Doris Matsui: “Mr. Speaker, I have to say I really do not understand why we are here today debating this issue. We should be taking up…”

“Mr. Speaker, I have to say I really do not understand why we are here today debating this issue. We should be taking up prescription drugs. We should perhaps even take up the President's three proposals that his Social Security Commission has come up with, because obviously we want to debate the whole issue of whether or not Social Security should be privatized or partially privatized. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) has a piece of legislation on Social Security that privatizes the entire Social Security system over a period of years. We should be debating that issue now. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means, has a privatization of Social Security bill. We should be discussing that. If not those things, which are very important to the American public, at least we should be discussing why at a time of war we are allowing U.S. corporations like Stanley Corporation to go offshore and save $30 million in taxes because now they have become not a U.S. corporation but a foreign corporation in Bermuda; and we all know that all they are going to do is just open up a post office box, a mailbox perhaps, and then be able to save $30 million in taxes. And this is not going to help their employees. This is going to go into the pockets of the owners. So why not debate these issues?”