[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 133 (Monday, October 23, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H10528-H10532]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    KEEPING SOCIAL SECURITY SOLVENT

  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 as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to address what I think 
is one of the important issues in this election, and I would hope 
everybody all over the country would ask the candidates that are 
running for the United States Senate, or for the U.S. House of 
Representatives, or for the President, do they have a plan that will 
keep Social Security solvent.
  Social Security, which is probably one of our most important, most 
successful programs in the United States, now pays over 90 percent of 
the retirement benefits to almost one-third of our retirees. Social 
Security is important. The longer we put off developing a solution for 
Social Security, the more drastic that solution.
  I first came to Congress in 1993. I introduced my first Social 
Security bill that year; and then in 1995, 1997 and 1999, I introduced 
a Social Security solvency bill that was actually scored by the Social 
Security Administration, scored to keep Social Security solvent for the 
next 75 years.

                              {time}  1615

  It is interesting that in the earlier years there were less changes, 
and we needed less money from the general fund to accommodate the 
continuation of Social Security. In other words, putting off that bill, 
missing our opportunity for the last 8 years has meant that the changes 
are going to be more dramatic. Somehow we have got to do it without 
reducing benefits for existing or near-term retirees and somehow we 
have got to do it with yet again increasing taxes on working Americans.
  I am going to go through a few charts very quickly. This is, of 
course, a picture of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. When he 
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.
  A lot of people have said, well, Social Security somehow is going to 
solve the problem and so maybe I do not need to save. So where we have 
ended up in this country is having a lower savings than most any of the 
other industrialized countries in the world. Somehow

[[Page H10529]]

because savings and investment are important, we need to refurbish and 
encourage savings and investment; and we need to save Social Security 
to the full extent of its benefits.
  How do we do that? That is the question. That is the argument in this 
election year. The system is stretched to its limits. 78 million baby 
boomers begin retiring in 2008. Social Security spending exceeds tax 
revenues in 2015. So as the baby boomers retire, these are the higher 
wage earners now, so since Social Security taxes are based on how much 
one's income is, they go out of the high paying-in mode, if you will, 
and start taking the higher benefits, because benefits are also indexed 
to how much one paid in during one's working life. So the problem is 
Social Security trust funds go broke in 2013 although the crisis could 
arrive much sooner.
  I want to spend a little time on the crisis arriving much sooner, 
because it is 2015 up here when tax revenues are going to be short of 
paying benefits. Then the question is, or I could say the problem, 
where does the money come from to start supplementing those benefits 
over and above tax increases? What should make us all very nervous, Mr. 
Speaker, is that, in the past, in 1978, in 1977 and again in 1983, what 
we did when we ran into a financial problem of being short money, we 
reduced benefits and increased taxes.
  Let us not put it off. Let us not do it again. It is too much of a 
burden. It is too disruptive for the economy to yet again increase 
taxes on the American worker.
  Insolvency is certain. It is not some wild-eyed, green-shaded 
economist predicting insolvency. We know how many people there are, and 
we know when they are going to retire. We know that people will live 
longer in retirement. We know how much they will pay in in taxes. We 
know how much they are going to take out in benefits. It is all a 
strict formula. Payroll taxes will not cover benefits starting in 2015, 
and the shortfalls will add up to $120 trillion between 2015 and 2075; 
$120 trillion.
  Who knows what $120 trillion is? Most of us in this Chamber certainly 
do not. But our annual budget is approaching $1.9 trillion. That is the 
annual budget, $1.9 trillion. But for the next 75 years, between 15 and 
75, it is going to take $120 trillion more than what is coming in in 
Social Security taxes to accommodate the benefits that we have promised 
the American people.
  One thing that needs to be done is we need to start getting a better 
return on that investment that employees and employers are paying into 
Social Security.
  The demographics are part of what is causing the insolvency. Our pay 
as you go retirement system will not meet the challenge of demographic 
change.
  Let me just state, before we get to how many workers are paying in 
their taxes for each retiree, that when this system started in 1935, 
when we started Social Security, the average age, the average life-span 
was 62 years. That meant that most people paid into Social Security 
taxes all their lives but did not take out Social Security benefits. So 
that pay as you go worked very well in those years.
  But what is happening now, there are fewer workers paying in every 
year because of the reduction in birth rate, because life-span is 
increasing. In 1940, for example, there were 38 workers paying in their 
Social Security taxes that was immediately sent out, it almost goes out 
the same week that Treasury gets it, 38 people paying in their Social 
Security tax to accommodate every one retiree. Today there are three 
workers paying in their Social Security tax to pay the benefits for 
that one retiree. By 2025, the estimate is that there will be two 
workers. So there is a tremendous burden on those two workers. If the 
benefits in today's dollars are, some of the average is $1,200 a month, 
for that $1,200 a month, that means in today's dollars each one of 
those workers is going to have to chip in $600 a month to pay for the 
retirement benefits.

  Again, we are not talking about touching the insurance portion of 
Social Security. The disability insurance is never being considered to 
be invested in anything else. It is an insurance program. Whether it is 
Governor Bush's plan or my plan or the plan of the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), it 
never touches that portion that is the insurance portion of Social 
Security.
  I was trying to represent how serious the unfunded liability is for 
Social Security. So this chart sort of represents what I call a bleak 
future of future deficits. Because of the large tax increases in 1983 
when we started having problems coming up with the money, we really 
jacked up those taxes, those payroll taxes for Social Security in 1983.
  So that means that there is more money coming in to Social Security 
than is needed to pay benefits. But that runs out in the year 2015. I 
think it is, I am trying to think of the best word, maybe 
unconscionable is a good word, to start promising more benefits now in 
Social Security or to stand aside and not do anything to solve Social 
Security because all of this red most likely is going to have to be 
paid with tax increases.
  We cannot borrow $120 trillion because the economists say to borrow 
that much from the private sector would totally disrupt the economy. 
But really there are only three choices. We either increase taxes, 
reduce benefits, or we borrow from the private sector. So to do nothing 
I think puts a huge burden on our kids and our grandkids.
  Some have said, well, the economy is great, the economic growth will 
solve the Social Security problem. Social Security benefits, however, 
are indexed to wage growth. That means the more money one makes now one 
pays in more Social Security taxes now, but eventually one's benefits 
are also going to be higher.
  So in the long run, economic expansion and higher wages are a short-
term benefit, but it leaves a long-term hole. When the economy grows, 
workers pay more in taxes but also will earn more in benefits when they 
retire.
  Growth makes the numbers look better now but leaves that larger hole 
to fill later. The administration has used these short-term advantages 
as an excuse to do nothing.
  I think it is unfair, I think it is, in a way, untruthful for anybody 
to suggest that somehow because we do not hit the problem until 2015, 
another 14 years from now, that we do not have to worry about it now, 
because, again, to put off this problem not to take advantage of the 
surpluses while we have them is going to be just a huge burden on 
future young people and their taxes.
  It is now predicted that to pay Social Security, Medicare and 
Medicaid, it would take 47 percent payroll tax within the next 40 
years. So if we do nothing, no changes, no better return on the money 
coming in, payroll taxes could go up to 47 percent to cover the cost of 
Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security.
  There is no Social Security account with one's name on it. The 
Supreme Court, on two decisions now, have said, look, the Social 
Security tax is a tax. Any benefits that people decide to give to 
seniors or the disabled is a decision of Congress and the President. 
There is no relation, there is no entitlement to Social Security 
benefits. So what should make us all a little nervous is, when times 
really get tough, will Congress and the President decide to reduce 
benefits, or will they increase taxes, or will they do both?
  This is a quote that I brought from President Clinton's Office of 
Management and Budget: These trust fund balances are available to 
finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures but 
only in a bookkeeping sense.
  This is the trust fund they are talking about. They are the claims on 
the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising 
taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other 
expenditures.
  In the trust fund, for the last 40 years, up until the last 5 years, 
we have been taking all the Social Security surplus and spending it on 
other government programs. So a lot of people, as I give talks in my 
district and throughout the country, they said, well, look, if 
government would just keep its hands off those trust funds, we would be 
okay.
  Government has got to keep its paws off the trust funds, but it is 
still not enough that we will get into. We have got to do more. What we 
did 3, 4 years ago in this Congress is we started saying, look, we are 
going to slow down

[[Page H10530]]

the growth of government. We are going to save and put aside the Social 
Security trust funds.
  I introduced a bill 3 years ago that said we are not going to spend 
any of the Social Security surplus, and we started implementing that. 
We called it a lockbox for the Social Security surplus. But what it 
does is it makes sure that we do not spend any of the Social Security 
surplus for other government programs. We do not expand government that 
is going to be demanded for that increased expansion in the future. 
That is a good start.
  This year to draw the line in the sand, our Republican conference 
said, well, we need public support, again, if we are not going to 
increase spending so much and let this government bureaucracy continue 
to grow as fast as it has grown in the past.
  So this year what we did is we came up with another sort of gimmick, 
but it is going to do the job. It says we are going to take 90 percent 
of all of the surplus, Social Security and so-called on budget surplus, 
and we are going to use 90 percent of all that total surplus to pay 
down the debt held by the public, and only 10 percent is going to be 
available for spending.
  Now, there is enough public support on that, that these appropriation 
bills we are going to pass in the next, hopefully this week, but within 
the next 2 weeks is going to live within that commitment to use 90 
percent of the surplus to pay down the debt held by the public.
  I am concerned with the suggestion, in fact this is the Vice 
President's suggestion on Social Security that we pay down the debt 
held by the public and then we use that interest savings, what we are 
paying in interest of what we owe on the $3.4 trillion that is the debt 
held by the public.
  Let me just give my colleagues a quick note on that. The total debt 
of this country is $5.6 trillion. Of that $5.6 trillion, $3.4 trillion 
is the so-called Treasury bills. It is what Treasury has its weekly 
auctions. When one buys a bond or any other Treasury paper, that is the 
debt held by the public. That accounts for $3.4 trillion out of the 
$5.6 trillion total.
  The rest, there is about a trillion that is owed to the Social 
Security Trust Fund and then another trillion that is owed to all of 
the other 120 trust funds in government. So we are still sort of 
playing creative financing games. We have got to be careful about doing 
that.
  But the Vice President has suggested pay down this debt and then 
accommodate what he suggests that will save Social Security until 2057. 
The problem is that it is going to take $46.6 trillion between now and 
2057 to accommodate the shortfall, the shortage, where we need another 
$46.6 trillion over and above what is coming in in Social Security 
taxes.

                              {time}  1630

  And so to pay down this amount cannot accommodate the need for that 
many dollars over and above taxes. So I think it is, I guess some 
people have been using the words ``fuzzy math.'' This is fuzzy math.
  This is another way of depicting what the problem is if we simply 
rely on the $260 billion a year that we are now using to service the 
debt held by the public. $260 billion a year. It may be reasonable to 
say, well, we can add another IOU to the trust fund to the amount of 
$260 billion a year, but here the blue shade at the bottom represents 
the $260 billion a year for the next 57 years. Still, the difference 
between that $260 billion a year in total leaves a shortfall of $35 
trillion that is needed over and above the $260 billion in interest. So 
it still is not going to accommodate the needs. So to not be totally up 
front with the American people, I think, is unfair.
  The biggest risk is doing nothing at all. Social Security has a total 
unfunded liability of over $9 trillion. I mentioned the $120 trillion 
over the next 75 years. If we put $9 trillion into a savings account 
now, earning a real 7 percent, then it will be worth the $120 trillion 
as we need it over the next 75 years. But we need, today, an unfunded 
liability of coming up with $9 trillion today and putting it into that 
kind of an interesting bearing account if we are to have enough money.
  The Social Security trust fund contains nothing but IOUs in a steel 
box in Maryland. Again, the challenge is coming up with the money we 
need to pay these benefits. To keep paying promised Social Security 
benefits, the payroll tax, if we make no changes in the program, no 
systemic changes, the payroll tax will have to be increased by nearly 
50 percent or benefits will have to be cut by 30 percent. Neither one 
of these should be acceptable to this body or the President or the 
other Chamber, and that is why it is important that we move ahead.
  I have introduced Social Security legislation, as I mentioned, that 
does not have any tax increase, that does not reduce the benefits for 
seniors or near-term seniors, very similar to what Governor Bush has 
suggested that we do with Social Security to make sure that we get a 
better return on investment.
  I wonder if my colleagues can guess how much the average retiree will 
get back, in their retirement years, of the money they and their 
employer put into Social Security; 1.9 percent, on average. Some get 
back a negative return.
  Just a mention of the Social Security lockbox. It is maybe a little 
gimmicky, but it accomplished our goal this past year in saying, look, 
we are not going to spend any of the Social Security surplus for 
anything except Social Security or to pay down the debt held by the 
public. And the Vice President, by the way, as an officer of the United 
States Senate, I am sure could help us get that bill through the 
Senate. We passed it in this Chamber, sent it to the Senate; and now, 
as I understand it, there has been a threat of a filibuster. So the 
Vice President could help us get that bill passed and into law so that 
the lockbox is locked in.
  I mentioned the return of Social Security. The real return of Social 
Security is less than 2 percent for most workers and shows a negative 
return for some compared to over 7 percent for the marketplace. So over 
the last 100 years, the equity market has given a real return of 7 
percent. But looking at this chart, we see the light blue over here 
that shows that minorities actually have a negative return. One reason 
for that is that, for example, a young black male on average is going 
to have a life-span of 62 years.
  So that means that they die before they are eligible for their Social 
Security benefits. So they pay in all their life and do not get 
anything in return. If there was a retirement account in their 
individual name, at least it would go into their estate and the 
government could not mess around with the benefits in the future. The 
average is 1.9 percent return for the average retiree; and again, the 
market average for a real return on investments is 7 percent.
  I am going to get a little more into this. This is another way of 
expressing that Social Security is a bad investment right now. The 
insurance part for disability is good, and that needs to be totally 
saved. That cannot be privately invested. It has to stay in the same 
system as it is. It is working well. But the rest of Social Security, 
as an investment, is not good.
  For example, if a person retired 5 years ago, they would have had to 
live 16 years after retirement to break even with what that individual 
and his or her employer paid into Social Security. By 2005, they would 
have to live to be 23 years. Remember, at one time there were 38 people 
working for every retiree. If someone retired in 1940, in 2 months they 
got back everything they and their employer put into it. But for our 
kids and our grandkids, if they retire after 2015 and 2025, they will 
have to live 26 years after retirement to break even. It is not a good 
investment. How can we do better than the 1.9 percent? A CD gives 
better than 1.9 percent.
  This is the picture I have on my wall of my office. When I come out 
to vote, I look at my grandkids. Bonnie and I have nine grandkids, and 
I think they really are the generation at risk. It is easy for 
politicians to make all kinds of promises now and to do more things for 
more people so that they can get elected to office, but part of the 
decision has got to be what are our high standards of living, and doing 
what we think we deserve now, going to do to our kids and our grandkids 
in terms of the obligation that they are going to have in taxes or 
paying off our bills.
  I am a farmer from Michigan, and it has always been a goal in our 
farm community to just try to pay down the

[[Page H10531]]

mortgage to let our kids have a little better start than we might have 
had. But in this Congress, in this government, what we are doing is 
increasing the debt, increasing the mortgage on our kids and our 
grandkids. Let us not do this.
  I will do this for practice now, in case my family is looking. This 
is my oldest, Nick Smith; this is my youngest, Frances, and Claire and 
Emily, and George is a tiger, and here is Henry and James, and Selena. 
I might show that again, because I would hope that every grandparent, I 
would hope every grandparent, Mr. Speaker, considers the implication of 
not doing anything and just saying, well, Social Security is important, 
we have to put it first, but they have to come up with a plan. It 
should be scored by the Social Security Administration to keep Social 
Security solvent for the next 75 years.
  Just look what we have done on tax increases and think what is going 
to happen in the future if we continue to depend on tax increases on 
working Americans. In 1940, the rate was 2 percent, 1 percent for the 
employee, 1 percent for the employer; a total of 2 percent on the first 
$3,000 for a total of $60 a year taxes for Social Security. By 1960, 
that went up to 6 percent, 3 percent for the employee, 3 percent for 
the employer, first $4,800; total a year $288. In 1980, we jumped the 
taxes again because benefits were jacked up and people said, well, we 
need more money. So again we imposed this tax on the American worker of 
10.16 percent of everything they made, and so the base was $25,900; the 
total tax by the employee and the employer went up to $2,631. Today, 
our taxes are 12.4 percent on the first $76,000, and the $76,000 is 
indexed for inflation. So that $76,000 base goes up every year.
  So I think the question is, if we keep putting this problem off, like 
we have in the past, are we going to do the same thing we did in 1977 
and 1983, reduce benefits and increase taxes? I am concerned that the 
temptation to do that is going to be great, and that is why it is so 
important that during these good times, where we have a surplus, not in 
Social Security but in the general fund, that we use that surplus now. 
We do not spend it on expanded government, but we use it to make sure 
that we keep Social Security safe. And that means we have to introduce 
bills.
  In the legislation that I introduced, what I did was I started out 
allowing 2.5 percent, or the equivalent of 2.5 percent of the taxes to 
be invested in a private retirement account that can only be used after 
retirement; that can only be invested in safe investments, index funds 
or other safe investments determined by the Secretary of the Treasury. 
So it is only for retirement; it does not go out of Social Security. 
Like Governor Bush's proposal, it does not go out of Social Security; 
it supplements Social Security.
  There have been suggestions that one way to do it, and we could do 
this, is that for every $4 an individual makes on their investments, 
they would lose $3 of Social Security benefits. So it can be a fail-
safe system, and what we have to accomplish is a return of better than 
the 1.9 percent.

  This pie chart is part of the problem. We have raised social security 
taxes so high that 76 percent of American workers pay more in the 
Social Security tax than they do in the income tax; 78 percent of 
American workers now, if we add the Medicare to it, 78 percent of the 
American workers pay more in the FICA payroll reduction tax than they 
do in the income tax. So when we talk about income tax changes, somehow 
we have also got to get to the top of the discussion priorities: What 
do we do about the FICA tax? Are we just going to continue increasing 
the FICA tax to accommodate the demand for more spending by this 
Congress?
  These are the six principles of Social Security. Senator Rod Grams 
from Minnesota has these criteria. I have these criteria in my bill. 
Governor Bush has these criteria in his proposal.
  Number one, protect current and future beneficiaries; two, allow 
freedom of choice; three, preserve the safety net; four, make Americans 
better off, not worse off; five, create a fully funded system; and, 
six, no tax increases, and no reduction in benefits for seniors or 
near-term retirees.
  Personal retirement accounts. How much of a risk is it? In the first 
place, they do not come out of Social Security. They are part of the 
Social Security benefit. They become part of the Social Security 
retirement benefits and an offset to the fixed program; yet everybody 
would have the option whether to go into this kind of an investment 
where they can invest and own their own retirement account or whether 
they stay in the same system. A worker will own their own retirement 
account. It is limited to safe investments that will earn more than the 
1.9 percent paid by Social Security.
  This was a chart I got from Senator Grams; no new taxes. I think that 
has to be paramount. The burden on social security taxes on so many 
working families today is already way too high.
  A little more on personal retirement accounts. If, for example, if an 
individual is able to invest 2 percent of their earnings, if John Doe 
makes an average of $36,000 a year, he can expect monthly payments of 
$6,000 rather than the $1,280 from Social Security, if he has his own 
PRA to supplement it.
  I think it is good that when we passed the Social Security bill in 
1935 there were provisions that said counties and States do not have to 
opt into Social Security. They could develop their own retirement 
system if they were a county employee or a State employee. Several 
counties in the United States, Galveston County, Texas, being one of 
them, opted to go into personal savings accounts.

                              {time}  1645

  Employees of Galveston County, Texas, that opted out of Social 
Security, here is what they are getting: Death benefits $75,000. Social 
Security would pay a burial benefit of $253. The disability benefits 
$1,280 for Social Security. The Galveston plan is accommodating $2,749. 
For retirement benefits Social Security is the same as disability, 
$1,280. The Galveston plan is paying $4,790 a month for their retirees.
  Spouses and survivor benefits under the Galveston County plan: This 
is a young lady by the name of Wendy Colehill that used her death 
benefits check of $126,000 to pay for her husband's funeral and to get 
a college education.
  I just put this up here just to try to emphasize that those kind of 
personal investments can do much better for us. And so, there has got 
to be a safety net for everybody. I mean, we are not a society that is 
going to let old people go hungry or go without shelter, but we have 
got to look for ways that are going to supplement the income coming in 
for these retirees.
  She says, ``Thank God that some wise men privatized Social Security 
here in Galveston. If I had regular Social Security, I would be 
broke.''
  San Diego is another county that has opted out of Social Security. 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. Under the current Social Security system, that employee 
would get $1,077 a month under Social Security. So $3,000 compared to 
$1,000.
  The difference between San Diego's system of PRAs and Social Security 
is the more than the difference in a check, it is also the difference 
between ownership and dependence. It is the difference between having 
that money there, that it is your money, that if you die before 
retirement age, it goes into your estate. It means that, with the 
Supreme Court decisions, that there is no guarantee that politicians do 
not mess around with that money that you have expected in your 
retirement.
  Even those who oppose PRAs, I thought this was an interesting quote. 
I got this from Senator Grams also. This is a letter from Senators 
Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Senator Ted Kennedy to President 
Clinton saying let San Diego keep their PRA program and not use a 
technicality to force them back into Social Security. And they said in 
the letter to President Clinton, ``Millions of our constituents will 
receive higher retirement benefits from their current public pension 
than they would under Social Security.''
  I am wrapping this up with the last three charts. This again is what 
other countries are doing by privatizing, well ahead of America. Even 
these countries that are socialist countries have now gone to 
privatization.
  The British workers chose PRAs with 10 percent returns. And who could 
blame them. They have got a two-tier

[[Page H10532]]

system. But two out of three of the British workers enrolled in the 
second tier, Social Security system chose to enroll in the personal 
retirement accounts. The British workers have enjoyed a 10 percent 
return on their pension investments over the past few years. The pool 
of PRAs in Britain exceeds nearly $1.4 trillion, larger than their 
entire economy and larger than the private pensions of all other 
European countries combined.
  The U.S. trails other countries in saving its retirement system. Of 
course Chile was one of the early countries. In the 18 years since 
Chile offered the PRAs, 90 percent of the Chilean workers have created 
accounts. Their average rate of return has been 11.3 percent per year. 
Among others, Australia, Britain, Switzerland offer workers the PRAs.
  I represented the United States Public Pension Retirement Program in 
an international meeting in Europe 3 years ago. I was really, and I am 
not sure if the word is impressed or astounded, at the number of 
countries throughout the world that is moving their public pensions to 
have some real investments with some of that money that is coming in.
  We have got countries now that are paying up to a 40 percent payroll 
tax to cover their senior benefits and a tremendous pressure not only 
on the workers and how much money they get, but a tremendous pressure 
on the cost of the goods they produce. So it puts those countries at a 
real competitive disadvantage when they have to add to the cost of 
products they sell enough to pay their workers to survive and still 
take almost half of it for their senior retirement program.
  I want to save this one. This is the average rate of return on stocks 
in the last 100 years. But this is based on a family income of $58,000. 
The returns on a PRA, the three colors, the light blue is 2 percent of 
your earnings, the pink is 6 percent of your earnings, and the purple 
is 10 percent of your earnings. And so, you can see that in 20 years 
you can take 10 percent of your earnings and have it valued at 
$274,000. If you were to leave that in for 40 years, it would be worth 
$1,389,000.

  The point is that you can be an average income worker and you can 
retire as a wealthy retiree because of the magic of compound interest. 
And that means the long-term investments.
  I drew this chart which represents what you would have paid in if you 
had left the money in for 30 years. Any year in our history, a 30-year 
period put around the worst depressions that we have had in the last 
100 years is still going to end up with a positive return of almost 
three percent. The average is 2.6 percent. So, on average, leaving that 
investment in the equity stock markets for 30 years, it is a 2.6 
return.
  We have got to have provisions where you do not have to bounce out 
and cash in all at once. And I do this in my legislation. It has got to 
be done in any legislation we have. We have got to continue the safety 
net. We have got to continue having options for those individuals that 
decide they want to stay in the same system. But we have also got to 
have an opportunity where individuals have that ownership, have that 
control by having their own accounts without the chance that Government 
is going to mess around with it later. And we have got to have the 
criteria in developing any plan that we do not have yet again another 
tax increase, that we do not have any benefit cuts for seniors or near-
term retirees.
  If anybody would like to see the details of my Social Security 
proposal and probably more than you ever wanted to know about Social 
Security, 
this is my website: www.house.gov.NickSmith/welcomehtml.
  If you go to one of the search engines and you do ``Nick Smith on 
Social Security,'' it should come up here on my website.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we have come a long way in terms of the lockbox, 
not spending the Social Security surplus. I think this year we are 
doing it again by saying we are going to take at least 90 percent of 
the total surplus and put that 90 percent for either Social Security 
for the time being, use it to pay down the debt held by the public, and 
only argue about the other 10 percent.
  There is a danger of Government growing faster than it should simply 
because politicians get on the front page of the paper and on the 
television set when they take home pork barrel projects.
  I think if there is anything I would ask the public, Mr. Speaker, to 
do in this campaign when they are talking to the representatives 
running for Federal office is to pin them down on Social Security. It 
is something that we cannot afford to give up.

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