SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this amendment is identical to the Social Security Protection Act I introduced yesterday with Senators Mikulski, Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Blumenthal, Stabenow, Akaka, Whitehouse, Begich, and Lautenberg.
This legislation has the strong support of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the American Federation of Federal Employees, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, and the Jewish Veterans of America, among others.
Social Security is the most successful and reliable Federal program in our Nation's history. For 75 years, through good times and bad, when the economy was strong and when the economy was weak, Social Security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American. While we take that for granted, that, in fact, is an extraordinary accomplishment. It is all done at very modest administrative costs.
Social Security has been enormously successful in accomplishing exactly what its founders hoped to accomplish. Before President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in August of 1935, approximately half our senior citizens lived in poverty. Before Social Security, about half our seniors lived in poverty. Today, fewer than 10 percent of seniors live in poverty. That number is too great, but it is a significant improvement over what occurred before the establishment of Social Security.
What we should be very clear about, given the volatility of today's economy--there is a great deal of anxiety among the American people about whether they are going to be able to retire with dignity. At a time when millions of Americans have seen the value of their private retirement plans plummet, at a time when major corporations have significantly cut back on the defined benefit pension plans and 401(k) contributions, it makes no sense to me that anybody in this Chamber would contemplate dismantling the one retirement program that has been there for 75 years and has worked for 75 years.
There was an interesting article in USA Today yesterday. These are just a couple facts they threw out in yesterday's USA Today. The percentage of workers who are not at all confident about saving enough money for a comfortable retirement reached 27 percent in 2011 compared with 22 percent just last
year--a significant increase in a 1-year period. When combined with those who said they are ``not too confident,'' the total reaches 50 percent of workers. So we are in a situation, according to USA Today, where almost 50 percent of American workers lack confidence about whether they are going to have enough money to retire with dignity. There is another point that the article made. This is what they say:
Quite a few workers virtually have no savings or investments. In 2011, 29 percent said they have less than $1,000.
Well, you are not going to go too far in your retirement with less than $1,000.
56 percent said that their savings and investments, excluding their home value, totals less than $25,000.
The bottom line is, for a variety of reasons, A, the Wall Street collapse of a few years ago, the fact that wages for millions of workers have not kept up with inflation, a significant part of our older workforce today is extremely worried about what will happen to them when they retire.
Within that context, why there are people in the Congress who would want to start dismantling the one program that has, without fail, been there for 75 years, makes no sense to me at all. Let me also make another point. I think it is important to make this point 24 hours a day because we hear so much misinformation coming to us from pundits, from the media, and from Members of Congress. So let me be very clear.
This country has a very serious national debt problem and a very serious deficit problem. We just heard about that, a $1.6 trillion deficit. That is serious business. In my view, Congress has to be aggressive to address that issue. But here is the point. Social Security has not contributed one nickel to the Federal deficit or the national debt--not one penny.
So when you hear people say we have a serious deficit problem, therefore we have to cut benefits in Social Security or raise the retirement age, what they are saying makes no sense at all. These are two very separate issues.
In fact, Social Security currently has a $2.6 trillion surplus. Let me repeat that. Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus. That is projected to grow to $4.2 trillion in 2023. In 1983, when we look back a little bit, it turns out that Social Security did face a crisis. At that point, in 1983, if the Congress and then-President Reagan had not acted, Social Security was projected to run out of necessary funding in 6 months--6 months. That is a crisis.
As a result of the discussions and negotiations and a committee put together by the President, Tip O'Neill, et cetera, a resolution was reached to that problem. The Congress overwhelmingly voted for it. Today is not 1983. Today the Social Security Administration has estimated that Social Security will be able to pay out 100 percent of promised benefits to every eligible recipient for the next 26 years.
This country does face a whole lot of crises: Unemployment is off the wall; childhood poverty is too high; we have serious deficit problems; two wars; we are worried about global warming. We have a lot of problems. But it seems to me to be totally absurd that people would say: Oh, my goodness, we have to cut Social Security because it can only pay out benefits for the next 26 years.
Go to Minnesota and say to a business person: If you could pay out all that you owe for the next 26 years, do you think it is a crisis? People would be shaking their heads.
I should point out that after those 26 years, if nothing is done--and I think something should be done--Social Security will be able to fund about 78 percent of promised benefits. So it seems to me that given the enormous importance of Social Security not only to the elderly but to people with disabilities, to people who are widows and orphans who have lost the income that a bread winner had brought into the family, we have to do everything we can to protect Social Security.
We have to make it very clear that Social Security is strong, can pay out every benefit for 26 years, that has not contributed one nickel to the deficit. And that is the amendment that I will be bringing up as soon as I possibly can.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Would the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. SANDERS. I sure would.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Would the Senator explain--I think he knows because he is quite an expert on this program. I agree 100 percent with the views he just expressed. What is the basic average Social Security income that a person might receive? I understand it is somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000.
Mr. SANDERS. I think it is a hair higher than that. I think it is about $14,000 a year. But the point is, I would say to the Senator from Louisiana, there are millions of seniors for whom that is either all or almost all of their income. That is it. That is it. In this day and age, that is the average. So your point is, there are people certainly below the average.
Ms. LANDRIEU. The reason I ask the Senator that is because it is striking to me that some Members from the other side of the aisle will come and argue that programs like this should be slated for cuts and reductions, and yet failed to vote favorably to raise slightly the income tax on families making over $1 million a year in annual income. I, frankly, Senator, do not understand that. I am not sure people listening to this understand it.
Could you enlighten us?
Mr. SANDERS. Here is the story. I agree with you. I find it hard to understand that there are people who get up here--and we hear the speeches every day. They say we have a serious deficit crisis. It is unfair to leave that burden to our kids and our grandkids. We agree with that.
We say, OK, let's address the deficit crisis. But let's do it in a way that is not on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the children, the most vulnerable people in the country. So what this Senator is pointing out is that in the last number of years what we have seen is that the people on top have been doing very well--the top 1 percent now earns about 23 percent of all income, which is more than the bottom 50 percent. The effective tax rate for the very wealthiest people in this country is about 16 percent, which is the lowest in recent history. We have given huge amounts of tax breaks in recent years to these very same people.
So what I think the Senator from Louisiana is saying, and I agree with her, is, if we are going to go forward with deficit reduction, which you and I agree we should, let's do it in a way that calls for shared sacrifices.
The Senator from Louisiana knows that H.R. 1, the Republican House-passed bill, would throw over 200,000 kids off of Head Start. Millions of students who are trying to get through college would either get lower Pell grants or no Pell grants at all.
It is an attack, a devastating attack, a cruel attack, against some of the most vulnerable people in this country. They are cutting back on the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants, and Children. There are low-income women now, who are trying to make sure they do not give birth to low-weight babies--cut back on their program. But when we say, well, maybe billionaires--who are doing phenomenally well--might be asked to pay a little bit more in taxes, oh, my word. We will have none of that at all.
So the issue is shared sacrifice. Do not balance the budget on the backs of the weak and the vulnerable.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator from Vermont for that
eloquent and very accurate description of the situation we are in. I see the Senator from Oklahoma here for an amendment. We want to keep these amendments being discussed. So I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for joining us.
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Mr. SANDERS. I did wish to make a few points.
No. 1, the Senator from Oklahoma gave his understanding about what the debt commission would do to Social Security. I do not agree with his characterization. In point of fact, what the debt commission does do is cut retirement benefits by more than 35 percent for young workers entering the workforce today. Today's 20-year-old workers who retire at age 65 would see their benefits cut by 17 percent if their wages average $43,000 over their working lives, by 30 percent if their wages average $69,000 over their working lives, and by 36 percent if their wages average $107,000 over their working lives, according to the Social Security Chief Actuary. The proposed cuts would apply to retirees, disabled workers and their families, children who have lost parents, widows, and widowers. It is not accurate to say that the debt commission left unscathed workers--quite the contrary. There are devastating cuts to young workers.
If the Senator from Oklahoma wants to make sure Social Security is financially solvent for the next 75 years--and I want to see that as well--there is an easy and fair way to do it. It is a way that doesn't require slashing benefits for younger workers. When Barack Obama ran for President, he had a pretty good idea. I hope he still has that idea. What he said is that it is important to understand that right now somebody making $1 million a year pays the same amount of money into the Social Security trust fund as somebody who makes $106,000. If we lift that cap, start at $250,000, ask those people to contribute into the Social Security trust fund, we will go a very long way to solving the financial solvency of Social Security. I think we should do that. That is certainly not what the deficit reduction commission recommended.
We keep hearing that the Social Security trust fund has a pile of worthless IOUs. The fact is, Social Security invests the surplus money it receives from workers, from the payroll tax, into U.S. Government bonds, the same bonds China or anybody else purchases. These bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. And in our entire history--and many of us want to make sure this continues--the U.S. Government has never defaulted on its debt obligations.
The point is, to say these are worthless IOUs is not dissimilar to saying: Guess what. Because we have a deep deficit and a deep national debt, we don't have any money to fund equipment for soldiers who are in the field in Afghanistan or Iraq. They are just worthless IOUs, and we can't fund them.
That is, of course, nonsense.
Do we have to address the deficit crisis? Yes, we do. But my friend from Oklahoma did not respond to the issue of why, if he and his friends are so concerned about our deficit crisis, they vote year after year for hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the wealthiest people or why they want to repeal the estate tax, which will provide $1 trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top three-tenths of 1 percent.
I yield the floor.
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