[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6846]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                            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, I am going to talk about Social 
Security, a little bit about the problems, a little bit about the 
commission that was appointed today by the President of the United 
States, George Bush, to try to come to a conclusion that is going to 
keep Social Security solvent.
  We have been looking and acknowledging for almost 6 years now the 
serious problem of Social Security solvency. It has been a problem 
because when we developed Social Security in 1934, it was set up as a 
pay-as-you go program, where current workers pay in their Social 
Security tax and it is immediately sent out to current retirees.
  What we have been experiencing over the last 65 years is a dwindling 
number in the birth rate and an increasing lifespan of seniors. So, for 
example, in 1942, we had almost 40 people working paying in their 
Social Security tax for every one retiree. Today, yes, Mr. Speaker, 
there are three people working paying a much higher Social Security tax 
to accommodate every one retiree.
  The guess is that within 20 years, it is going to be two workers 
paying their tax for one retiree, so the challenge is increasing the 
return on that money that is being paid in by employees and employers 
in the United States.
  Right now, the average employee is going to get a 1.7 percent return 
on the money they have paid in to Social Security in Social Security 
taxes. Today the President appointed a commission. It was my 
recommendation that we do not use a commission to further delay the 
implementation of a solution for this, because the fact is that the 
longer we put off this decision, the more drastic the changes are going 
to have to be.
  There are only two ways to solve the Social Security dilemma: We 
either increase the revenues, or we decrease the benefits and the 
amount of money going out.

                              {time}  1645

  And what some of us have been suggesting for several years is that we 
increase revenue by getting a better real return on some of that money 
rather than simply lending it to the Government.
  We have heard a lot of bragging that we are paying down the public 
debt. Actually, we are borrowing the money from Social Security and 
writing an IOU and then using that money to pay down the so-called debt 
held by the public, or I call it the Wall Street debt.
  I urge the President to urge this commission to move quickly. I urge 
the commission to look at the legislation that many of us have been 
introducing over the last 6 or 7 years to make sure we keep Social 
Security solvent.
  I think it is very important for the American people to know, Mr. 
Speaker, that we should not accept any recommendation from the White 
House that does not keep Social Security solvent for at least the next 
75 years. It is too easy to say let us put Social Security first and 
then do nothing except add rhetoric and maybe pay down the debt a 
little bit. But what we have done with the so-called lockbox, with the 
so-called paying down the debt held by the public, does not help solve 
the long-term Social Security problem.
  So I appreciate this time, Mr. Speaker; and I urge the commission to 
act as quickly as possible. I do see members of that commission that 
are going to be on the bottom end of the learning curve. That means 
that if they are going to understand the complexity and seriousness of 
the Social Security problem, that they need to do a lot of burning of 
the midnight oil.

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