Tom Harkin: “I will not even take 2 minutes. I listened to the impassioned argument of my friend from Pennsylvania. I just had two…”

“I will not even take 2 minutes. I listened to the impassioned argument of my friend from Pennsylvania. I just had two observations. No. 1, along the lines of what Senator Lautenberg said, No. 1, what retirement income will a Senator have when a Senator retires here? What is that retirement income going to be? A lot of money. When a Senator retires at age 65, you get a lot of money--big time money for retirement. It is not a blue collar worker retiring on Social Security, No. 1. No. 2, if you retire as a Federal Government employee or as a U.S. Senator, you can keep your Federal employee's health benefits. There is no gap for you. You can keep it. It costs you, what, $100-something a month, $110, $120 a month. So it is easy for a Senator to stand here and talk about saving his generation. But those in his generation are not all U.S. Senators. Those in his generation are not all people who can go on Federal Employee health benefits when they reach age 62. They need Medicare. That is where most of America is, not sitting in the U.S. Senate. I yield the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The Senator from New Jersey.”