Social Security

SOCIAL SECURITY -- (Senate - February 16, 2005)

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to reiterate that I am extremely concerned about President Bush's proposed Social Security restructuring, privatization-whatever the code word of the day is-restructuring, which I believe is going to put at real risk the security of all Americans in this country, from our young workers who will be retiring in future decades, to our seniors who are retiring today or who are already retired.

As President Bush's plan has come out, we are realizing what it will do. It will end the guaranteed benefit that is such a critical part of this insurance program today. We also see that it is going to do nothing to fix the long-term issues that face Social Security. Just privatizing and restructuring it is not going to solve those long-term issues.

I am also here today to emphasize the fact that this restructuring or privatization plan is going to add trillions of dollars to our national debt-trillions of dollars when we already have record deficits that future generations will be responsible for. This privatization plan adds trillions of dollars to our national debt.

As President Bush has been traveling around the country to sell his privatization plan, we hear him say:

We have an obligation and a duty to confront problems and not pass them on to future generations.

Well, many of us, on both sides of the aisle, agree with him. We should not create new problems for the next generation to handle. But the trouble is, that is exactly what this President's plan does. It actually adds to the problems of the next generation. It does nothing to solve them.

I think it is time for President Bush to level with the American people about what his program really is. It really is a new recipe for a continuing fall into a black hole of debt. This plan, as the President is proposing, is going to run up $5 trillion in debt that our generation will not pay for. It is going to fall squarely on the shoulders of our children and our grandchildren.

The President not only wants to gamble away the secure future that retirees count on today, he wants to burden them with a huge new $5 trillion debt.

Now, there is another point worth making about the President's plan as well. I keep hearing him say that anyone over 55 will not be affected. Anyone over 55--well, let's be clear. Anyone over 55 will be impacted by this tremendous new debt that is incurred.

President Bush can say he will not cut your benefits now, but how can he guarantee that if we take trillions of dollars
from the Social Security trust fund for this privatization plan?

All we have to do, to understand this situation, is to look at the record.

Just last week, we got a budget with the biggest deficit in our Nation's history--4 short years after the budget had the largest surplus in our Nation's history. A few days later, we saw cost estimates for the Medicare prescription drug benefit balloon from the $400 billion we were told it would cost to now it costing more than $700 billion.

Now the Bush administration plans to add trillions to our balance sheet by privatizing Social Security. Let's take a look at this chart. It tells the picture clearly. As we see with this chart, there is more red ink in the President's budget than we care to see for years to come. Unfortunately, if his privatization plan goes into effect, massive new debt increases are added in the years after this plan takes effect. The President, as he did with Medicare, likes to talk about the cost of implementation over 10-year periods. What he does not mention is that for 5 years under those projections, the plan is not fully phased in. So rather than considering his already bloated $700 billion transition projection, let's look at an outside source.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says the borrowing numbers we have heard from the administration "are misleadingly low."

They are generated by using a ten-year budget window (2006 to 2015) that includes only five years of the fully phased-in plan. The plan would not be launched until 2009 and not be in full effect until 2011.

Over the first ten years that the plan actually was in effect (2009 to 2018) it would add $1.4 trillion to the debt. Over the next ten years (2019 to 2028) it would add about $3.5 trillion more to the debt. All told, the plan would add $4.9 trillion (14 percent of GDP in 2028) to the debt over the first 20 years.

That is almost $5 trillion. That money is going to have to come from somewhere, and it is pretty naive to think that huge new borrowing will not affect our current retirees. It is naive to think massive new borrowing won't affect programs such as Medicare or Medicaid that do need our attention. And it is naive to think we will simply go along and pass this massive new problem on to our children and grandchildren.

A story a couple of days ago in the Washington Post was headlined "After Bush Leaves Office, His Budget Costs Balloon." I want to read a few lines from that story.

It warned that "the numbers released in recent days add up to a budgetary landmine that could blow up just as the next president moves into the Oval Office."

Philip G. Joyce, professor of public policy at George Washington University, said in the piece:

It's almost like you've got a budget and you've got a shadow budget coming in behind that's a whole lot more expensive.

And a Republican adviser to one of our colleagues said:

Hopefully some very difficult decisions will be addressed between now and the time we have a new White House resident so that occupant isn't faced with some very expensive chickens coming home to roost. There are some things that we can do, but unfortunately in the political world kicking down the road is often seen as leadership.

That is what kicking down the road is going to give us. That says it all.

This huge new debt is not the only bad part of privatization. In fact, we need to remember this plan that is being put forward does nothing to extend Social Security solvency-not for a year, a day, not for an hour. That is the issue we are trying to solve. The President's plan, at least the part he has been willing to share with us, does not address that. It is an ideological gamble that we in the Senate and those who depend on Social Security today and tomorrow and around the country should not stand for.

Rather than gambling away our security and running up this huge new debt, we should promote personal savings to help every American with their retirement security and we should stop raiding the Social Security trust fund to pay for misguided priorities such as massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

The ideas we have heard from the President are too dangerous for this generation's retirees or those who are to follow. As you can imagine, like all of my colleagues, I have heard a lot about this proposal from my constituents in Washington. I have heard from current retirees, from disabled workers whom we have not even begun to talk about how this plan will affect, and from young people who would supposedly benefit. President Bush would be very surprised by the tremendous number of comments I have been getting and the tone of them. I will share a few.

From a retiree who lives on Whidbey Island:

The administration should be ashamed of its effort to confuse and mislead the hard-working citizens of the United States.

I heard from a 20-something, who supposedly is going to benefit from privatization, who said:

I want Social Security to be left in its current form.

I heard from a 51-year-old self-employed fisherman who said:

My main concern about Social Security is that it survive for my children. The risks are simply too great for the future of our citizens and our country.

I agree with him. This plan is a plan for social insecurity. It is a guaranteed gamble, not a guaranteed benefit. We are going to continue to stand up for future generations, the young people who are following us, against a private solution that simply will add trillions of dollars in debt to the future generations we are supposedly thinking about here in the Senate. We want to be proud of what we pass along to our children and grandchildren.

I yield the floor.

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