Political Quotes

“I am here this morning to talk about Social Security. I start with commending Chairman Neal of the Ways and Means Committee, and especially for his formation of the Racial Equity Committee that was headed up by one of the previous speakers, Terri Sewell, and Steven Horsford, and Jimmy Gomez. Our great colleague, John Lewis, said that Social Security would be the next civil rights movement. John had probably no idea about what the pandemic would bring. What the pandemic has done has underscored the plight and the need of all of our fellow Americans. What I mean by that is this: This pandemic has hit the country hard. It is turning everybody's lives upside down. There are close to a million people in our country that have perished during this pandemic because of COVID-19; but 740,000 plus are over the age of 65. In that same group over the age of 65 are, of course, the recipients of Social Security. Those recipients also are the people who are on a fixed income. People on a fixed income are hurt the hardest by the inflationary times that we are in. That is why we have proposed Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, that is currently in the process of being marked up in the Ways and Means Committee. It is being marked up so that we can address what Martin Luther King best described as the fierce urgency of now. What is that fierce urgency?…”