[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 127 (Thursday, October 12, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H9894-H9897]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SOCIAL SECURITY SOLVENCY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, to whoever might be looking at 
this session, this is going to be sort of a briefing on Social 
Security.
  Social Security has come to the forefront of one of the very 
important issues in this Presidential debate, certainly with every 
senior, certainly also with every worker in this country as they now 
pay more into the Social Security tax than they do in the income tax, 
and certainly for our kids, our grandkids, those kids that are not born 
yet, is Social Security going to be there for them.
  Let me start with my first chart. I would like to thank Senator Rod 
Grams from Minnesota. He has introduced legislation to keep Social 
Security solvent, as I have. I have been chairing the bipartisan Social 
Security Task Force of the Committee on the Budget and, so, we have 
been working on Social Security for the last 5 years trying to get 
public attention to the fact that Social Security is insolvent and 
eventually there is going to be less money coming in than is required 
for benefits and the challenge facing this country if we are going to 
make a commitment not to reduce benefits, and we should do that, not to 
increase taxes even further on workers in this country, and we should 
do that.
  When Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Social Security program 
over 6 decades ago, he wanted it to feature a private sector component 
to build retirement income. Social Security was supposed to be one leg 
of a three-legged stool to support retirees. It was supposed to go 
hand-in-hand with personal savings and private pension plans.
  In fact, it is interesting, looking up and researching in the 
archives in 1935, the Senate on two occasions voted that private 
personal investments should be an option to the Government handling the 
system. When it finally went to the conference committee between the 
House and the Senate, it turned around strictly to a Government-run 
program, a pay-as-you-go program where current workers pay in their 
taxes and immediately it goes out to current retirees.
  This is Berry Pump, an intern that is going to be helping me, from 
Iowa. So our intern program is an excellent opportunity for juniors in 
high school. So, Berry, thank you very much.
  The system really is now stretched to its limits. Seventy-eight 
million baby boomers begin retiring in 2008. That means they go out of 
the, if you will, paying in mode, paying their Social Security taxes, 
to the taking out mode. And these baby boomers are at the high end of 
the income scale, so they pay a much higher tax since our tax now is 
12.4 percent on the first $76,000. Social Security expending exceeds 
tax revenues in 2015, and so the problem is where do we start getting 
the extra money starting in 2015.
  The bottom blip is Social Security trust funds go broke in 2037, 
although the crisis could arrive much sooner. And the crisis is trying 
to come up with that money. The danger historically as we look at what 
has happened through history, politicians in Washington and the 
President, for example, in 1997 and again in 1983, when money was short 
to pay out benefits, legislation was passed to reduce benefits and 
increase taxes. And that is why it is so very important that we deal 
with this problem now, we do not delay, we do not put it off. The 
longer we put off this problem, the more drastic the changes are going 
to have to be. So I think it is very important that we deal with this 
very important program as soon as we can.
  Some have said, well, these are just people's estimates of the 
future. Not so. Insolvency is an absolute. Insolvency is certain. We 
know how many people there are and we know when they are going to 
retire. We count the people. We know what their ages are. We know what 
their earning is, how much they are paying in. We know that people will 
live longer in retirement.
  When Social Security started in 1935, the average age of death was 62 
years. For this pay-as-you-go program, that meant most people paid in 
all their lives but never took anything out. It worked very well. But 
now the life span of individuals has been increasing substantially. We 
know how much these individuals will pay in, how much they will take 
out. The payroll taxes will not cover benefits starting in 2015. And 
the shortfalls will add up to $120 trillion between 2015 and 2075.
  So, in tomorrow's dollars, in those inflated dollars, it is going to 
take $120 trillion more than the tax revenue coming in from the Social 
Security tax to pay benefits.
  I suspect most of us do not know how much really a trillion dollars 
is. I certainly do not. But you can compare it maybe with our annual 
budget, which now is approximately $1.8 trillion annual budget. It is a 
huge challenge. And that is why it has been so easy for this Chamber 
and the Senate and the President not to take action on it. It is too 
easy to demagogue. And with this Chamber running for election every 2 
years, it is easy to put it off. We cannot do that any more. It is not 
fair to our kids. It is not fair to our grand kids. Our pay-as-you-go 
retirement system will not meet the challenge of demographic change.
  This is an example of workers per Social Security beneficiary. Back 
in 1940, there were 38 workers in this country paying in their Social 
Security tax for every one retiree. Now there are three workers paying 
in their increased Social Security tax for every one retiree. And by 
2025 there is going to be two workers paying in their Social Security 
tax for every one retiree.
  This was developed because of demographic changes. One is the falling 
birth rate after the baby boomers after World War II. So the number of 
workers has not increased at the rate it was in the past. And secondly, 
the life span is tremendously increased. So if you reach retirement 
age, 65, then on average you are going to live another 18 to 20 years. 
So life span is going up, the number of workers' birth rate is going 
down, and that leaves us with a huge problem of insolvency.
  The little blue blip on the top left, maybe it should be green, is 
the period between now and someplace around 2015 when there are more 
revenues coming in from Social Security taxes than is used to pay 
benefits. The reason there is a surplus now in the Social Security tax 
is because we raised the Social Security tax, Congress and the 
President raised the Social Security tax substantially in 1983. And we 
will be looking at that chart in a moment.
  What happens after 2015 is the shortfall. The red represents how much 
money we are going to need above and beyond the Social Security taxes 
that will be coming in from American workers.
  Berry will help us with the next five.
  Some have suggested we really do not need to do anything now because 
economic growth is great, we are going along smoothly. The fact is 
economic growth will not solve the Social Security problem. Let me tell 
you why. Social Security benefits are indexed to wage growth. In other 
words, the more wages you earn, the more taxes you pay in earlier. But 
when you retire, the more benefits you will get out because the 
benefits are directly related to the wages you earn.
  When the economy grows, workers pay more in taxes but also will earn 
more in benefits when they retire.

                              {time}  2000

  Growth makes the numbers look better now but leaves a larger hole to 
fill later. That is what has happened. Three years ago, we were going 
to run out of money by 2012; but with the economy expanding, now the 
projection is that we are going to have less money than needed 3 years 
later, in 2015. But when these people retire, then they are going to 
take out more. So over the long run, it does not offer a solution to 
Social Security.
  The administration has used these short-term advantages as an excuse 
to

[[Page H9895]]

do nothing. Politicians have used this as an excuse to do nothing. I 
think the fact is clear that many people have called this the third 
rail of politics. They have suggested if you come up with a fix for 
Social Security, you are going to be criticized so aggressively by one 
of the most powerful groups in this Nation, the AARP is going to say, 
``Don't mess around with our Social Security.''
  Working as chairman of the bipartisan Social Security task force, it 
was interesting to find out that the people from AARP understand the 
problems with Social Security and so they are no longer criticizing 
individuals or the Presidential candidates that come up with potential 
solutions for Social Security because they know it is a huge problem in 
the future.
  There is no Social Security account with your name on it. A couple of 
footnotes on this issue. The Supreme Court on two occasions now has 
ruled that there is no entitlement, no connection, between the Social 
Security taxes that you pay in and your rights to have any benefits. 
These trust fund balances are available to finance future benefit 
payments and other trust fund expenditures but only in a bookkeeping 
sense. They are claims on the Treasury that when redeemed will have to 
be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, reducing 
benefits or somehow reducing other expenditures. This is from the 
Office of Management and Budget.
  Some have compared the trust fund, that it is somehow a magical 
safeguard, that the money will be there. I like to use the comparison, 
what would happen with or without a trust fund, if we had no trust 
fund, coming up with the money to meet our promises, and I think we are 
going to do that. I think we have got to do that. If there was no trust 
fund, you would come up with the money in one of three ways: You would 
either reduce other spending, increase borrowing or increase taxes or 
reduce benefits.
  If there is a trust fund and you start calling on the trust fund but 
it is a bunch of IOUs in a box, government still has to come up with 
those same alternatives to pay back the money that has been borrowed 
from the trust fund and, that is, you increase borrowing, you increase 
taxes, you reduce benefits or you cut other expenditures. I do not 
think this body or the President is going to cut other expenditures of 
the Federal Government to the extent that is needed to cover the Social 
Security shortfall. I think the greater danger is in a continuing 
decision to say, ``Well, it's easier just to raise taxes a little bit 
or cut benefits a little bit.''
  Some have suggested that if we just pay down the debt held by the 
public and use that interest savings, that will help take care of the 
problem of Social Security and keep it solvent until 2057. In fact, 
Vice President Gore's plan, in effect, says, Let us add another giant 
IOU to the Social Security trust fund. But in trying to look at the 
problem of coming up with the finances necessary, and it is going to 
take $46.6 trillion to come up with the money to pay off Social 
Security until 2057. You cannot do that.
  This is the total debt held by the public. This is the total debt 
that everybody is talking about, bragging about, being able to pay down 
maybe in the next 10 to 12 years. The interest savings from that $3.4 
trillion can never solve a $46.6 trillion problem. So adding another 
IOU to the trust fund will not work.
  I have demonstrated this same problem in another graph. If you will, 
paying off the trust fund over this same period of time, we start with 
about a $180 billion a year savings in interest charges if we are going 
to pay off the $3.4 trillion of debt held by the public. That grows 
around to 2018 to be about $260 billion a year, and so the blue line 
represents, assuming that this $260 billion a year is now going to be 
dedicated every year to Social Security, it still only represents that 
bottom two inches of an 18-inch problem. And so the shortfall still 
remains $35 trillion. So to simply say we are going to add an IOU and 
somehow government is going to come up with the money and add this 
extra interest charge, interest savings to the Social Security trust 
fund is not going to solve the problem even if all the money was there.
  But again the problem is, where do you come up with the dollars? You 
come up with it by increasing taxes, cutting benefits, increasing 
borrowing. Just for the next 57 years, if we were to borrow that extra 
$35 trillion, the economists suggest that that would so disrupt the 
market and the economy in this country that it is not feasible. 
Remember, I said for 75 years it is going to take $120 trillion. There 
has got to be program changes. They can be made. Rod Grams and I and 
several others have introduced legislation that do not reduce a current 
or near-term retiree's benefits, that end up trying to accommodate by 
having a greater return on some of that investment that the worker is 
sending in in taxes. The average worker now is only getting less than a 
2 percent return on those Social Security taxes they send in and we can 
do much better than that.
  The biggest risk is doing nothing at all. Social Security has a total 
unfunded liability of over $20 trillion. Let me sort of go over these 
numbers. Over the next 75 years in today's dollars, it would be $20 
trillion. If we could come up with the $20 trillion now and start 
earning interest on it, we could solve the problem. If we wait year by 
year, then it is $120 trillion over the next 75 years and it is the 46, 
$47 trillion until 2057 when Vice President Gore says that it is going 
to keep the trust fund solvent. The Social Security trust fund contains 
nothing but IOUs. To keep paying promised Social Security benefits, the 
payroll tax will have to be increased by nearly 50 percent or benefits 
will have to be cut by 30 percent. I say that not to scare people but 
just to try to send the message that the longer we delay, the more 
drastic the solution. Something has got to be done now, because I think 
it would be unconscionable to increase taxes even further.

  The Social Security lock box. A little gimmicky maybe. I introduced a 
bill so that we would not spend any of the Social Security surplus. But 
this Congress has been spending the Social Security surplus for the 
last 40 years. So any extra money that comes into the Social Security 
trust fund has been spent for other government programs. The bad part 
of that is that it becomes almost an entitlement. Any program spending 
that we spend for 2 or 3 years, there is such a lobbying group, an 
infrastructure built up to insist that we continue spending that money 
that government has continued to grow. So increasing discretionary 
domestic social spending is very dangerous in terms of the obligations 
to our kids and our grandkids on future generations.
  The Social Security lockbox is what Republicans made. The decision 
was a good way to put that Social Security surplus aside, not spend it 
on other government programs, and it sort of ended up reducing the 
amount that we spend on government. That means that it has helped give 
us the kind of huge surplus that we are now experiencing this calendar 
year and again next year. It is interesting. The Vice President has 
said the lockbox is a good idea but I would remind everyone, Mr. 
Speaker, that we passed the lockbox legislation in this Chamber, we 
sent it to the Senate, and now the Senate Democrats are filibustering 
the lockbox law that we sent them. If the Vice President would ask the 
Democrats in the Senate to pass that bill, there is no doubt in my mind 
that it would be passed and sent to the President for signature.
  I am going to get in a little bit to talking about the diminishing 
returns on your Social Security investment. The real return of Social 
Security is less than 2 percent. It is about 1.9 percent on average for 
all workers. But it shows a negative return for some workers compared 
to the over 7 percent real return that you can get on average over the 
last 120 years in the stock market.
  As you look at this chart, and I hope the cameras can show it closely 
enough, minorities on average are going to have a negative return on 
the money they send in for Social Security. A young black male working 
today on average will die at age 62\1/2\. That means that they will pay 
in Social Security taxes all their life and not be entitled to anything 
except a $240 death tax for burial. So they are really getting gypped. 
The average again is 1.9 percent. Compare that to the market of real 
return of 7 percent. So if you can get a better return on some of that 
money being sent in for

[[Page H9896]]

Social Security, that has got to be part of the solution.
  Then part of the problem is the transition cost. How do we make this 
transition from wanting to start some of those retirement accounts that 
are going to get some of the higher interest rate returns and the 
challenge, of course, is using some of the surplus coming in to 
government today, some of the Social Security surplus, some of the 
general fund surplus to start some real investments that are going to 
give Americans an average income worker the opportunity to be a rich 
retiree.
  With this chart, I have attempted to demonstrate in another way what 
a bad investment Social Security is. This does not include the 
disability insurance. So the disability insurance is an absolute. No 
plan touches the disability insurance. So that part is insurance. You 
take your chances. Some people need the disability insurance and some 
do not. What I am talking about is the retirement, the rest of, I think 
it is approximately 10.4 percent of the 12.4 percent that is used for 
retirement purposes. And so that is what we are talking about. To get 
that portion back, if you retired in 1940, then that was pretty good. 
Taxes were not very high in those early years and you received 
everything you and your employer put into Social Security taxes and you 
received that back in 2 months. In 1960, it took 2 years to get it 
back. In 1980, it took 4 years to get it back. In 1995, if you retired 
in 1995, you have got to live 16 years after you retire to get your 
Social Security benefits back that you paid in, to break even for what 
you and your employer put into Social Security taxes. And you see 2015, 
26 years; 2025, 26 years. The reason this goes down a skosh is because 
of the fact that in 1983 when they passed that law, they actually 
increased the retirement age gradually, so now it goes gradually up 
from 65 to 67 over the next 20 years.
  This is a picture of Bonnie's and my grandkids. I have the picture on 
the wall of my office. When I come to vote in this Chamber on 
legislation, I look at that picture and think how is it going to affect 
my grandkids, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now. Our youngest here is 
Frances and our oldest in this picture is Nick, but both of them are 
going to have real challenges if they are ever going to get Social 
Security back.

                              {time}  2015

  It is interesting that young people today do not believe that Social 
Security is going to be there yet they are saving less than the 
previous generations of young people. How do we encourage more savings? 
The challenge is to fix this program now, because if we simply add IOUs 
to the trust fund, if we simply say that look, we are going to pass a 
law and put $20 trillion in the trust fund, then the actuaries would 
score Social Security as solvent for the next 75 years. The problem is 
still when there is less money coming in in taxes in 2015 than what is 
needed for benefits, where do you come up with the money?
  I am afraid what is going to happen if we continue to put off solving 
this problem is my grandkids, your kids and grandkids and their kids, 
are going to end up paying huge taxes. Right now the estimate is that 
if we do nothing to cover medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, you 
would have to go to a 47 percent tax on payroll. Our economy in this 
country was built on encouraging those people that work and that save, 
that try and invest, and if we were to put that kind of taxes on our 
workers I think there would be a generational rebellion. If we simply 
say, look, we are going to live how we want to live today and somehow 
make our kids and our grandkids pay for it later, we cannot do that.
  This is Salina; this is James; this is Henry; this is George, he is a 
real tiger; Emily; and I have actually two more grandkids I will have 
in the next couple of months. Maybe it is a situation where if all of 
us were grandfathers and we were in this chamber and we were concerned 
about the obligations that we are putting on our kids and grandkids as 
we make decisions to pass laws to make our lives easier now but put the 
debt on them, we have a $5.6 trillion debt that needs to be paid down.
  This is a chart on taxes. So just briefly in 1940 the Social Security 
tax was 2 percent on the first $3,000, or a maximum of $60. By 1960 it 
was 6 percent on the first $4,800, or a maximum of $288. By 1980 it was 
10.16 percent of the first $25,900, for a total of $2,630. Today it is 
12.4 percent on the first $76,200, for a total of $9,448.
  If we continue to add benefits to Social Security, not correct the 
problems with Social Security, then it is going to be my grandkids and 
your grandkids that are going to be facing the kind of increased tax 
that is going to be intolerable.
  Seventy-eight percent of families, working families in the United 
States, now pay more in the payroll tax than they do in the income tax. 
So we continue to raise this payroll tax. It is a tax that hurts low-
income people much more than high income people. It is the kind of tax 
that we should not be increasing. So let us not do it.
  The 6 principles that I agree with that Senator Rod Grams has agreed 
with, that Governor George W. Bush has agreed with, are we protect 
current and future beneficiaries. We allow freedom of choice. We 
preserve the safety net. We make Americans better off, not worse off. 
We create a fully funded system and no tax increases, and no reductions 
in benefits for those retirees, or near-term retirees.
  Personal retirement accounts, they do not come out of Social 
Security; they help Social Security earn more money to assure that 
those benefits are going to be there. They become part of your Social 
Security retirement benefits and a worker will own his or her own 
retirement account. That means if an individual might die before they 
are eligible for retirement, the money goes into their estate. Unlike 
today, if you die before your retirement then there is nothing there 
and it simply is added to the pot for other future retirees and 
beneficiaries and disability individuals; limited to safe investments 
that will earn more than the 1.9 percent paid by Social Security. So 
nobody is suggesting that we simply give this money to individuals and 
they be allowed to invest it however they want. All of the plans that I 
have seen say that it has to be a structured, limited type investment, 
something like maybe a 401(k), something like the Federal Thrift 
Savings Plan, where you choose from several safe investments; you have 
some options but they are all safe investments. In my bill that I 
introduced, I limit it to four safe investments with a potential 
expansion of additional safe investments that is decided by the 
treasurer of the United States.
  So the point is can we get a better return on our investment than 1.9 
percent? The answer is, yes.
  I borrowed this from Senator Grams because I think it is so important 
that we have to make sure we do this with the prerequisite that we do 
not increase taxes and that we do not reduce benefits for retirees or 
near-term retirees. Term retirement accounts offer more retirement 
security. If John Doe makes an average of $36,000 a year, he can expect 
monthly payments of $1,280 from Social Security. If he puts 10 percent 
of the 12.4 percent into a savings account, he can get $6,000 a month 
from his personal retirement savings account.
  Remember the picture of Nicholas, my oldest grandson, he painted my 
fence last year and I said, look, you have $180. I would like you to 
put it in a Roth IRA, and he said, gosh, grandpa, I sure wanted to put 
that in the bank and maybe buy a car when I was 16. So I went step 
through step trying to explain the magic of compound interest and what 
it would do every year if it was drawing the kind of interest that the 
equity stock markets have averaged over the last 20 years, the ups and 
downs. So I went through this and I said, look, by the time you are 68, 
that $180 will have grown to almost $64,000, and if you wait another 6 
years and 8 months, it will be almost $140,000.
  He seemed impressed but he said, well, grandpa, can I just maybe put 
a little bit of it in that Roth IRA and then put the rest in the bank 
for a car? And I think it demonstrates sort of part of the problem 
today to encourage people to save. It is so important that everyone, 
Mr. Speaker, everyone, young, medium age, older age, discipline 
themselves to put more money in a savings account. The savings account 
in the United States of America is one of the lowest out of the 
industrialized world. We have to do better in encouraging savings. This 
Chamber has

[[Page H9897]]

come a long ways, developing the regular IRA, the Roth IRA. Now in a 
bill that we have sent to the Senate, we expand how much you are 
allowed to save in those IRAs; educational savings accounts. It is 
important that we encourage that extra savings, but it is even more 
important that we deal with Social Security and not put it off.

  In the law of 1935, we left it operational for State and local 
governments whether they wanted to get in the Social Security program 
or have their own retirement program. Galveston County, Texas, was a 
county that decided it wanted to do its own investments so their 
employees do not have the payroll deduction. They have a deduction that 
goes into their personal retirement savings accounts.
  Let me just compare Galveston with Social Security. Death benefits 
now in Galveston are $75,000 with a Social Security burial benefit of 
$253. The disability benefit per month under the Galveston plan is 
$2,749. With Social Security it would be $1,280. The retirement 
benefits per month in Galveston, this is disability, the retirement 
benefits are $4,790 compared to $1,280. It is an example of how real 
investments can make a much greater difference than what is happening 
in the pay-as-you-go Social Security program. Social Security is sort 
of like, I saw a cartoon I think was interesting that represented the 
pay-as-you-go program. It had this person coming in to Uncle Sam with a 
hat on in the cartoon saying, well, now just how does Social Security 
work? And Uncle Sam was saying, well, see this list here. Now, you send 
money to the name on the top of this list and you add your name to the 
bottom of this list, and then when you retire you will get all this 
money.
  A chain letter is sort of like the Social Security program. You 
depend on somebody else later on that might send you that money when 
you retire, and that is dangerous.
  Spouses and survivors benefits under the Galveston County plan, and I 
quote this young lady that gave this quote, she said, thank God that 
some wise man privatized Social Security here. If I had regular Social 
Security, I would be broke.
  After her husband died, Winnie Colehill used her death benefit check 
of $126,000 to pay for his funeral and she also entered college 
herself. Under Social Security, she would have gotten $255.
  San Diego has a similar plan. San Diego enjoys PRAs, personal 
retirement accounts. A 30-year-old employee who earns a salary of 
$30,000 for 35 years and contributes 6 percent to his PRA would receive 
$3,000 per month in retirement benefits. Under the current system, he 
would contribute twice as much to Social Security but receive only 
$1,077; $1,077 in Social Security compared to $3,000 per month in their 
retirement plan.
  The difference between San Diego's system of PRAs and Social Security 
is more than the difference in a check. It is also the difference 
between ownership and dependence. It is you owning that amount of 
money; not leaving it up to politicians to mess around with that money 
or your potential future benefits.
  I thought this was very interesting. Even those who oppose PRAs agree 
they offer more retirement security, and I am quoting from a letter 
from Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Diane Feinstein and Senator Ted 
Kennedy to President Clinton on April 22, 1999, in support of allowing 
San Diego to keep continuing with their private retirement system. They 
said in this letter, millions of our constituents will receive higher 
retirement benefits from their current public pensions than they would 
under Social Security, and that is the truth. So why do not we do it?

                              {time}  2030

  The U.S. trails other countries in saving its retirement system. As 
advanced as we are and as smart as we are, other countries are moving 
ahead of us with their retirement systems that they are starting to get 
real investment returns from.
  In the 18 years since Chile offered the PRAs, 95 percent of Chilean 
workers have created accounts. Their average rate of return has been 
11.3 percent for years. Among others, Australia, Britain, Switzerland, 
they offer their workers PRA. It becomes an option to own their own 
savings account where they can get their own returns on that money.
  British workers choose PRAs. With the 10 percent returns, we cannot 
blame them. Two out of three British workers, and this is a socialist 
country, enrolled in the second-tier social security system chose to 
enroll in PRAs. British workers have enjoyed a 10 percent return on 
their pension investments over the past few years. The pool of these 
personal retirement accounts in Britain now exceeds nearly $1.4 
trillion, larger than the entire economy of Great Britain.
  Based on a family income of $58,475, the return on a PRA is even 
better. Over a 20-year period, if you put in 10 percent of your 
payroll, you would end up having $274,000. The bottom blue mark is 2 
percent of your payroll. At 2 percent of your payroll, it is $55,000. 
If we left it in for 30 years, and here again is the magic of compound 
interest, these investments held over that 30 or 40 years is so 
significant, and can again make an average income worker a rich 
retiree.
  If one leaves it in for 40 years, and we are allowed to put in 10 
percent of the payroll, and social security now takes 12.4 percent, we 
would have $1,389,000. If one was to get a 5 percent return on that 
money, it would still be about $70,000 a year without even going into 
the principal.
  Again, let me conclude by saying 78 percent of families pay more in 
payroll taxes than income taxes. Several of us, bipartisan, when I 
chaired the social security bipartisan task force, it was interesting 
that the demographics, the current demographics of how long people are 
expected to live and therefore how much it is going to cost future 
taxpayers to pay their benefits. With our medical technology, some 
medical futurists are now estimating that within 25 years a person will 
be able to live to be 100 years old if they want to. Within 35 to 40 
years, an individual can live to be 110 years old .
  Are we doing what we need to do as individuals in putting aside 
savings to accommodate the kind of living standard that the future kind 
of medical technology is going to allow? Of course, if that happens to 
social security, then the tremendous extra pressures on social security 
in future generations that are going to have to pay the increased tax 
will occur.
  Right now we are talking about adding prescription drugs to Medicare. 
Medicare could go broke with the legislation that has passed as early 
as 2004 or 2005. If we add prescription drugs to it, then my guess is a 
couple of things will happen. We end up with a government-run program 
that if it starts costing too much, it is going to look at rationing. 
That rationing is going to hold true whether it is Medicare and the 
government running that program, or whether it is social security.
  So my bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is, let us not delay. Let us not 
neglect this promise any longer. We have lost the last 8 years. Let us 
make sure that we move ahead with this next administration and come up 
with a program that will keep social security solvent.

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