House Proceeding 09-24-09 on Sep 24th, 2009 :: 0:19:50 to 0:24:35
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0:19:48 to 0:20:10( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: veterinarians make a difference every day. unfortunately too many rural communities don't have the necessary support. the veterinary services investment act will go a long way in the right direction. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes mr. defazio of ore

0:19:50 to 0:24:35( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Peter A. DeFazio

0:20:11 to 0:20:31( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: mr. defazio: i thank the chair. earlier today, the house passed a bill that will give reliefo about a quarter of the nation's seniors on social security by not having them experience a medicare premium increase this year. that's all well and good, herer

0:20:32 to 0:20:53( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: tos you, times are tough. but it doesn't go to the other 3/4 of the nation's social security recipients and doesn't get to the bottom line that there is, for the first time, since we had a regularly adjusted social security cola, used to be into the 50's and

0:20:54 to 0:21:15( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: early 1960's, before we placed in place a cost of living adjustment, they would get one in election years strangely enough. and congress would wake up, notice that seniors were out there, give them some sort of an increase. now, we fixed that problem many years ago by saying, social security benefits would be automatically adjusted.

0:21:16 to 0:21:37( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: but the measure that is used is incredibly flawed. it was not only flaw to begin with, what thcost of living index is calculated on is a lot of things seniors don't buy. things that have gotten cheaper in the bad economy, like giant flat screen televisions and computers and cell phones and other things that are not

0:21:38 to 0:21:59( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: consumed to any great extent by our nation's senior. but if anybody has checked the price of pharmaceuticals or medical care or basic utilities and many other must-have expenses, they haven't gone down. in fact, they've gone up.

0:22:00 to 0:22:20( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: but seniors, some of whom are living only on a social security checkmark who are principally dependent on that it's faulty. it was tampered with by the republicans and alan greenspan, that great guru, the guy who

0:22:21 to 0:22:41( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: almost helped destroy the world economy through his deregulationist philosophy which became so embedded wall street ran wild. greenspan always hated social security and tried to find ways to go after it. he convinced a republican congress that the st of living index actually overestimated inflation and

0:22:42 to 0:23:02( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: should take away one point before you give a cola to seniors on social security. the republican congress did that now, here we are today. we have a democratic congress. we're being told that there's no inflation. seniors won't get a cola. the obama administration said probably for two years they

0:23:03 to 0:23:24( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: won't get a cost of living adjustment. that's 23409 right. the things they buy are going up in price, dramatically. they're having tremendous difficulti living on a fixed income. i've had a bill for a number of years that would put in place a new cost of living index called a cpie, elderly to look at the things they have have to buy to

0:23:25 to 0:23:45( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: live and get by. that hasn't gone anywhere, but i'm still pushing that idea. while we're working on developing a true index that would really look at the costs for seniors, we should pass a one-year cost of living adjustment. we can do that without borrowing the money, with no impact to the socl security

0:23:46 to 0:24:06( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: trust fund, very simply. we would just say that those who earn over $250,000 a year, up to, the estimates are we'd have to go to $359,000, that's between $250,000 of income and $359,000, they would pay the same rate of social security

0:24:07 to 0:24:28( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: tax as every normal wage earning american who earns less tha$1 of,000 a year. if you earn less than $106,000 a year, you pay on every cent of your income. but you don't pay after $106,000 every year.

0:24:29 to 0:24:38( Edit History Discussion )

Peter A. DeFazio: so we would have people pay the same rate of social security tax as every other american that would pay for a one-time cola for seniors to help them