can to help this great Nation we all love. So, hopefully, these 30-somethings, it sounds like they are having some effect on some, and I just want to give everyone the e-mail. You can e-mail us through Leader Pelosi's office: 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov or you can get on our Web site at Democraticleader.house.gov/30something. So send us an e-mail, drop us a line if you have any stories that you can relate to us that we may be able to share here on how this may affect your family.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If Al Bundy is not against privatization, who would be?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I will work on that right after we get this Social Security thing going. We will have Ed O'Neill Boulevard in Youngstown. We will do it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, it makes you wonder. You go 60 days. You do not sell your program. In fact, it gets progressively worse every trip that you make, and then you decide that, well, we are going to go out for another 60 days. It makes you wonder if this thing is not a distraction from some of the real issues that we are facing today, and I hate to be cynical in the 30-something group. We are supposed to be the optimists of this body, but it is very difficult for me to believe that this maybe is not a little ploy to distract and say, look over here while we cut Medicaid, we cut food stamps, we cut community development block grants, we cut veterans benefits. Look at the real issues today. The President is trying to say this is a great crisis; 2042 is when we have before there is any structural change at all in the program. Gas prices, I am sure my colleague is hearing about that in her district because of the oil costs, health care, immigration, issues, the Chinese and manipulation of their currency and dumping into our markets. Instead of saying we need to focus on an alternative energy program so that we could somehow reduce the cost of gas at the pumps, we are talking about a manufactured crisis that starts in 2042, not dealing with the day-to-day pocketbook issues that the people in my community and Florida have to deal with every day.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, no doubt about it. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), in fact, today was at Columbia University, New York City, 300 young people at 8:30 in the morning. College students, when that alarm goes off at 7 o'clock, 7:30 when they are in college, they hit that snooze button and they hope they make their 10 o'clock class. But there is so much concern here for this, and we know it is resonating. And I think this group especially, since the gentlewoman from Florida joined us specifically, we have had more of an impact here, but I think we have seen the polls and the decline in support by young people for this kind of risky scheme, this risky proposal. And I think we will continue to see it because they recognize the fact that long term this is bad for them. And one thing I would mention to the people that are watching at home, ask themselves is this legislative body, is this President addressing issues that face them day to day, affect their day-to-day life? Are we dealing with issues that will help them? And I think the answer is no. We are not dealing with oil, gas prices. We are not doing anything to try to find alternative energy sources. We are not doing anything to increase funding for Pell grants or No Child Left Behind. We are actually cutting benefits for veterans. If a veteran is sitting at home right now, their co-pay is going to go from $7 to $15, and there are going to be user fees assessed to them. All these things are happening. So if people are sitting at home and they are not involved or engaged in the political process at all, they have to ask themselves, ``What are they doing in Washington, D.C. that is going to help my life?'' And really nothing. We are talking about a manufactured crisis that is going to happen in 2042. I want to read one quick e-mail. I know we have gotten hundreds of these, but I want to read one. This is from last week. ``My name is Susan Parker.'' Susan lives in Severna Park, Maryland. She is 33, becoming ever more involved in politics. A few weeks ago she watched the dynamic trio up here on C-SPAN discussing why the Bush administration's plan was not good for the citizens of the country. ``I was glued to the TV. I started taking notes, and from those notes I e-mailed letters to my Representative, Senators, and several letters to the editor. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the inspiration and for speaking out so consistently.'' So these young people are starting to get involved, engaged, writing. Before I part ways, I am going to have this hanging in my office. This is ``Rock the Boat,'' the little coffee stand on it. ``I Love Social Security.'' You can go to rocktheboat.com and get some information, or e-mail us at 30-something Democrats at mail.house.gov, or go to the Web site, democraticleader.house.gov/30something. So this is it right here.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to make a point. He mentioned dissent and debate, and we talked a little bit about it here tonight. This body has a constitutional obligation to voice our concerns and our opinions. And that is why the rules of the House are set up so that we can get an hour here to talk about it and voice our concerns and talk about what we believe and what our approach would be. And I think it is important that we do get out here, and I think the Democrats have done a great job, leaders in both Chambers have done a great job, of fulfilling our obligation to our constituents to go out there and at least recognize that the President's plan is not resonating, and that we have an obligation to go out there and be critical if we need to be and say that the plan is extreme and say the plan is radical. I do not think there is anything wrong with that, because in 1994 and the years leading up, the other side was very critical of the President for a long while. They have gone back on what they said they were going to do in 1994, balanced budget amendments and balancing the budget, and this thing just keeps going up and up and up. So they obviously have not fulfilled some of their goals that they set, but they were critical of the President, and they had a right to do that, and they won the House back. And now they are overstepping. Now we are being critical. And I think the American people are going to see that the Democratic Party has something to offer.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if I may interrupt the gentleman, I would add that tuition costs are doubling, and this number keeps growing every week. Every single day this clock is actually ticking here, $7.79 trillion. We lifted the debt ceiling a few months back, and this number is also ticking. So we are talking in a few months you are going to be up to owing the government or student loans or banks $50,000. Imagine a kid being born today owes $26,000. Is that opportunity? Is that ownership? Is that freedom? All the big themes that we like to talk about in Washington, D.C. This is trapping a generation of kids.