Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman from Missouri for his comments. I don't know that I could add anything more to what he said. We are trying to fix this inequity that exists with this subset of the retirement or Social Security beneficiary population. I agree with Mr. Larson that we need a broader debate on Social Security, and we had better hurry up because it will be insolvent in less than 10 years, so we need to talk about the solvency and sustainability, the entirety of the program, the pay-fors, programmatic reforms, and the benefits. All of it should be on the table. That is why as budget chair, I passed a bipartisan fiscal commission that would look at that and also at Medicare, which is another important safety net for seniors. However, we are talking about one specific subset. I love the gentleman's passion, and I hope that we can get thoughtful Members on both sides of the aisle, like my friend, to sit at the table and do the right, the responsible, and the mature thing and actually work on a compromise solution like Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did, and I will bet the gentleman agrees with that. However, we are not talking about the entirety of Social Security. We are talking about this subset, this subset of people affected by WEP. It is about 2 million people. I want to fix that for them. I want them to get the money they have earned, because the windfall elimination provision wasn't adequate.…”