mr. larson, thanks very much. you brought a great deal of passion. i know it's in your heart and you see this problem in your own district among friends and others who are there. i'm going to go through and i want to turn back to my colleague from ohio and california in a moment. i said there were seven pieces of legislation that have been passed and signed into law and i'm going to go through them quickly because in their own way, each one of these has created economic growth and jobs here in california, in ohio and in other states across the nation. i mentioned the american recovery and reinvestment act. we talked about the worker home ownership and business assistance act, first-time buyers. mr. larson talked briefly about insurance reform, the way in which the insurance system discriminates against women and people who have pre-existing conditions. that insurance reform was embodied in the health reform act that passed this floor and not one republican voted for it. there will be a day of reckonning when someone says, my 23-year-old daughter can

mr. larson. mr. larson: thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to talk about social security. i rise because our colleagues on the other side of the aisle in this past weekend alone have said they want to return, they want to return to the bush years, they want to return to privatizing social security, they want to do so so they can help balance the deficit by cutting social security. can you imagine had the bush tax cuts gone through, had the bush proposal for social security gone through what would happen to so many of our citizens during this great recession? people who rely solely on social security would not have anywhere to turn to. the concept and the idea we often criticize our colleagues for saying they have no plan but in fact they do. they want to privatize social security. yeah, they want to privatize social security, they want to voucher medicare, they want to block grant medicaid and then they rant to turn around and take your health benefits and treat them as ordinary income and tax them. ladies and gentlemen, members of the democratic caucus, stand firmly behin