[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 10, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H8193]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, since I came to Congress in 1993, 
I have been very concerned about the future of Social Security. Because 
when I was chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee in the State of 
Michigan, it was brought to my attention that Social Security was 
running out of money. It seemed like an easy challenge to convince, if 
you will, America and Congress that something needs to be done if we 
are to save this important program that has been so helpful to so many 
senior citizens.
  We talk about $87 billion that the President has now requested for 
additional help in fighting the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and for 
homeland security, but retirement security is just as important. And 
the retirement security in this country is in great risk, and if we 
keep putting off a solution to the problem of Social Security, then the 
solutions are going to be more drastic as we wait years and years. And 
that is what I have found out over the last 9 years as I have 
introduced additional business.
  Let me give some figures, dollar figure, Mr. Speaker, on how short of 
keeping our promises on Social Security we are. The actuaries estimate 
that it is going to estimate that it is going to take $120 trillion, 
$120 trillion over and above what we are taking in in the Social 
Security tax to keep our promises of benefits for Social Security over 
the next 75 years. And why are we unwilling to deal with this? So 
discouraged that there has only been on my count, 26 Members of either 
the House or the Senate that has ever been willing to sign on the bill 
to keep Social Security solvent.
  There are two global forces coming to hit head on, not only in the 
United States but throughout most of the world. One force is the fact 
that our seniors are living longer we are having an aging of society. 
And that does not mean you are growing older. It means the number of 
old people in relation to young people is growing very rapidly. And the 
other force is the birth rate is going down.

                              {time}  2330

  Most countries in Europe and the United States have a birth rate that 
does not propagate and replace the mother and father of those children, 
so fewer children and more people living longer, and since we have a 
pay-as-you-go program, where current workers take their tax dollars and 
send it and immediately the next week it goes out to current retirees, 
the program is unsustainable.
  Here is my challenge and my warning. If we do not do something, we 
can have the same kind of problem that countries like France and 
Germany and Italy and Spain and Japan are facing now. The payroll 
withholding tax in France is 51 percent for their senior citizens. 
Fifty-one percent out of every dollar they make is deducted to pay for 
their senior citizens in that country, and that is because there are so 
many senior citizens in relation to the number of people working.
  In Germany, it is approaching 42 percent payroll tax deduction. Just 
think of the pressure on business because the only way they have to 
make up this money is to charge more for their product or to reduce 
what they are paying for their employees, and therefore, they are going 
to be less competitive.
  Let us not let that happen in the United States. Let us not allow a 
program like Social Security that has been so helpful to so many of our 
seniors, that so many of our seniors in this country depend on.
  Right now over 80 percent of our seniors depend on Social Security 
for over 90 percent of their total retirement income. It is a huge 
challenge. We need to deal with it. I ask my colleagues to examine this 
problem.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just ask all Americans in the next election to 
ask the candidates that are running for office what is their solution 
to save Social Security.

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