[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 14403]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



        THE PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION TO STRENGTHEN SOCIAL SECURITY

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I want to say a word or two, in closing, 
about the effort that has been made by the President's commission to 
strengthen Social Security. I hope this commission is going to be more 
objective in the way they deal with the Social Security Program. All of 
us understand that Social Security cannot go on indefinitely, that it 
needs help, and that we need to make the appropriate investments to 
make sure that Social Security is there for generations to come.
  It is the most broadly based and most successful social program in 
the United States. Social Security gives to retirees the safety net 
they need to live a life of comfort. Along with Medicare, these are the 
two things that retirees really count on in America.
  I am concerned about the draft interim report by President Bush's 
commission which is supposed to look to the future of Social Security. 
The report makes many misleading assertions in an attempt to convince 
the public that Social Security is on the verge of collapse. I hope 
that any commission entrusted with the challenge of strengthening 
Social Security will carefully consider all options for reform. 
Unfortunately, this commission has been charged only with the task of 
how to convert Social Security into a system of private accounts, not 
with the careful study of whether or not this is the right thing to do.
  Let me give you an example. If you wanted to invest in a mutual fund 
today, you would generally find there is a minimum investment. Why is 
there a minimum investment? Because there is an administrative overhead 
cost to that investment. Unless you put in $500 or $1,000 or $2,000, it 
really does not warrant the administrative cost. Think about it in 
terms of individuals who decide they want to invest $100 a month, let's 
say, of their Social Security check into a private investment. 
Administrative costs come with each of those investments, and that has 
to be taken into account in the real world.
  Secondly, we have seen yesterday--and we have seen over the last 
year--that although the stock market can be very generous to those who 
invest in it, it can also be very cruel. And any who happen to have 
invested in the last year, making retirement dependent on their 
investments, will have to think twice about it because things have not 
gone well in a lot of indices, whether it is the Dow Jones or the S&P 
500.
  So those who think the stock market will always go up, historically 
they are right, it has always gone up, but there are peaks and valleys. 
If you should happen to make the investment of your Social Security 
retirement fund at a point when we are in an economic valley in the 
stock market, you may find all you counted on is not there when you 
need it. That is an important consideration.
  There has also been a consideration that some 2 percent of Social 
Security would be invested in these private investments. Because it is 
a pay-as-you-go system, that could require cuts of up to 40 percent in 
the benefits under Social Security or increases in Social Security 
payroll taxes.
  So what I would say to the President's commission is: Give us your 
alternative in its entirety, give us your program, get beyond the 
principles and the theories. Tell us how you are going to pay for this. 
If we are going to move to private investment and private accounts, 
show us how this will work.
  This program of Social Security, created in the days of Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt, was one many people branded as socialism. Many 
predecessors of the folks on the other side of the aisle voted against 
it because they thought it was an experiment in which America should 
not be involved. History has proven them wrong. Social Security is 
important. But those of us who serve today in the Senate and the House 
have an important responsibility to serve that legacy well, to make 
certain that Social Security and Medicare are here for many years to 
come.
  We can make Social Security stronger, and we can guarantee to 
successive generations that safety net will be there, but we have to be 
prudent and careful in the way we approach it.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  (Mrs. CARNAHAN assumed the chair.)




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