Date: 2005-05-03
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. this last weekend I held a town hall meeting on Social Security in my hometown of Martinez. I must say that the audience was quite stunned to learn that not only was President Bush continuing his drive for the privatization of Social Security. which would borrow trillions of dollars from the Social Security -trust fund and drive it deeper into debt and imperil its opportunities to achieve solvency. but now he was offering something called progressive indexing. which would be a substantial cut in benefits under Social Security to middleclass recipients. They were quite stunned to learn that those individuals who pay into Social Security every week from their paychecks. every month from their paychecks and all year long from their paychecks. that the President was now suggesting that they should take a cut in their benefits as a way of restoring solvency. They were not just stunned that the President was suggesting this onetwo assault on Social Security. but they were also quite alarmed to learn that the President apparently has no intention of paying back the some $700 billion that his administration has borrowed from the Social Security trust fund. that the trust fund is. in fact. not being honored. the people that pay into that trust fund every year to the tune of some $160 billion. that that money is now being taken out to use for other functions of the government. whether it is the war in Iraq or whether it is the general spending of the government. It is very clear that they want that trust fund restored. It is a trust fund. They are paying into it because they believe that that money is going to be put there. loaned to the government. replaced by Treasury bills. but it will be there for their use. for their annuities that they are buying every week when they pay into the Social Security fund. But that is not what the President is suggesting. The President is suggesting. as he does in the budget that this House passed last week. that he will continue to borrow $160 billion out of the trust fund and. as he said when he went to West Virginia. it is really. not a trust fund. there is no trust there. so apparently he is the first President since we started Social Security who has suggested that he may not pay the trust fund back. That is just unacceptable to my constituents at the town hall in Martinez. I think it is unacceptable to the overwhelming number of the American public who believe that the reason they are paying into Social Security is so that they can have some level of financial security upon their retirement. Social Security. for the current retirees. supplies over half of their retirement income. Sure. we all want to make it easier and better and more likely that Americans will save for their retirement. But that has not happened. Hopefully it will happen in the future. But Social Security is a very important part of peoples retirements. When they look at the efforts by corporations to get rid of their retirement plans. when they look at the difficulty they are having as middleclass families to save not only for their childs education but for their retirement. they recognize how important it is that the Social Security trust fund be maintained. But now this President comes along and suggests that that is not the case. that he is going to put an assault on that trust fund with the privatization of Social Security and then he is going to.come along and cut the benefits to middleclass Social Security recipients who have paid into that trust fund throughout their entire working life. I think it is very clear that not only is this plan unacceptable to the vast numbers of Americans who have had a chance to take a look at it. but hopefully it will become unacceptable to this Congress as stewards of that trust fund. But first and foremost. what the American people want us to do is to stop taking the money out of the trust fund to fund the rest of the government. We have got to honor what we set out to do in 1983 under the bipartisan agreement of Speaker Tip ONeill. an icon of the Democratic Party. President Ronald Reagan. an icon of the Republican Party. when they sat down and hammered out a bipartisan agreement. Part of that agreement was to create a trust fund. not some honey pot that any Member of Congress could go into and take out for whatever purpose they want but a trust fund for the retirement of millions and millions of Americans and their families. It is important that we honor that. Mr. Speaker.