Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, every day, Social Security provides vital benefits to millions of Americans who worked and paid into the system. To ensure workers would receive full access to these fundamental lifeline benefits, for many years, the law protected these earned benefits from attempts to recover debts. However, 20 years ago, Congress suddenly reversed course, and made a change to the law that allowed the government to cut Social Security and other hard-earned benefit payments in order to collect student loan and other Federal debts, like home loans owed to the Veterans Administration, and food stamp overpayments.

Now more than ever, the loss of these protections is creating a major hardship for American Citizens who rely on Social Security and other earned benefits to make ends meet. Student loan debt is becoming an increasingly serious problem in in Oregon and across the nation, with students and their families burdened by crushing student loan debt. Even in the best circumstances, many families will struggle to pay off crippling loans for years to come. However, for people who rely on benefits like Social Security after retirement, disability, or the death of a family member, making payments on student loans or other federal debts can become an insurmountable hardship.

Because of the lifeline nature of these earned benefits, for more than 40 years the law prevented all creditors from collecting hard-earned Social Security, Railroad Retirement, and Black Lung benefits to recoup debts. The only exceptions included unpaid Federal taxes, child support or alimony payments, and court-ordered victim restitution. These protections helped ensure that our social safety net programs were functioning as intended--something I think we can all agree is essential to preserving Social Security and other earned benefits.

Astonishingly, when the law changed as part of a 1996 omnibus budget bill, these changes were never fully debated in Congress. This means Members of Congress never had the chance to really explore how this policy would affect beneficiaries. The legislation ultimately included some protections for the most vulnerable, but even those protections have not been updated in 20 years.

We now realize what a profound effect the loss of these protections has had on retirees and individuals with disabilities, who often live on fixed incomes. More and more seniors and people with disabilities are having their Social Security and other lifeline benefits taken away to pay federal debts. For example, according to a September 2014 GAO report, the number of individuals whose Social Security benefits were offset to pay student loan debt increased significantly between 2002 and 2013, from about 31,000 to 155,000. For individuals 65 and older with student loan-related Social Security garnishments, the number grew from about 6,000 to about 36,000 over the same period. Congress should restore sanity to the system, and reestablish the protections that these beneficiaries deserve.

That is why I, along with Senators BROWN, WHITEHOUSE, GILLIBRAND, KLOBUCHAR, SANDERS and WARREN are introducing the Protection of Social Security Benefits Restoration Act. The bill would restore the strong protections in the law that prevented the government from taking away earned benefits to pay Federal debts, and guarantee beneficiaries will be able to maintain a basic standard of living by receiving the benefits they have earned. The bill is supported by Social Security Works, The Strengthen Social Security Coalition, AFL-CIO, Justice in Aging, Campaign for America's Future, Global Policy Solutions, Student Debt Crisis, the National Organization for Women, RootsAction.org, Project Springboard, The Alliance for a Just Society, the Economic Opportunity Institute, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, The Arc of the United States, The Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source