On the recordFebruary 16, 2011
The support for your last three points of order rulings against Mr. Tonko has been relying upon the Budget Committee chairman's advice to the Chair. The Budget Committee chairman is someone who advocates on behalf of the majority for privatizing Social Security. To explain to the viewers and to this Chamber what that means, it is that he believes and the Republicans believe, if you take Social Security, which is a guaranteed program that can pay 100 percent of all of its benefits for at least 26 years, and if you invest a portion of that in the stock market, it is a better policy. It is on that person's advice that you have been ruling on the last few occasions that Mr. Tonko is out of order in trying to preserve that system that we have. If there is an important debate in the context of the American budget in the year 2011, it is the one that Mr. Tonko is trying to engage: It is privatizing Social Security, which is what this side of the aisle, Madam Chair, seeks to do, versus keeping this program the way it is-- the single most successful government program, arguably, in American history. What Mr. Tonko and many of us are trying to do is to preserve that program. Let's have this debate on this floor in an honest way.
