[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4780 Introduced in House (IH)]







107th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 4780

   To reject proposals to partially or completely substitute private 
   saving accounts for the lifelong, guaranteed, inflation-protected 
          insurance benefits provided through Social Security.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 21, 2002

Mr. Matsui (for himself, Mr. Gephardt, Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Rangel, and Mrs. 
   Thurman) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To reject proposals to partially or completely substitute private 
   saving accounts for the lifelong, guaranteed, inflation-protected 
          insurance benefits provided through Social Security.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Rejection of Social Security 
Privatization Act of 2002.''

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) President Bush promised to partially privatize Social 
        Security, and appointed a commission to develop a plan on his 
        behalf.
            (2) The commission developed three alternative plans that 
        would partially privatize Social Security.
            (3) The plans divert substantial monies from the Social 
        Security Trust Funds to pay for the private accounts, which 
        threatens benefits for current beneficiaries by significantly 
        weakening the financial condition of the Trust Funds, in direct 
        violation of repeated assurances that current beneficiaries 
        would not be affected by privatization of Social Security.
            (4) Plan 1 diverts Social Security revenues from the Trust 
        Funds to fund the private accounts, which worsens the solvency 
        of the Social Security Trust Funds by 25 percent over the next 
        75 years, demonstrating that privatization makes Social 
        Security's financing challenges more difficult rather than 
        less, and which would require across-the-board benefit 
        reductions of 20 percent over just the next 10 years in order 
        to fill the gap created by the diversion.
            (5) Plans 2 and 3 also divert Social Security revenues to 
        private accounts, and in addition substantially reduce 
        guaranteed Social Security benefits for future retirees, as 
        well as for disabled workers and their families, and the 
        survivors of deceased workers.
            (6) The plans' cuts in disability and survivor benefits 
        directly contradict the President's promise that disability and 
        survivor benefits would be preserved under privatization.
            (7) Furthermore, these reductions in guaranteed benefits 
        apply to all workers, regardless of whether they chose to have 
        an individual account or not.
            (8) On top of these reductions in the basic Social Security 
        benefit, all three of the President's privatization plans 
        impose additional reductions in Social Security benefits for 
        those who chose to have an account, so they would not receive 
        both their full Social Security benefit and the full proceeds 
        from the account, as many Americans have been led to believe in 
        the debate about privatization to date.
            (9) Independent actuarial analysis by the Social Security 
        Chief Actuary shows the following:
                    (A) Plan 1 of the President's commission drains 
                $1.2 trillion from the Trust Funds over the next 10 
                years, a revenue loss equal to 20 percent of benefit 
                payments over the same period.
                    (B) Plan 2 reduces Social Security benefits for 
                future retirees by up to 46 percent, and drains $1.5 
                trillion from the Social Security Trust Funds in the 
                next 10 years.
                    (C) Plan 3 reduces benefits for future retirees by 
                up to 30 percent, it effectively raises the retirement 
                age, and it drains $1.3 trillion from the Social 
                Security Trust Funds in the next 10 years.
            (10) Substituting private accounts for guaranteed Social 
        Security benefits increases financial risk for retirees, 
        disabled workers and their families; reduces Social Security 
        protections for women, low-income workers, and many members of 
        minority groups; and erodes benefits for the dependent children 
        of workers who retire, become disabled, or die.
            (11) The President's plans have demonstrated beyond a doubt 
        the difficult tradeoffs inherent in privatization: cuts in 
        guaranteed benefits; new financial risks for workers and their 
        families; damage to the Social Security Trust Funds; and the 
        need for massive subsidies from general revenues to cover the 
        cost of the transition to private accounts.
            (12) Moreover, other proposals to privatize Social 
        Security, such as the ``Social Security Guarantee Plus'' plan 
        or the ``Social Security Ownership and Guarantee'' plan, 
        establish private accounts that directly or indirectly reduce 
        Social Security benefits through clawbacks or benefit offsets, 
        thus placing on workers the responsibility to individually 
        assure their own retirement income, which is the very essence 
        and purpose of ``privatization''.
            (13) Such privatization plans are not fiscally sustainable, 
        in that they require massive resources to finance the accounts, 
        accompanied by new Federal borrowing on an unprecedented scale. 
        According to independent actuarial analysis--
                    (A) the Social Security Guarantee Plus plan would 
                require $3.6 trillion in new Federal subsidies over the 
                next 40 years, which would equal $8 trillion if the 
                funds were borrowed, and
                    (B) the Social Security Ownership and Guarantee 
                plan would require new Federal subsidies whose 
                accumulated value would reach $20.4 trillion over the 
                next 75 years, plus borrowing of $21.3 trillion over 
                the same period.
        Thus, their adoption would lead to deep cutbacks in guaranteed 
        benefits for current and future retirees, disabled workers and 
        their families, and the survivors of deceased workers.
            (14) Therefore, these forms of privatization also do damage 
        to the Social Security Trust Funds and undermine Social 
        Security's ability to pay lifelong, guaranteed, inflation-
        protected benefits.

SEC. 3. REJECTION OF PRIVATIZATION.

    The Congress hereby commits--
            (1) to preserve the guaranteed, lifelong, inflation-
        protected benefits provided under title II of the Social 
        Security Act to retirees, disabled workers and their families, 
        and the survivors of deceased workers; and
            (2) therefore to reject--
                    (A) the President's plans to partially privatize 
                Social Security, which would reduce the retirement 
                security of current and future beneficiaries, and which 
                would reduce guaranteed Social Security benefits for 
                retirees, disabled workers, and survivors;
                    (B) other proposals to privatize Social Security by 
                establishing private accounts that would undermine 
                traditional Social Security benefits, such as the 
                ``Social Security Guarantee Plus'' plan or the ``Social 
                Security Ownership and Guarantee'' plan; and
                    (C) any and all proposals that would threaten the 
                ability of the Social Security Trust Funds to sustain 
                the lifelong, guaranteed, inflation-protected benefits 
                provided under the Social Security Act today by 
                establishing private accounts that divert resources 
                from the Trust Funds, require fiscally unsustainable 
                subsidies, or are integrated with Social Security 
                benefits or financing.
                                 <all>