Remarks of Representative Mike Doyle
Social Security Forum
City-County Building
April 30, 2010
I thank the Representative for organizing this event. I am happy to come and talk to seniors about Social Security, which we all know is essential to a respectable life after retirement.
Some Republicans have raised the idea of reducing guaranteed Social Security benefits for future generations and creating risky private accounts where individuals’ retirement savings would be gambled on Wall Street investments. I have opposed such proposals in the past, and I will oppose them whenever anyone proposes them.
I opposed Republican efforts in 2005 to privatize Social Security and to reduce future guaranteed benefits for all Social Security beneficiaries. I’m pleased to note that Democrats in Congress were successful in opposing President Bush’s radical plan to privatize Social Security.
Thanks to Republican scare tactics, most people don’t realize that the Social Security Trust fund can be made solvent for future generations with modest minor adjustments. For example, lifting the cap on payroll taxes so that millionaires pay the same percentage of their income into Social Security as minimum wage workers do would eliminate 95 percent of the Social Security Trust Fund’s unfunded liabilities. That’s just one of many ways we could eliminate the shortfall in the Social Security Trust Fund. Major benefit cuts aren’t necessary to make Social Security Solvent in perpetuity, and adamantly oppose Social Security benefit cuts.
I would also like to discuss the COLA , or Cost of Living Adjustment, that has been the cause of such controversy as of late. While the measure of inflation (the CPI-E) the government uses to calculate Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments didn’t rise enough to authorize a COLA for 2010, I am well aware that the cost of living for older Americans has risen significantly. Consequently, I believe the federal government should act to help senior citizens struggling to get by on fixed incomes to deal with the rising cost of health care and other goods and services.
I have consistently supported efforts to help older Americans who have been hard-hit by the current economic downturn like, for example, giving several $250 payments to Social Security beneficiaries. These payments can’t begin to offset the economic losses many of our senior citizens have suffered, but they can help make up for the unprecedented denial of Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments in two subsequent years.
I also believe that Congress needs to re-examine the way it measures the cost of living for seniors to determine whether changes should be made to more accurately reflect those costs and assure that Social Security beneficiaries receive fairer cost of living adjustments in the future. I am happy to be working towards that end in Congress.
I thank you all so much for your time, and will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
