Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. What I wanted to bring out was exactly what the gentleman was talking about. We have a problem that needs to be addressed. But we can not throw our Nation's retirement security, our constituents' retirement security, to the whims of the stock market and then add insult to injury by saying that we are going to adjust their benefits based on the price index as opposed to their wages, because obviously wages grow more quickly than prices do. So their benefits are going to be cut both through the indexing and through the privatization and on top of that will add to the deficit. This is about the most irresponsible proposal that I have ever heard of.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I just appreciate the gentleman from South Carolina's (Mr. Spratt) and the gentleman from Florida's (Mr. Meek) leadership and the opportunity for us to help explain to our generation what the ramifications will be if the President's proposal goes through. I think it is real important that we plug the Web site, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) has it up here on the board.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, first, let me say what a pleasure it is to have the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) join us for our 30-something working group. I have to tell you, as the freshman in the group, and the person who has been here for the shortest tenure, one of the most incredible experiences I have had is to have the opportunity to learn from the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and especially the inner workings of the budget and to be able to absorb the expertise, at least attempt to absorb the expertise that the gentleman has been able to provide this country with your leadership. So I cannot thank the gentleman enough for that. And I really want to pick up on what the gentleman from Alabama was saying because this really is, the budget is a statement of our values. It is our values versus the Republican leadership values. And it really is probably the most comprehensive expression of the direction that we believe the country should go in and the priorities that we have in our caucus versus the priorities that they have. And, you know, it is interesting, look at the group of us assembled here tonight. I do not think that you could have a more eclectic group of Members than the Members assembled here. I represent a district, Miami Beach, Ft. Lauderdale and Hollywood. The gentleman represents Alabama. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) and I share communities. And the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) represents, you know, a district in South Carolina. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is here with us tonight. We could not have more diversity in our caucus and more diversity represented here tonight. And if you look at the homogeneity on their side of the aisle, even when they do not have homogeneity in their caucus, they walk in lock step. They fall in line. They do what they are told. And that is regardless of the fact that they have crafted a budget that clearly says to the American people: We do not care. We do not care about you. We do not care about making sure that your children have a quality education. We do not care about making sure that if your child is sick that you can afford to take them to the doctor. They have engaged, at least since I have been here and that I have been able to note, in slash-and-burn politics. I mean, the thing that I think is the most interesting is that, over the time that I have been involved in public service, you know, we are constantly trying to figure out, and the American public, people, I think, are trying to figure out, how do you define a Republican, and how do you define a Democrat? And I think that the budget document that they have put forward is probably the best expression of how you define what it means to be a Republican. And clearly, what it means to be a Republican is to balloon the deficit, cause the Nation to go further and further into debt, mortgage our children's future, cut health care, cut education, both in the lower grades as well as student loans. And if you look at our budget document that the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) put together, it also is an expression of our values and the direction that we would take the country. Our budget document, as crafted by the gentleman from South Carolina and the other Budget Committee Members would bring the budget into balance by 2012. It would make sure that we do not cut the programs that are the most important to the American people. What are our priorities? Education, health care, making sure that we can improve the quality of people's lives and making the world a better place as opposed to improving the bottom line of the pocketbooks of the wealthiest Americans. I mean, that is essentially what the ultimate goal was, clearly, of the Republican budget document. And I think it is important that we help lay that distinction out in front of the American people so that, over the course of the next 18 to 22 months, they can make a decision as to whether we want to continue to move in the radical direction that they are taking this country or if we want to get things back on track.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, what I wanted to do is take off from what the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) was saying because the President started out this debate 4 months ago following the election saying that Social Security is in crisis, that Katie bar the door, we have to do something, we have to do something now; and if we do not, then the world will essentially come to an end. Now, he has gradually backed off that and you do not hear the word ``crisis'' out of the President anymore. You hear more along the lines of what we have been saying which is there is a problem that needs addressing; and we have been saying that because you have the strength of a 70-year safety net in place, that we should not be irresponsible about how we reform it. We should not be irresponsible by slashing a gaping hole in that safety net through which millions of people would fall. And because this is the 30-something Working Group, I have often pointed out that when we talk to our friends, our peers who are also members of our generation, I know I ask my friends if they think that Social Security will be there for them when they retire. I am 38. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is 38, and we have friends who do not believe that Social Security will be there. Yet, if we look at the numbers, all the reliable numbers, the ones right from the Social Security Administration, the first instance that we have even a concern about whether or not we are going to be taking in as much as we are paying out is 2041. Well, I will be 74 years old in 2041. And if you are using the more reasonable, non-Dooms Day numbers, it is more likely that 2051 is when we begin to approach a problem. I will be 84 years old. Now, that is about 20 years past normal retirement, so the sky is not falling. There is a problem and a responsible government will recognize that problem and take the time to make the changes that we need to make without throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my special order at this time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hoshoa. Today is a day of reflection and remembrance, not just for Jews, but for everyone who needs to learn from the world's injustices in order not to repeat them. Today we need not just say, ``never again.'' We must live our lives by this mantra. A few weeks ago, I attended a solemn ceremony to remember the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. As I reflected upon the horror of the death camps where at least 1.5 million innocent people from many different nations died, 90 percent of whom were Jews, I asked myself the following question: how far have we come as a civil society and a world in the last 60 years? How much have we learned? Have we honored their memory by not allowing these atrocities to be repeated? Unfortunately, my answer had to be not far enough. In the last 15 years, we have seen genocide raise its ugly head in Bosnia, Rwanda and, most recently, in the Darfur region in Sudan, where at least 180,000 people are dead and over 2 million people displaced from their homes. On Yom Hoshoa, let us recommit and reaffirm our vigilance against acts of horrific inhumanity. Let us make sure that the lost souls from the Holocaust did not die in vain.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this special order.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Michigan for yielding me this time. I want to ask my colleagues to ask themselves, what messages are we sending to young women and girls about what their value is, with no provisions and no exceptions and no safety clauses in this bill to protect them from abuse? Why could we not have an amendment to ensure that protection for those young girls? Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to consider all of the unintended consequences and ramifications of passing this legislation. But more importantly, I ask them to consider the young women and girls and families whose lives we will be impacting. The result of this legislation, sadly, will not be more communication between parents and their daughters. It will not result in fewer minors becoming pregnant. It will result in more young girls ending their pregnancies themselves, giving birth in bathroom stalls and potentially harming their newborns and themselves. These and other dire outcomes are the potential unintended consequences of this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to think carefully through the consequences of this legislation.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, the sponsor of this legislation, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), is my colleague and friend; but on this issue I must respectfully disagree with her. I know that most of my colleagues believe teens should communicate with their parents and guardians when faced with difficult and terrifying choices. Unfortunately, that does not always happen; and in some cases where abuse and neglect are involved, we cannot force it to happen. In every community in every congressional district, whether red or blue, the sad truth is that there are unspeakable acts perpetrated against young girls by relatives that result in pregnancy, and this legislation does nothing to protect them. In a perfect world, there would be no heinous acts against children. In a perfect world, no woman would become pregnant until she was spiritually, physically, and emotionally prepared to love and care for a child. Just over a month ago, I stood on the floor of this House because I firmly believed that politicians have no right to meddle in personal and private affairs of medical decisions. As recent actions and events have reflected, leaders in this Congress across the country are seeking more ways to violate the Nation's laws and our personal freedoms in order to impose their will on American families. This is not the role of Congress, nor should it be. This legislation includes no provision for a teenager who fears turning to her parents because the pregnancy may be the result of an act of rape or incest. It is wrong and we must stop it.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Exactly. Once you get permission. And, believe me, I know that is definitely something that moms need to grant, or potential moms need to grant permission on. But we have little kids, and anyone out there that is a parent can understand what I am going to talk about now in this way. It is mind-boggling that the President has not gotten off, after 60 days, the concept of privatization. I liken it to when my children do not like that I have told them no and they stamp their feet and they throw a tantrum. Now, I generally try not to give in, like we are not. I feel like the Democratic Caucus in the House and Senate are the parents of a child in the White House throwing a temper tantrum, who is insisting that he get his way. And regardless of how many times he is told that he cannot have his way, that sometimes we have to compromise, sometimes we cannot have it exactly the way we want it; just like I explain to my children and I try to sit down and rationally explain to them that we are going to try to give you some of what you want but you are not going to have it all your way, he continues to stamp his foot just like my kids sometimes do. It was not lost on me that that was an appropriate analogy. I am certainly hopeful, like I am hopeful with my own kids, that one day they will grow out of it. We keep waiting for the President to grow out of the temper tantrums. It should not be surprising, because we come from a State where his sibling engages in similar activities. It seems to be a family trait. They do not seem to get the message when they are told by their constituents that they are not in agreement with what they are suggesting. They do not appear to be willing to let go and come to the table and compromise. Now, another analogy I want to draw would be if we were, as Democrats, sticking our heads in the sand because we support Social Security so strongly. If we were here saying there is no problem, Social Security is fine, we should not do anything, then we would be just as guilty as the President and the leadership of this Congress are. But we are not saying that. What we have said from day one is that there is no crisis; that the crisis is manufactured, as my colleague from Ohio said; that we acknowledge that there is a problem, but there is not a problem that reaches anything that we should be significantly concerned about until we in this 30-something Working Group are well into our seventies. Literally, 36 years from now, in 2041, I will be 74 years old, long past retirement age. When we ask most of our peers, if you ask your friends and our neighbors and friends who are our age, do you think Social Security is going to be there for you, most of our peers do not think it will. But the reality is that it will be there even if we do nothing. And we are not suggesting that we not do anything. We are suggesting that, just like in 1983, that reasonable people on both sides of this debate should come to the table, should try to find some common ground, and should not continue to kick and scream and insist that it is their way or the highway. Another thing that I wanted to point out, and this is difficult to say, but it is hard to feel that the President is sincere on this issue. When I have a town hall meeting, and I am sure it is this way for my colleagues, I know it is for my colleague from Florida because I have done town hall meetings with him, I really want to know what people think. That is why I do not screen or ask for tickets or check people's opinion at the door. Literally, the Secret Service this week sent agents to Denver to probe allegations by three area Democrats that they were ousted from President Bush's March 21 event. The three did not stage any protest at the rally and were later told by the Secret Service they were removed because their vehicle displayed an anti-Bush bumper sticker. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the man who removed them was a GOP volunteer, but apparently Mr. McClellan refused to divulge his name or whether he works in Colorado or Washington. What Mr. McClellan said to this reporter is if someone is coming to an event to disrupt it, they are going to be asked to leave. Apparently, if you have an opinion that differs from the President's and from the message that is designed for that particular town hall meeting, you are not welcome, even if you plan on sitting there and saying nothing. Now, I heard the President's State of the Union, I heard his Inaugural address, and I heard him talk about democracy. I heard him talk about promoting democracy around the world and how important it was that the greatest democracy in the world set an example, that we be the shining beacon of democracy around the world and that we export democracy. Well, you know what, how do we do that if we are not setting the best example of what democracy is all about. Would we like it if other nations, other fledgling democracies, started mirroring the conduct that the President is engaged in? I do not think so. I think if we heard an independent news report about some of the activities that the President has engaged in in this debate, we would be outraged.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely, this was a unique day. Apparently, we reached the 60th day that the President has been out in America trying to sell the American people on his vague outlines of his proposal to privatize Social Security; and quite honestly, at the conclusion of the 60 days, apparently he has said that he wants to go out for another 120 days. We had a rally today with more than 1,000 people in the crowd and over a hundred Members of Congress from both the House and the Senate Democratic caucuses, standing completely united in opposition to pulling the safety net out from under our retirees' retirement security, and we stood strong. We stood together. We stood together when people did not think that that was possible, that there was definitely, over the last few months, a lack of confidence that the Democrats would stand together united opposing privatization. We have all the way up until today and we will continue to be standing in opposition to privatizing Social Security. Actually, at the conclusion of today's rally, we stood together and said, Mr. President, please do go out for another 120 days and tell the American people that you want to pull the safety net out from under their retirement security because apparently the more he talks about it, the less the American people like it. So we encourage the President to continue to go out and talk about it, continue to restrict the crowds and limit the access to his town hall meetings where he checks tickets at the door, checks people's philosophies at the door, as opposed to our effort where we are being as inclusive as possible. We do not screen our crowds. We had more than 400 town hall meetings across the country in our districts as House and Senate Democrats, and we take all comers. Some of us have had maybe a couple of people here and there who have come to our meetings and said why do you not give the President's proposal a try, but almost universally our Members have experienced the communication from our constituents that, above all else, they expect us to be up here in Washington and protect their retirement security.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think it is important to highlight, again, this is the 60th day of the President's nationwide, cross-country tour; and one would have expected with the bully pulpit that he has the momentum that he believed that he was going to be able to build behind his vague proposal that by the 60th day, by today, that he would have Americans swinging from the chandeliers in the Capitol, insisting that we take up his proposal and that somebody file a bill. We have yet to see a bill offered in this Chamber or in the Chamber across the rotunda, and I think it is interesting to note that these are some of the comments and analyses that have been made at the conclusion of his 60-day tour: ``The President's campaign has frightened people, raising concerns that guaranteed benefits could be cut,'' said William Schneider, who is a public opinion scholar and CNN analyst. ``There's very little evidence in polls that Bush's campaign has been effective.'' ``As he nears the end of a 60-day cross-country campaign, President Bush appears to be further from achieving his signature goal of transforming Social Security than when he began.'' That was from USA Today just yesterday, and that was the tip of the iceberg in terms of the commentary and analysis. I just wonder when the President and the leadership of this body are going to get it. When are they going to tell us, when are they going to come to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) and to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and say, okay, we are taking privatization off the table; clearly we do not have any support for that; Americans do not want us to compromise their retirement security, and we are ready to come to the table and compromise, like they did in 1983 when Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan came together and preserved Social Security for generations to come. It is just mind-boggling. It really is.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. A pretty decent car.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I think it is really safe to say that both of their remarks are cogent, and I think it is safe to say that we are really disturbed about the direction that this country is going in and the direction that the leadership is taking us. It is time to restore some balance. We have got a Congress that sees nothing wrong with inserting itself in the midst of a private family tragedy a few weeks ago. Now they want to take Social Security, the most successful program that supports Americans throughout their retirement years, 70 years of success, they want to take it off the tracks. They want to yank the safety net out from under our retirees and under our generation. Because if the President is ensuring that people 55 and over are going to be okay, what is he saying to the rest of us? ``You may not be okay but I do not care.'' I mean that is a really foreboding message that he is sending to our generation. And I tell the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) I do not think he has to worry about standing alone, because there were more than 3,000 people at that rally with us today, more than 100 Members of Congress, and it appears in the feedback we have gotten from across this country that we are standing together, not alone; that we have lots of people behind us and they are trying to send a very strong message to the leadership of this Congress and to the President that privatization needs to be dropped, that we need to stop talking about it, that we need to come to the table together and compromise, that we need to right the train. And I am going to just take the privilege of my gender here for a couple of minutes, since I am the woman of the three of us, and just talk about the possibility of privatization's impact on women, because it is disproportionate. It really is. More than 40 years after the Equal Pay Act, women still only earn 76 cents on the dollar for what a man earns, 76 cents. One cannot save what they do not earn. This proposal will disproportionately impact women. In fact, because of childbearing years and care for sick or elderly parents, on average, women are generally out of the work force for about 12 years. Older women are less likely than older men to receive pension income. Only about 28 percent of women compared to 43 percent of men have a pension. So when they do receive pensions, the benefit to women is only about half what a man will receive. So what that boils down to is that when a woman received her Social Security retirement benefits in 2003, the average monthly benefit for a woman was only $798, which is about $241 less than the average man's monthly retirement. What will happen to women, because we have got 20 percent of single women who are widowed, who are Social Security beneficiaries who are collecting Social Security today, about 20 percent of those women, the only source of their retirement income is Social Security? We are just yanking out the security and the safety that we have guaranteed where we are going from a guaranteed benefit to a guaranteed gamble. And that is what the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) has been saying and leading us at the rally today and all the way leading up to today. We cannot shift the whole nature of Social Security from a guaranteed benefit to a guaranteed gamble. We have to keep the security in Social Security. That is the bottom line.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, what the gentleman is saying is absolutely true, and to just continue on the same theme the gentleman is referring to, if we are going to talk about crisis and things that are looming that we need to deal with, why are we not talking about Medicare? The President should be stumping around the country to get the Congress to address the looming crisis in Medicare because it could be more easily argued that Medicare's insolvency, which is much sooner than Social Security, is really going to cause us some tremendous problems. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) and I are from a State that if Members want to talk about a crisis, if we have a crisis in Medicare, our constituents are really going to have a dire, serious problem. If that problem is not addressed, then there are senior citizens across this country who will die. There is no question if we do not preserve the ability to provide health care to senior citizens who under this proposal are already going to be in jeopardy because their retirement security is going to be pulled out from under them, on top of that if we do not fix Medicare, we will not provide them with health care. I would love to see the President stumping to try to address that problem. I can assure the President he would have a lot more willing participants, at least on our side, at least from me and from Members who represent States with significant senior populations. Social Security is often thought of as just a program that benefits senior citizens; and people think if you did a man or woman interview on the street, and asked people who benefits from Social Security, virtually everyone on the street would say that Social Security benefits senior citizens. In Florida, for example, children who are under 17, there are 174,500 current Social Security beneficiaries, kids who are receiving Social Security either because they are dependents of people receiving SSI because they are disabled or they are survivors of a deceased Social Security recipient. Again, that number is 174,530 kids under 17. And between the ages of 18 and 39, 71,870 Floridians receive Social Security benefits. That is one of the things that has been lost that each week we have been trying to drive home, lost in this privatization debate. The President has basically wiped the table, or essentially wiped the floor, to be a little more direct about it, when it comes to the people who collect Social Security because they are disabled, which is a third, who are disabled, who are survivors and are receiving survivor benefits. They do not earn an income, so what happens to them when we privatize Social Security? Or when there are annuities and we yank Social Security benefits out from under people who are earning an income, and we are doing nothing for people who are survivors or who are disabled? It is like they do not exist. It is like if we ignore them, maybe they will go away. I have yet to hear a response from the President or the leadership of this Congress about what we are going to do to help people who are disabled and who are survivors of Social Security recipients when Social Security is privatized and then shrivels up and blows away.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I from Florida are parents, and I know the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryun) probably plans one day to be a parent. This is the 30-something Working Group.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank both of these gentlemen. I am losing the prop board here, but I wanted to close by quoting the President. He said, ``Leadership means not passing problems on to future generations and future Presidents.'' This plan passes trillions of dollars of debt on to our children and our grandchildren, and it is time that we all exercise some leadership, come together and think about the direction that this country is going in, bring it back to the center, restore some balance, come to the table and compromise, and take privatizing Social Security off the table and not yank the safety net from under our constituents.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely right. We have to right the ship of state. I mean, it is keeling over right now. It is going to fall from the weight of the debt. I mean, why the Republican majority here will not listen to Chairman Greenspan when he expresses again and again, as recently as this week, again and again he has warned us about the danger of the increasing deficits. The leadership here is just ignoring it. It is like they hope that if they ignore the problem long enough, maybe it will go away. Maybe they will wake up, just like my kids hope that the next day something that happened that they did not like the day before will not be true when they wake up, like so many of us do. But the worst nightmare is that when something bad happens, when you wake up the next day, you cannot make it go away just by a night's sleep or ignoring it. It does not work that way. We have to be responsible. That is the whole way we need to deal with this Social Security problem. Problem, not crisis. We have a problem, but we need to be responsible and take the time that we need to address the problem and do it right. We did not create this problem overnight, and there is no miracle solution; there is no instantaneous solution to this problem. The President has already acknowledged that privatization does not even solve the problem. We need to make sure that we get privatization off the table so we can all sit down together, just like they did in 1983, and find a bipartisan solution that we can all be comfortable with, or at least that the majority can be comfortable with, because we will probably not get everybody. But the majority is willing to come to the table, it is just that the President needs to let go of an untenable proposal that the vast majority of the people do not support. It is time to let it go, Mr. President.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, what I have noticed is that this President treats democracy as an inconvenience. He treats democracy as if what it means is ``I am going to listen to you when you agree with me and I am going to apply democratic principles when I can surround myself with people who tell me what I want to hear.'' And that is just the worst message we could possibly be sending. When the gentleman and I listened to the State of the Union and we listened to the Inaugural Address, both of which included a treatise on the President's desire to help spread democracy around the world, I really think that the greatest democracy in the world and the leader of that democracy should be setting an example at home. And I think that that is what we expect parents to do. We ask parents to set examples for their children, and we tell parents that they cannot expect their children to behave any better than they do. And I do not know how the President could expect democracies or burgeoning democracies around the world to behave any better than he does. There are a couple other things I wanted to highlight for people about the impact of the privatization plan because we got on our soap box for a little while.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I agree with you. I am ready to stand and fight and make sure that the security remains in Social Security. And, you know, just to close my portion of this out, the illustrative thing that I want to leave people with is we are both under 40; that is why we are here. Our generation, my friends, your friends, most of them when we chat with them when we are out to dinner, and we ask them whether they think Social Security is likely to be there for them when they retire, it is almost universal that the answer is no. In 37 years, 36 years, let us say 2041, we are going to be 74 years old. You and I are 3 weeks apart. And I am 3 weeks younger, I might add. We are going to be 74 years old. Now, when I learned that, I was amazed because I really was one of those people. Social Security will be there, even if we do nothing, which is not what we are advocating. We are advocating take a little slower approach. Let us make sure that we keep the security in Social Security. In 46 years, the outlying date for which insolvency is less likely to occur, we will be 84 years old. Now, that is well within the number of years, 20 years after retirement, that we can ensure that Social Security will be there for us. What we have to do is we have to stand with our feet firmly planted on the ground and say you have taken this country this far, no further.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is right.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, that is an important point, and I appreciate the gentleman making that point. But the point is that from one day to the next, we had a 200-point swing. Now, is that what people are going to be comfortable with in terms of their retirement security, in terms of ensuring that they have at least a minimum amount of money available for them when they retire? Because, for example, 20 percent of single retired women, most of whom are widows, the only source of their income is their Social Security. Now, if we invest it in the stock market and privatize Social Security, what are we going to do for those women when their nest egg that they banked on is not there because of fluctuations like the one that the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) just referred to? I just wonder.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I think they made it pretty clear how they feel about the courts.