Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. He said bankrupt. To me bankrupt means there is nothing in the bank. It is belly up, zero. That is how I interpret bankruptcy. Nothing left. The problem is Social Security will never, ever, ever, go bankrupt because there will always be workers putting money into the system. Now it may not be, if we stay like we are now, it may not always be at the levels we want. Down the line, it may only pay 80 percent of the benefits, but there will always be money in the Social Security system so it will never be bankrupt. So when the President says bankrupt, he is misleading the public because the gentleman from Florida and I will be paying in for the next 30 some years into the program. So even if you and I are just paying in, it is not bankrupt. It may not have enough funds, but it is not bankrupt.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is not a good way to run the government. Although a person may be able to get away with it longer and file personal bankruptcy without the ramifications to society as opposed to privatizing Social Security.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I did not say you were okay. I know the gentleman is not okay with that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So what is your philosophy on life when you say that you are okay with those people going back into poverty?

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I hope we continue this discussion. It is nice because it is not a 30-second ad. We can actually talk about the facts and get into a little more discussion. I want to do this before we go. If there are any 30-somethings or 40- somethings or 20-somethings or anyone out there who wants to e-mail us, it is 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov, or they can get us on our Web site democraticleader.house.gov/30something, but they can send us an e- mail if they have any comments or stories that they want us to share, and we will pick a few next week and maybe read them on the House floor here. But I think it is important that we recognize that this is long term and bad for our generation for all the reasons that we stated and I think most significantly $5 trillion that we have to borrow primarily from the Chinese.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pride to honor the words of John Jackson, a steelworker from Warren, Ohio. I am proud to claim him as my constituent. I Am an American Steel Mill I was born over 100 years ago. I am a true American. I survived the depression. I have lived through wars. I sweated. I poured ton after ton out of you. When called upon I answered. At wartime I served my country. I served it true. I worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week for you. Never stopping, never slowing down. Never asking for anything in return. I have supplied you with the materials to build Planes, trains, ships, cars, and whatever you asked of me. I have helped make you the super power that you are. I have made you feel proud, safe, secure, and superior to other nations. I have given people their way of life. I have taken away life from people. Do You Know Who I Am? I Am an American Steel Mill I have helped you when called upon, I have supported you though good times And bad times. Now I am asking you this great country of ours Think what life would be like if I die Think how safe, proud, secure you would feel if I die. The cries for help are all across the country. The same country I helped build. The same country I helped become strong. Please don't let me die. Serve me as I have served you.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think if you are sitting at home listening to this debate that we are having here, the discussion we are having here, there is a real key component, and I mentioned it earlier and I think it is worth reiterating: Every major veteran's service organization is against what the President and this Congress is doing. This is the most noble generation in the history of our country. They are fiscally conservative. They are Republicans and Democrats. They are frugal. They saved. They never had the kind of personal debt that our Nation has today, not their generation. They are not going to ask for money just to ask for it. They need it, and they see the need with their friends, within their organizations, and they are asking for it. If you do not believe the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) or the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), believe all the veterans organizations that are out there sticking up for their membership. If there is anybody you should believe, it is them.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would like to thank both gentlemen tonight and just say we are willing to work with the other side to find the $3.5 billion, whether it is out of the $500 billion or $600 billion increase to the Medicare program that we just found out about, we could squeeze $3.5 billion out of that, or whether it is asking the wealthiest to help. We are willing to work with them and follow the veterans organizations and do what is right to our veterans who made the sacrifices.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we are moving swiftly into the Iraq Watch time, and many other Members will be down here shortly to talk about a couple of different issues, one would be the issue of Iraq that has been going on for some time in a working group here. Congress has been talking about this issue over and over and trying to bring some awareness and some clarity to many of the people of this country who are very concerned with what is going on in Iraq. I would also like to, since we claimed the time here, I would also like to talk a little bit about the veterans and a little bit about what is going on here with the budget. As we just talked about, and as the gentleman from New York articulated and the gentleman from Florida articulated as well, there is some real pressure being put on the budget here in the United States Congress, and I did mention it towards the end. One of the programs that is going to take a real beating here in the 2005 budget is going to be the issue of veterans. Now, the President has made a formal request of this body for another $80 billion to help fund the Iraq war, and this will take the grand total over $300 billion that we will spend on the Iraq war. And that is just today. That is up to this point. This $80 billion may get us through the year, but some analysts say it may not. We are going to be over $300 billion in what we have spent in Iraq. Now, there is nobody in this Chamber who will not support the troops, who need our support. Many of us have argued, and I was on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs in the last Congress, many of us argued vehemently that we need to fully fund veterans health care in the United States of America. If we are going to continue to say there are other priorities in the budget, or that a certain amount of people who make a certain amount of money, a lot of money, the Bill Gateses of the world, should somehow get a tax cut and that we should do it on the backs of the veterans of the United States of America, and tell them their copay is going to go from $2 to $7, $7 to $15; that their annual fees are going to be increased up to $250 if they are a category seven or eight veteran, then this is an issue that I think as much as Social Security attacks some of the fundamental concepts and promises of this country. Is there anything more despicable than to go out and tell a veteran who has left a limb somewhere across the world that somehow he is not going to be able to get the kind of benefits he was promised? That is what is happening with the irresponsibility of the budgeteering that is going on in the United States Congress today. We showed the deficits: $450 billion. We are out borrowing money, paying interest on it, and eating up a bigger share of the budget in years to come. And we are not challenging the top 1 percent, or people making $1 million a year or more to somehow pay their fair share, to say they do not have to on the backs of the veterans. And no one can squirm out of this one. This is one you just cannot get away from. You can maybe talk private accounts will yield more interest and at least get people thinking, but how can you not ask people who benefit the most from the capitalistic system to pay and meet their obligation to the rest of society? Because if it were not for those people, if it were not for the veterans of the United States military, there would be no capitalistic system for anyone else to make money off of. That is the fundamental premise. So we need to make sure that we find the resources in the Congress to do it. I would like to just take this opportunity to acknowledge the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), who was the Republican chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, who was a great advocate for veterans in this country and who was removed from the chairmanship of the committee because he was too strong of an advocate because he wanted more resources put in. I live in Ohio, and a lot of those folks have moved into the State of Florida, south Florida, Miami, and they have some sun and fun; but there are a lot of veterans who have stayed in my community and who are having a lot of difficulties accessing the system. So I think it is appropriate that we are here following this debate, the generation that gave us Social Security, the generation that freed Europe, the generation that saved southeast Asia in many ways, and who created a lot of the opportunities that we have here today and set us on this path of democracy and fiscal responsibility for years to come, social justice. I think we have an opportunity to honor those folks, especially as we have more people from our generation coming back. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek).

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Just as we are talking about this and all the sacrifices that are being made over there and all the questions that are coming up and what is going on, before I yield to the gentleman from Ohio, there are a couple of statistics that I think we need to share with the American people about the investment in our veterans, because we have to focus on the ones that are coming back and new veterans that are being created every day. I know the gentleman has been out to Walter Reed and I have been out to Walter Reed several times. There is nothing more tragic for any of us who serve in this body than to go over there and see some of these soldiers and the sacrifices that they have made for the country, and to come and look at some of what is happening here in the Congress, where our President's budget for health care programs provides only 106 million more dollars than last year, $3.5 billion less than the veterans service organizations that come here and testify before the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and meet here say they need. The veterans groups, the American Legion, they are not going to come before Congress and ask for anything more than their soldiers that they served with need. And they say they need $3.5 billion more. And so when you are telling us that you are only going to increase it by $106 million in the President's budget, it is outrageous. I yield to the fine gentleman from Ohio whom I split Mahoning County with in the great State of Ohio.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We just had an hour where we discussed Social Security and the private accounts, not to get back into it, but this many Members on the other side are willing to borrow $5 trillion over the next 20 years to pay for the privatization plan. If you had come here and said, you know, we maybe need to borrow $3.5 billion to fully fund veterans, I think many of us on this side of the aisle would say, well, we think we should balance the budget, we probably think that there is a better way of doing it, but what a much better reason to go out and borrow money, $3.5 billion compared to $5 trillion granted, to meet the obligation that we have. I thought it would be interesting just to show since 2001, I have these charts working tonight so I am going to do one final chart. This is the increase, funding increases since 2001. This is the percent of increase in funding. The red is defense, the lavender is homeland security, and the blue is 9/11 response, New York City, international and airline relief. This is 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001. In 2004, 69 percent of the increase in funding from this Congress went for defense, 9 percent for homeland security, and 12 percent for 9/11. These are three priorities I think the whole Congress could agree on. But to have a 70 percent increase in the military? You are telling me we could not find $3.5 billion that could not get to Halliburton in order to fund some of this for our veterans? My point is that this is an issue of priorities. This comes down to one word, choice. What is the choice that this Congress wants to make?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I spoke with some people today who study this and understand this system, and after hearing all the facts and after studying this for the past few months of what the President's proposal is or what little of it that we know about, we need to make sure that we save this system and protect this system. That is really what we need to do. What an honor it is for us to be joined here by a great friend, great athlete, great baseball player on the congressional Democratic baseball team, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner).

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I am sorry to interrupt. I just want to make this point. As we run these deficits, as the gentleman from New York just stated, it is not free. We are borrowing, money and we have got to pay interest on it. The interest payments and the money that we have got to pay on our debt becomes a greater portion of the budget that we have every year here, and that is less money that we have for Pell grants, that we have for investing in the health and education and general welfare of our society in order to lift more people up, to create taxpayers.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the other point is, as my colleague so aptly put this, the up, down and the ebb and flow of the stock market. Some of the plans that are being offered from the other side say no matter what your savings account or your private account, where it is, if it is down at the bottom, you rode the wave and then you started losing money, like if you wanted to draw out your private account in 2001, in 2002 when your 401(k) was cut in half, some of our friends on the other side of the aisle are saying it is okay, there is a guaranteed minimum benefit for you, which sounds good. So here is a guy who, instead of paying into the Social Security system, is paying into the private accounts, and then when the private account goes belly up, the government will come back in again for the second time and bail them out with a guaranteed benefit. There are so many risky propositions here.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. The more cynical side of me, and being a 30-something I should not be cynical just yet, but that side of me says that this whole thing may be a big side show. While we are having this debate here and we are all focused on Social Security, we have a budget coming up here that is ugly. We have a budget that is coming up here that is going to slash food stamps and Medicaid and increase the Pell grant by $100 a year for 5 years when tuition costs have doubled. To those listening at home, I think we need to keep our eye on a couple of these issues here. Social Security is definitely one of them, but I think it is very important we understand there is this other game going on here with the budget and how dangerous that may be for the long-term consequences of the country. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, just to remind everyone of the e-mail real quick: 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov. Send us your thoughts on this. We have a couple here: one from a Harvey Johnson from Baltimore, who says the ``issue of privatization of Social Security hits home with my mom, the age of 81, recently widowed, now lives on a total income of $1,000 a month from just Social Security. When you factor in the cost of much-needed medicine, bare essentials such as rent, utilities, and food, I still supplement her income nearly 50 percent just to make minimal ends meet. The thought of a drastic reduction in her benefit would force us to make even further tough decisions, including possibly the loss of some of her independence if she were to need to move again. Frankly, the more I hear of the President's proposals, the more upset I get.'' That is from Harvey. Earl watched on C-SPAN last week. He wanted us to make sure to mention that the ``current system also provides disability and survivor benefits.'' Earl, we did talk about that. We took note of your e-mail here, and we did make sure we mentioned that here tonight. ``If a younger worker becomes disabled for any reason, he or she would be guaranteed a disability benefit, including benefits to their dependents.'' That is the thing. We are borrowing the money from China, and we have to compete with this great rising power in the world. And if we do not have every person on the field playing for us, we are at a disadvantage. This is also an economic argument, not even about compassion. Although some of us may feel that way, this is an economic argument. If one of your parents dies prematurely and society does not come in and step in and try to help, that is one less person on our team. One last one here, Mr. Speaker, from Karan who says she watched the `30-Something Dems' last week and related to a lot of the topics: taxes, deficits, veterans, and said ``after watching last week's talk, I feel more at home with the Democrats and would love to know more about how to become involved.'' So we are getting people engaged in the process.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Just to follow up, the number of people, Social Security beneficiaries, 15 million of the 48 million recipients, 30 percent receive disability or survivor benefits. We all grew up with kids in our schools that one of their parents got killed or one of their parents had cancer and passed away at a very early age. Those kids, our friends, received benefits from the Social Security system. This is a social insurance program. This is not the mega-millions lottery system, multistate lottery system. This is a social safety net, and you do not play games with this kind of system. You do what you did and what we did in 1983: in a bipartisan fashion sit down like adults and fix the problem and not try to destroy the system. I mean, I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but when I went through all these and we had a briefing today from people.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I could not agree with the gentleman more, and I think he spoke on behalf of a lot of us. I have two stacks of letters about this high over in my office from seniors. We have got 2,400 as of last week, and I have not got the update yet this week, but 2,400 letters from seniors in my district saying that they are against this proposal. They do not want their benefits cut, and one phone call that says, support the President and the President's private accounts. But what has been amazing is on several of the letters of those 2,400 that have come in, the senior citizens will write a little note on there, and just typical of our grandparents' generation, they say, I am not worried about my benefits, but please fight to make sure that my grandkids will have Social Security when they get older. Now, is that not typical of that generation, of the Greatest Generation who made sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice until this day to not worry about Social Security for them but worried about it for their grandchildren?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, those of us in this business and those at home obviously interested in this kind of debate and what is going on in your community and country, looking back and having all the anger and personal issues that we have today here in Washington, D.C. and in our State capitals, politics has gotten so bitter and so personal, can you imagine President Reagan and Tip O'Neil strolling out saying, ``We did it. We sucked it up for the American people and did what was best; and part of it was your idea and part was our idea; and part was conservative and part liberal. But we made it work for the American people, for the people who this program lifts out of poverty and the 48 million people that get it.''