[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 17, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3432-H3433]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Price of Georgia). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, this evening, as American families settle 
in, and many workers have turned in, the American people will go to bed 
hoping that this Congress has the intention and the fortitude to stand 
up and to protect the people's right to a secure retirement. There is a 
great skepticism across this land about the plans to privatize Social 
Security.
  Social Security, when it was created in 1934, was created as an 
insurance program. It was not an investment program; it was an 
insurance program which would ensure against people being too old to 
work, an insurance program which would ensure against being injured on 
the job and not being able to work again, an insurance program which 
would ensure that if a family lost a bread winner to a tragedy, that 
the family would still have an ability to survive and that the children 
would have benefits covered until their late teens.
  Social Security has been the most successful social program that this 
country has ever seen.
  Now, why was it created? We have to go back to the time of the 
Depression, a time when this country saw the New York Stock Exchange 
lose over 80 percent of its value in a period of about 4 years. That 
people lost their homes, they lost their farms, factories were closed, 
people lost their jobs, they lost their pensions. People were basically 
stripped bear with the curse of nothingness. One out of four Americans 
was without a job. There were hundreds of thousands of children who did 
not have a place.
  From the ashes of the Great Depression arose a leader who recognized 
that the function and purpose of a democratic society is to make sure 
that people have economic security, the security of a job, the security 
of a home, and the security of a solid retirement. When Franklin 
Roosevelt brought forward this proposal to create Social Security, it 
was brought forward not to give to people some kind of a welfare 
program, and I do not object to welfare, but it was not created as a 
welfare program. It was always based on what people paid in. And so 
Social Security became a new hope. It helped lift generations of 
elderly out of poverty. Do my colleagues know that today, 50 percent of 
the elderly would be living below the poverty line if it were not for 
Social Security. Social Security was created as a means to make sure 
that when people got into their later ages that they would have the 
ability to support themselves.

                              {time}  2215

  Mr. Speaker, we heard the mythology when we were growing up of old 
folks homes, of poor houses, of people who when they became elderly 
were destitute and had no opportunities. Well, Social Security was what 
transformed the American economic landscape, helped lift people up out 
of poverty, helped guarantee that the sense of interdependencies, which 
is essential to the creation of the United States, was reflected in 
this social program that had a powerful economic component, retirement 
security.
  The very words, the United States, which we celebrate here in this 
Chamber were not simply about the unity of 13 geographical territories 
nor are they today simply about the unity of 50 geographical 
territories, they are about human unity.
  They are about our responsibility for each other. They are about each 
of us being our brother and our sister's keeper. Social Security 
brought that philosophy right into the government of the United States. 
And in doing that, that elevated the purpose of government of the 
people. That is the power and the beauty of what Social Security has 
represented.

[[Page H3433]]

  And so when there is an attempt to try to change Social Security's 
nature or create a privatization program that will divert Social 
Security resources to set up private accounts, it is absolutely 
essential that we look back to history for the reason why Social 
Security was itself created.
  Today, workers, 6.2 percent of their income goes to Social Security. 
Employers put in 6.2 percent, a total of 12.4 percent. Those financial 
resources which come from workers today, 88 percent of the money that 
we put into Social Security goes directly to the workers, and 12 
percent goes into the trust fund.
  Social Security is dependent on that financial structure to be able 
to remain solvent. Now, what happens if you divert 4 percent to create 
private accounts? Well, if you take 4 percent away from Social 
Security, you are left with only 8 percent total funding or a little 
more than 8 percent, and it makes it absolutely impossible to be able 
to meet the needs of Social Security. So what does that mean?
  That means that you end up with people experiencing a cut in 
benefits. So any privatization of Social Security will result in 
benefit cuts. Now, the administration has talked about a 4 percent cash 
out. But what they have not told the American people is by carving out 
4 percent you are taking money out of Social Security.
  Now, the administration wants to borrow $2 billion to set up private 
accounts. That money is going to have to be paid back. Is not our 
national debt already high enough? Why in the world would we want to 
add another $2 trillion to it, but yet the plan to privatize Social 
Security would do just that. We would be borrowing money so people 
could invest in the stock market.
  Imagine if any of us went to our neighborhood bank and we said we 
wanted to take out a loan. And they said why? Because we want to invest 
in the stock market. Well, that is what our government would have the 
American people do, to borrow $2 trillion so we could invest in the 
stock market.
  If you carve 4 percent out of Social Security, it creates a condition 
where Social Security will not have enough money to pay benefits. Now, 
we have all heard this story about Social Security is broke. That is 
not true; that Social Security is going bankrupt. That is not true. Let 
me tell you why it is not true. It was just over a month ago that the 
Social Security Administration's own actuaries issued a report which 
shows that the Social Security Trust Fund has about $1.7 trillion in 
assets right now. The Social Security Trust Fund has those resources.
  Those assets will grow to over $6 trillion by the year 2028. That is 
hardly a fund that is broke. The Social Security Administration's own 
actuaries, in their report, indicate that Social Security will be rock 
solid through the year 2041 without any changes whatever.
  The Congressional Budget Office, which is a bipartisan budget office, 
has said that Social Security will be rock solid through the year 2052 
without any changes whatsoever. No need to create private accounts. 
This is not a non solution, it creates a problem.
  And the difference between the two projections of when Social 
Security will be able to pay a hundred percent are strictly differences 
that are due to underlying economic assumptions.
  The Social Security actuaries are predicting that over a period of 75 
years the American economy will only grow by 1.3 percent. Think about 
that. If it grows only by 1.3 percent, is that consistent with 
investing in the stock market? Of course not.
  Everyone understands that Social Security is insurance, but 
investments are inherently risky. If you want to invest, fine. But 
people have to remember the market goes up, the market goes down. 
People must remember that the market is not a sure thing. The market 
has had periods of advance and decline. Sometimes the benefits that 
people would get in a high market might be 6 times what they might get 
when the market is low.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for the opportunity to begin to 
introduce this discussion tonight about Social Security and speak out 
about the problems of privatization and why the American people ought 
to be very concerned that Social Security not be privatized.

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