John Larson: “What we need, and the guarantee that we have provided every American through Social Security, is, as the gentlewoman…”

“What we need, and the guarantee that we have provided every American through Social Security, is, as the gentlewoman pointed out, a safety net, a floor from which they cannot fall through. And, as the gentlewoman pointed out, our pension systems are already overstressed. We have gone from defined benefit to defined contribution to companies pulling out, wholesale, from providing benefits, to people's personal savings where, again, the gentlewoman points out the difficulty that people have, the lack of incentives that are there for them to save. So the question that a lot of the people at my forums ask is why would we introduce an element of risk in the only guarantee that we have on that three-legged stool that prevents us from falling through the floor and into the depths of poverty, which for a woman in this country is so vitally important.”