John Shaw: “Anyone watching this debate today must wonder, what in the world is the Congress doing to the schoolteachers? What in…”

“Anyone watching this debate today must wonder, what in the world is the Congress doing to the schoolteachers? What in the world is going on here? I think a few things need a little bit of explaining. We have two people, a man and a woman, working and receiving and paying into the Social Security Trust Fund. When one dies, the surviving spouse gets either surviving benefits or their own Social Security, whichever is higher. If we take a situation now and say, well, let us look at people who are not covered under Social Security. If they work 1 day under Social Security, they get both their survivor benefits and their pension plan. This is not fair. If we were to allow this to happen for all American workers under Social Security where they could receive both their pension and the survivor's benefits, within 10 years we will have a $1 trillion deficit in the Social Security Trust Fund and we will be bankrupt. This bill passed this House with only 28 people in the whole House voting against it.”