Ed Markey: “The motion which I am offering at this time on behalf of myself, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) and many other…”

“The motion which I am offering at this time on behalf of myself, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) and many other Members is to ensure that as the Members of the House now meet with members of the Senate on the energy bill, that the Members from the House be instructed that none of the expenditures inside of the bill, as it is finally produced, using the number which is now in the House bill, $34 billion worth of subsidies, should be paid for out of the Social Security or Medicare trust fund. The bulk of the subsidies in the bill go to the oil, to the gas, to the coal, to the nuclear industries. Some of it goes to the renewable industries. That is all fine, but it should not come out of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Senior citizens in our country have worked too long and too hard in building those trust funds so they can be there to provide both for the income retirement guarantee and for the health care guarantee. Otherwise we will see a cutback in the quality of health care which senior citizens get and a cutback in the amount of money they will have on a daily or weekly basis to pay for the necessities in their life. So this is the critical moment where we begin to decide whether or not we are going to be tough on the squandering of the trust funds.”