Social Security

SOCIAL SECURITY -- (House of Representatives - March 08, 2005)

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pence). Pursuant to the order of the House of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, last Friday, President Bush quickly stopped in on Westfield, New Jersey, to talk to a bunch of his supporters about his Social Security privatization proposal. The Westfield, New Jersey, stop was part of a 6-week push to convince Americans that the Social Security program faces an immediate crisis. The President did not do as well as he wanted, and so now he has hired a couple of public relations experts to run a war room at the Social Security Administration. The administration is also beginning a 60-day push to convince voters that his privatization plan is the best thing for both seniors today and young people tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, President Bush has failed in convincing Americans that his plan is the way to go because he has even admitted that privatization does nothing to fix the solvency problem Social Security faces in the year 2052. As the President goes around the country pitching his privatization plan, he continues to exaggerate Social Security's current fiscal state. Last Friday in Westfield, he claimed, "The safety net has a hole in it," and he continues to say that the whole system goes broke in 2042.

That is simply not true. Based on the most current estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Social Security is fully solvent until 2052, meaning that every benefit that has been promised to seniors, the disabled, and survivors can be paid through that year. Imagine that. There is no other government program that is fully funded for the next 47 years. And President Bush calls this a crisis?

The President is also wrong when he says the program goes broke in 2042, because, as I stated, it is not only fully solvent another decade after that, but what exactly happens in 2052? When President Bush says Social Security goes broke, most would believe there is no money left after 2052 in Social Security. After all, if you look at Webster's Dictionary, it defines "broke" simply as "penniless." Again, this is another fabrication because even after 2052, the Social Security system would still have enough money to be able to pay out 80 percent of all guaranteed benefits. That does not sound broke to me: 100 percent to 2052, 80 percent after that. How is that a crisis? How is that broke?

Again, the President exaggerates the solvency of Social Security. But what has he proposed that will extend that solvency beyond 2052? The answer is, nothing, as of today. Last Friday in New Jersey, the President said, "We've got to make sure we save the safety net for future generations." But even the President has admitted that his privatization plan does nothing to extend the solvency of Social Security. In fact, because the President's plan would take money out of the Social Security trust fund to pay for these private accounts, Social Security would actually become insolvent more than 20 years earlier under President Bush's plan.

Mr. Speaker, for 70 years, Social Security has improved the lives of millions of Americans. Nearly 47 million people receive Social Security benefits, including more than 32 million retired workers. Of those, two-thirds receive more than half of their retirement income from Social Security, meaning that without the guaranteed benefit of Social Security, more than two-thirds of today's seniors would be living in extreme poverty.

Social Security gave our parents and our grandparents independence. Democrats, Mr. Speaker, are willing to work with the President in a bipartisan fashion to address Social Security's future, but we simply refuse to support the President's privatization proposal because it dismantles the independent Social Security program. Our seniors now have a guaranteed benefit. They would not have one if we adopt the President's plan. And it does nothing to solve the Social Security solvency problem, again, in 2052.

I think our seniors deserve better. We deserve a President that tells us the truth about what is going on. There is no crisis. Let us sit down together on a bipartisan basis and see what we can do to come up with a solution other than privatization.

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