[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 7 (Monday, January 31, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S617-S618]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the future of 
Social Security. In recent weeks we have heard a lot about the 
President's intent to establish private accounts under the program. 
While no details have been shared with Members of Congress regarding 
his proposal, the limited information we have does indicate that the 
administration will only push and support a long-term solvency fix if 
it is married with a plan to divert payroll taxes to individual private 
accounts.
  Beyond the private account issue, it is unclear what the other 
details of the Bush plan will include. I am willing to work with the 
President and Members of Congress to improve the long-term outlook of 
this program, but the American people need to be clear in their 
understanding of the facts. The fact is, Social Security is not in 
crisis and private accounts will do nothing to help with the program's 
solvency. Yes, we do need to think about the future of this program. I 
am willing to hear the President's thoughts and work with him on this 
issue, but I will not support any efforts to dismantle a program that 
has protected millions in this country from poverty, and provided a 
guaranteed benefit for our most vulnerable citizens in their time of 
need.
  Social Security is the most important social insurance program ever 
created by this great nation, and it has provided seniors with the 
assurances they need in old age.
  In South Dakota, one in five people count on this program to put food 
on their table, buy their prescription drugs, and keep the heat running 
during the long cold winters. The program protects millions from 
poverty, and without it, the number of seniors living in poverty would 
rise from 10 percent to 50 percent. This is the mark of a strong safety 
net program and we must fight to ensure its longevity.
  While in the long-term we do need to find a sound solution to protect 
the solvency of the Social Security program, one thing must be 
protected now--the guarantee to retirees that they do not have to worry 
about living in poverty in old age, no matter what they made during 
their working years or how long they live. Seniors must be given the 
security to know to the dime what they will receive under this program, 
rather than having to worry about the climate on Wall Street.
  Since President Bush began his campaign for private accounts under 
Social Security, he has tried to convince the American people that the 
program is in crisis. This manufactured crisis is merely fiction and 
when you begin to look at the real numbers, you learn very quickly that 
his numbers just do not add up.
  The administration has been trying to tell an alarming story in which 
the program is broke in 2019. Reality tells us that in 2019 we will 
just begin to dip into the $3.7 trillion dollar trust fund to pay the 
Social Security bills and we will be able to draw on that fund for a 
long time--until 2052 according to the Congressional Budget Office.
  At that point in time, seniors will still receive 80 percent of 
projected benefits, and still more in dollars adjusted for inflation 
than what beneficiaries get today.
  The real fiscal crisis facing our Government today is not in the 
Social Security program, but rather in the Federal budget, which 
according to the administration will reach a deficit of $427 billion 
dollars in 2005. This is the result of the irresponsible decisions of 
the administration that has pushed tax cuts for the wealthy during time 
of war and continued to fight to make those tax cuts permanent. I was 
alarmed to learn that in fact the entire Social Security shortfall over 
the next 75 years is about one-fifth the cost of the Bush tax cuts if 
made permanent. Beyond these problems, the rising costs of our health 
care programs will continue to threaten our budget stability. This is 
the real crisis we are facing right now.
  At the end of the day, when you look at the numbers and the financial 
outlook for Social Security, we are in good shape for at least the next 
50 years if not longer. When I look at the budget deficit today and a 
potential crisis 50 years from now, I am more concerned about ensuring 
that our Government can continue to pay its bills now and restore 
fiscal sanity to the Federal Government so we can honor our commitments 
in the near term--for soldiers in Iraq, for insurance coverage for the 
poor and for prescription drugs for seniors.

[[Page S618]]

  In the short term, the administration's plan to establish private 
accounts will actually increase our budget deficit and cost the Federal 
Government approximately $2 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. He 
has not indicated how he would pay for that, and so that number just 
gets added onto the Federal debt, not even accounting for whatever 
privatization will cost us in the following years. Estimates indicate 
that this increased borrowing, primarily from foreign nations--Japan, 
China and others--could potentially double our publicly-held debt by 
2041, further increasing our dependence on foreign creditors.
  Yes, any long-term savings the administration plan might create will 
be at the expense of providing seniors and all Americans a guaranteed 
benefit.
  I do believe that we should at least start a discussion about the 
long-term solvency of Social Security and we should explore all options 
for addressing this issue. I support encouraging Americans to establish 
private accounts only that are above and beyond what we do in Social 
Security right now. All of our citizens deserve a shot at a comfortable 
life in their old age.
  To get there we need to create a sturdy stool--a retirement security 
stool that provides a solid leg through a secure, guaranteed Social 
Security benefit; another leg helps protect the health and long-term 
health care needs of all people; and a third encourages individuals to 
save money for their retirement years, through private accounts, 
pensions and other programs. These are the things we should be thinking 
about as we look to the future.
  So what we have is a Social Security program right now that is solid, 
according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, through the 
year 2052, through the middle of this century. Even at the end of 2052, 
those payments for young people today would actually be higher, 
adjusted for inflation, than the monthly payments that today's 
recipients get. So is this a crisis? No. There is a problem, but there 
is not a crisis in the long term for Social Security.
  What concerns me is that I think some of the proposals I am hearing 
about have more to do with ideology, more to do with trying to move the 
Government away from providing that safety net than it does to actually 
solving what problems that may exist.
  I believe our seniors in South Dakota and across this country deserve 
to have a Social Security program with a defined benefit, that they 
will know to the dime what it is they are going to get when they 
retire, and that it is not contingent on whether the market had a good 
year or bad year in their runup time prior to their retirement. That 
defined benefit ought to be the cornerstone, ought to be the 
foundation, of every retirement. Whatever else happens, they should 
know that will be there, and that it does not involve a gamble in the 
stock market.
  I believe people ought to be saving more; that they ought to be 
provided better mechanisms to set aside money which they can count on 
that will be over and above Social Security, that will augment Social 
Security. I think we need to have a good discussion about IRAs and 
401(k)s and other kinds of pension mechanisms that will allow for 
private savings to augment Social Security.
  But at the end of the day, the best thing this Government can do for 
the long-term solvency of Social Security is to get our annual budget 
into equilibrium so we can get back to where we were only 4 years ago--
with budget surpluses rather than utilizing Social Security surplus 
dollars for the ordinary expenses of Government; and, that we put 
ourselves in a still stronger position midway through this century to 
make sure every American gets the benefits to which they are entitled 
and which they expect to have.
  I look forward to working with President Bush and with my colleagues 
on both sides of the aisle on ways in which we can assist with the 
near-term crisis in Medicare, Medicaid, health care, the near-term 
crisis in terms of the budget deficit which our Nation faces, and the 
longer term problem that we have with Social Security, but in so doing 
I will not abandon the underlying philosophy of every American having a 
defined benefit program that will be the foundation of their retirement 
plan and on which they can, in fact, count.
  I look forward to a constructive and positive debate. Doing nothing 
is not the solution. But concocting false crises with remedies which 
actually make a situation worse than it is now cannot possibly be the 
road that this Congress, this Senate wants to go down.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thune). The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. President.

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