David Thomas

There are, I can assure you, and I represent the poorest. And agricultural counties by nature of the cyclical work tend to be the poorest and have the highest unemployment and low literacy. Child care needs are very high. That is why we…

Since the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) wants me to explain the reference about cesspools referred to by me, I referred to it as a cesspool of red ink. And if anybody does not believe $24 billion of State government…

Once again, as a Member from California, California currently, under the Democratic Governor, is $24 billion in the red and this would add another $1 billion over 5 years of an induced stick, if they want to receive the illusory benefits…

Just so we stay on this planet in terms of our rhetoric, six times between March and May, this House passed tax reduction bills. Every one of them was permanent, including on April 4, H.R. 8, which repealed the death or estate tax. That…

I recommend to all of my friends in the Senate that we approve Judge O'Brien. Certainly, no one has been as qualified, as my colleague pointed out. In the appointment process, we had a committee sort through the judge prospects in our…

Reclaiming my time, I tell the gentlewoman that that is my understanding. That is the way we intended to write the legislation, and in conferring with the Department of Labor, they have indicated to us that that is the appropriate…

I know the gentleman has his speaking points that have been passed out, and he is trying to stay on them; but I really wish he would realize that this House, back in December, passed trade adjustment authority, which had a provision for…

Once again we have heard those words ``we eliminate alternative minimum tax.'' They just cannot get over it. It is not true and no matter how many times they say it, it will not be true. If the gentleman wants his promise kept, all he has…

I worked on this proposition, of course, last week. Our purpose, and our goal, is to try to make the marketplace more responsive. Our cattlemen take their cattle into a marketplace, into an auction market, hopefully, to sell at the best…

Some people might think it is the late hour when they listen to the math on the other side of the aisle. I have to assure those who believe it is the late hour that, actually, they do this in daylight as well. I read off the amount of…

Mr. Speaker, I tell my friend I have great admiration for the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell). But this health insurance plan was devised by someone who proudly calls himself a compassionate conservative, and the description the…

If anyone wants to look at any of the other pages in the bill, they will find out that on the health provision, there was $3 billion provided, and on unemployment, there was 9.2. That bill had $12.2 billion directed toward the unemployed…

I had the privilege at one time, for example, of accompanying the gentleman to Ground Zero... to understand firsthand what had happened to the Big Apple.

Especially when they are arguing that we need to do this very risky scheme, jeopardizing the ability to be accurate, and committing enormous general funds to the trust fund to replace the hole in the trust fund that would bring insolvency…

In addition, of course, not everybody has the luxury of a large staff being paid to manage payroll and computers to deal with it. So we do not know the uneven burden that is going to be placed on employers who would now have to add a…

Of course, it does not even address the game playing that would go on if we were able to set up a system and we were losing $40 billion out of the trust fund. We would have employees negotiating with employers where particular benefits or…

Apart from the obvious in immediate lost to the trust funds, there has been some concern about the ability to execute the proposal. The loss of funds is bad enough, but when we strip it to the essentials of the proposal, those…

I am not certain of that. I only know this nomination has been waiting now for over 200 days.

You and me and the gentleman who is giving you all the answers there. He doesn't get Social Security until he reaches 65.

We are dealing differently with a relatively small segment of folks here than we do with others.

Wouldn't it be simpler over time if you just separated Social Security from a private retirement annuity program? Then you would have the same Social Security benefits as everyone else, and then you could add to it in the private sector…

I would love to see them do whatever they would like. They can do the best they can. But I think a lot of people are anxious, as you look at these other charts--I am sorry I can't tell you who proposed this chart, but it shows over time…

But under the private annuity programs, they can't fall back on the Government. They are private. This is a mixture, and it is sort of confusing for most of us. The Social Security, of course, has supplemented this substantially, largely…

Then is there any specific language that says that the taxpayers will never have to pick up part of this tier 2?

So in this program, if you start to get benefits at 60, they would be tier 2 benefits, and none of the Social Security would commence until you were 65?