[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 22 (Tuesday, March 5, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H659-H660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 23, 2002, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, we are going to increase the debt 
limit of the United States in the next several days. Already, the debt 
limit of the United States, set at $5.95 trillion, is being apparently 
violated by having a debt greater than the debt limit set by the United 
States. I think we need a thorough discussion in this Chamber and in 
the Senate and certainly in the White House of how do we want to treat 
debt in the United States; how deep do we want to go in debt; how much, 
if you will, mortgage do we want to leave to our children and our 
grandchildren.
  It seems that it is reasonable to live within our means, not to say 
that our spending today is so important that it justifies leaving a 
larger debt or a larger mortgage to our kids and our grandkids. If we 
want to spend money, then it is reasonable to say to the American 
people and be up-front with them that we are going to increase taxes 
and use those revenues for existing spending rather than, I suggest, 
hoodwinking the American people by increasing our borrowing. The 
borrowing is not as obvious as tax increases. Therefore, over the last 
30 years, we have said we are going to borrow more and more as 
government gets larger and larger and, sadly, a lot of that borrowing 
has come from the trust funds.
  Since 1983 when we last changed the Social Security system, and we 
changed it by increasing taxes and reducing benefits, we have had more 
revenue coming in from the Social Security tax, the so-called FICA tax, 
than was needed to pay out Social Security benefits. Just a footnote 
here to mention that Social Security is a system that is, and always 
has been, designed to tax current workers and use that money to pay 
current retirees. As the number of workers per retiree has diminished 
since we started the program in 1934, we have developed an obvious 
insolvency in the Social Security system.
  I have heard some of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle 
criticize some things the Republicans are doing. It is easy to 
demagogue this kind of program that so many seniors find so valuable. 
We now have over 50

[[Page H660]]

percent of our seniors that depend on the money coming in from Social 
Security. So it scares the heck out of seniors when anybody suggests, 
that somebody is going to change Social Security.
  Here are the facts: Social Security is going broke. Fifty years ago 
we had 40 workers for every one retiree. Today, there are three workers 
paying in their tax for every one retiree. The actuaries estimate that 
by 2025 there will be two workers paying in for every retiree. And by 
2040 there will be one worker for each retiree. Can you imagine the 
taxes and the burden on that one worker, paying in Social Security, 
enough taxes to cover the Social Security benefits of one retiree? 
There is going to be a huge unfunded cost and the burdon should not be 
placed on future taxpayers.
  Look. Nobody is going to suggest that we stop our commitment of 
paying Social Security benefits. So this trust fund is only a booking 
record of the mandate to come up with the money, starting in 2014 or 
2015 or 2016. The only way to come up with the money is to either 
increase taxes or reduce benefits or increase borrowing. Increasing 
borrowing is the most politically likely to put our kids even further 
in debt. It is going to cost a lot of money; there is now an unfunded 
liability of $9 trillion in today's dollars of the benefits that are 
needed to pay Social Security benefits over the next 75 years over and 
above what is going to come in from the FICA tax. We need to deal with 
it but it depends on how we deal with it. Do you do nothing? And if you 
do nothing, the cost is going to be substantially greater than doing 
something and getting a better return on some of that money paid into 
Social Security.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that the average retiree 
is going to get a 1.7 percent return on the money that they and their 
employer invested in Social Security. We can do better than that. There 
needs to be a transition to earn more for the program rather than 
demagoguing. Let us come up with ideas and suggestions rather than 
playing poltics, because it is a program that is worth saving.

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