[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 148 (Wednesday, October 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H9713]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ON SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Sanford] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I have before you a bill that I introduced 
today. It is a bill that would put the worst insomniac in the world to 
sleep. I look here at 160 or 170 pages that by themselves are long and 
boring pages. And yet what this bill is about is, in essence, I think 
something that is very exciting. That is, I think that this bill, which 
is a bill to save Social Security, is a bill about the American dream.
  Because if you were to stop and think about it, I think that what we 
would all agree upon is that a part of the American dream is tied to 
ending a lifetime of work with something more than just memories. And 
yet for many Americans, in fact, we pulled the number at home in my 
State of South Carolina.
  Last year, about 38,000 people died and only about 243 filled out 
Federal estate tax returns, which says to me that something is wrong, 
because clearly for that small a number, 38,000 people died but 243 
filled out Federal estate tax returns, which means in the eyes of the 
Federal Government they had accumulated enough in the way of assets to 
hold an estate that ought to be taxed. It says that something is wrong 
in fulfilling that part of the American dream that ties straight to 
ending a lifetime of work with more than something other than just 
memories.
  What is interesting about that is that a lot of people are beginning 
to recognize it. It has been constantly something that comes up in my 
congressional district back in South Carolina. Folks say to me, both 
young and old, the young folks say, I do not think I am going to get my 
Social Security when I grow up or when I finish working or when I 
retire. Older folks are saying, what I am hearing from my grandson or 
my granddaughter is that they do not think they are going to get their 
Social Security. And not only is it being heard in essence from the 
right, I guess is where I come from, but from the left.
  I mean somebody like Sam Beard, a person who I have been working very 
hard on this idea of saving Social Security. Sam Beard comes from the 
opposite political philosophy of my own. He was a staffer for Robert 
Kennedy. He spent his entire lifetime working, trying to do something 
about the inner cities. He thinks that one of the only ways that you 
save the inner city is with this idea of personal savings accounts, 
which is what is talked about in this bill.

  Because right now, though April 15 is a big day, April 15 is really 
an insignificant day when you think about overall tax rates in this 
country, because for 70 percent of Americans, the largest tax that they 
will pay is not income tax but payroll tax. And with Social Security 12 
percent or, to be exact, 12.4 percent comes right off the top, not on 
April 15 but on every single working day.
  What the trustees have said is with that 12 percent that is going 
toward one's retirement plan, what they have said is that if we do 
nothing to save Social Security, it goes bankrupt in about 30 years and 
it begins running structural deficits in about 15, such that either you 
have to look at cutting benefits by about 14 percent or raising payroll 
taxes by about 16 percent.
  Both young people and old people that I talked to at home in South 
Carolina say neither of those are great options. What the trustees have 
also said is that the overall rate of return for everybody working and 
paying into Social Security today is 1.9 percent. And that everybody 
born after 1948 will get a negative rate of return on their Social 
Security investment. Again, these are not numbers that tie to people 
being able to live out the American dream in their retirement years.
  So either you can wait and do nothing, which might be the 
conventional political wisdom in Washington, or you can look at cutting 
benefits, which I do not think is acceptable, or you can look at 
raising payroll taxes, which I do not think is acceptable, or you can 
try one other thing. It has been tried around the world.
  That is, letting people earn more than this 1.9 percent or more than 
this negative number on their Social Security investment. That is what 
this bill does. What it does is simply offers people a choice. 
Everybody above the age of 65 would simply stay on Social Security as 
we know it. But people below that age would simply have a choice. That 
is, if they thought Social Security made more sense for themselves and 
their families then they could continue to stay on Social Security as 
we know it. But if they thought it did not, they could, instead of 
having their payroll tax go to Washington, it could be redirected into 
their own personal savings account that they owned and controlled and 
got a monthly statement on.
  That is not such a crazy idea because it has been a well-tested idea. 
It has been an idea that Great Britain has moved toward. It has been an 
idea that seven countries down in South America have moved toward. It 
has been an idea with 3.5 million workers in our own country that has 
been in essence tested. This is the beginning of a conversation about 
the American dream.

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