Porter Goss: “Mr. Speaker, I am from Florida, and when we say the words ``Social Security'' in my district in Florida, we get a lot of…”

“Mr. Speaker, I am from Florida, and when we say the words ``Social Security'' in my district in Florida, we get a lot of attention immediately, because we have an awful lot of the Nation's seniors who have found the quality of life to be terrific, and are living in Florida, as we all know, and it is the place of choice for our retirees. Ironically, as we bring this bill up today, today's Washington Post reports that more than two-thirds of all Americans do not think Social Security will survive to pay them benefits. In other words, what they are saying is that they are going to outlive the Social Security system. Many of these or most of these, of course, are our younger workers. They feel they are just shoveling their hard-earned dollars into a bottomless pit. Today, with H.R. 4277, we have a chance to implement one commonsense Social Security amendment to help restore a level of confidence in the system. We have all seen the reports of the abuses in the SSI and SSDI programs--how drug-pushers and bartenders are cashing Government-support checks to fund the addictions of beneficiaries.”