[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 2 (Friday, January 5, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E7]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     INTRODUCING THE SOCIAL SECURITY FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS ONLY ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 4, 2007

  Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, today I introduce the Social Security for 
American Citizens Only Act. This act forbids the federal government 
from providing Social Security benefits to non-citizens. It also ends 
the practice of totalization. Totalization is where the Social Security 
Administration takes into account the number of year's an individual 
worked abroad, and thus was not paying payroll taxes, in determining 
that individual's eligibility for Social Security benefits!
  Hard as it may be to believe, the United States Government already 
provides Social Security benefits to citizens of 17 other countries. 
Under current law, citizens of those countries covered by these 
agreements may have an easier time getting Social Security benefits 
than public school teachers or policemen!
  Obviously, this program provides a threat to the already fragile 
Social Security system, and the threat is looming larger. The 
administration's totalization proposal, a version of which passed the 
other body in the 109th Congress, actually allows thousands of 
foreigners who would qualify for U.S. Social Security benefits actually 
came to the United States and worked here illegally. Adding insult to 
injury, the federal government may even give Social Security benefits 
to non-citizens who worked here for as little as 18 months.
  That's right: the federal government may actually allow someone who 
came to the United States illegally, worked for less than the required 
number of years to qualify for Social Security, and then returned to 
Mexico for the rest of his working years, to collect full U.S. Social 
Security benefits while living in Mexico. That is an insult to the 
millions of Americans who pay their entire working lives into the 
system and now face the possibility that there may be nothing left when 
it is their turn to retire.
  The proposed agreement is nothing more than a financial reward to 
those who have willingly and knowingly violated our own immigration 
laws. Talk about an incentive for illegal immigration! How many more 
would break the law to come to this country if promised U.S. government 
paychecks for life? Is creating a global welfare state on the back of 
the American taxpayer a good idea? The program also establishes a very 
disturbing precedent of U.S. foreign aid to individual citizens rather 
than to states.
  Estimates of what this latest totalization proposal would cost top 
one billion dollars per year. As the system braces for a steep increase 
in those who will be drawing from the Social Security trust fund while 
policy makers seriously consider cutting Social Security benefits to 
American seniors and raising payroll taxes on American workers, it 
makes no sense to expand Social Security into a global welfare system. 
Social Security was designed to provide support for retired American 
citizens who worked in the United States. We should be shoring up the 
system for those Americans who have paid in for decades, not expanding 
it to cover foreigners who have not.
  It is long past time for Congress to stand up to the internationalist 
bureaucrats and start looking out for the American worker. I therefore 
call upon my colleagues to stop the use of the Social Security Trust 
Fund as yet another vehicle for foreign aid by cosponsoring the Social 
Security for American Citizens Only Act.

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