Muslims For Kucinich

Kucinich gave the following speech in Congress on May 17, 2005

"Mr. Speaker, this evening, as American families settle in, and many workers have turned in, the American people will go to bed hoping that this Congress has the intention and the fortitude to stand up and to protect the people's right to a secure retirement. There is a great skepticism across this land about the plans to privatize Social Security.

"Social Security, when it was created in 1934, was created as an insurance program. It was not an investment program; it was an insurance program which would ensure against people being too old to work, an insurance program which would ensure against being injured on the job and not being able to work again, an insurance program which would ensure that if a family lost a bread winner to a tragedy, that the family would still have an ability to survive and that the children would have benefits covered until their late teens.

"Social Security has been the most successful social program that this country has ever seen.

"Now, why was it created? We have to go back to the time of the Depression, a time when this country saw the New York Stock Exchange lose over 80 percent of its value in a period of about 4 years. That people lost their homes, they lost their farms, factories were closed, people lost their jobs, they lost their pensions. People were basically stripped bear with the curse of nothingness. One out of four Americans was without a job. There were hundreds of thousands of children who did not have a place.

"From the ashes of the Great Depression arose a leader who recognized that the function and purpose of a democratic society is to make sure that people have economic security, the security of a job, the security of a home, and the security of a solid retirement. When Franklin Roosevelt brought forward this proposal to create Social Security, it was brought forward not to give to people some kind of a welfare program, and I do not object to welfare, but it was not created as a welfare program. It was always based on what people paid in. And so Social Security became a new hope. It helped lift generations of elderly out of poverty. Do my colleagues know that today, 50 percent of the elderly would be living below the poverty line if it were not for Social Security. Social Security was created as a means to make sure that when people got into their later ages that they would have the ability to support themselves.

"Mr. Speaker, we heard the mythology when we were growing up of old folks homes, of poor houses, of people who when they became elderly were destitute and had no opportunities. Well, Social Security was what transformed the American economic landscape, helped lift people up out of poverty, helped guarantee that the sense of interdependencies, which is essential to the creation of the United States, was reflected in this social program that had a powerful economic component, retirement security.

"The very words, the United States, which we celebrate here in this Chamber were not simply about the unity of 13 geographical territories nor are they today simply about the unity of 50 geographical territories, they are about human unity.

"They are about our responsibility for each other. They are about each of us being our brother and our sister's keeper. Social Security brought that philosophy right into the government of the United States. And in doing that, that elevated the purpose of government of the people. That is the power and the beauty of what Social Security has represented.

"And so when there is an attempt to try to change Social Security's nature or create a privatization program that will divert Social Security resources to set up private accounts, it is absolutely essential that we look back to history for the reason why Social Security was itself created.

"Today, workers, 6.2 percent of their income goes to Social Security. Employers put in 6.2 percent, a total of 12.4 percent. Those financial resources which come from workers today, 88 percent of the money that we put into Social Security goes directly to the workers, and 12 percent goes into the trust fund.

"Social Security is dependent on that financial structure to be able to remain solvent. Now, what happens if you divert 4 percent to create private accounts? Well, if you take 4 percent away from Social Security, you are left with only 8 percent total funding or a little more than 8 percent, and it makes it absolutely impossible to be able to meet the needs of Social Security. So what does that mean?

"That means that you end up with people experiencing a cut in benefits. So any privatization of Social Security will result in benefit cuts. Now, the administration has talked about a 4 percent cash out. But what they have not told the American people is by carving out 4 percent you are taking money out of Social Security.

"Now, the administration wants to borrow $2 billion to set up private accounts. That money is going to have to be paid back. Is not our national debt already high enough? Why in the world would we want to add another $2 trillion to it, but yet the plan to privatize Social Security would do just that. We would be borrowing money so people could invest in the stock market.

"Imagine if any of us went to our neighborhood bank and we said we wanted to take out a loan. And they said why? Because we want to invest in the stock market. Well, that is what our government would have the American people do, to borrow $2 trillion so we could invest in the stock market.

"If you carve 4 percent out of Social Security, it creates a condition where Social Security will not have enough money to pay benefits. Now, we have all heard this story about Social Security is broke. That is not true; that Social Security is going bankrupt. That is not true. Let me tell you why it is not true. It was just over a month ago that the Social Security Administration's own actuaries issued a report which shows that the Social Security Trust Fund has about $1.7 trillion in assets right now. The Social Security Trust Fund has those resources.

"Those assets will grow to over $6 trillion by the year 2028. That is hardly a fund that is broke. The Social Security Administration's own actuaries, in their report, indicate that Social Security will be rock solid through the year 2041 without any changes whatever.

"The Congressional Budget Office, which is a bipartisan budget office, has said that Social Security will be rock solid through the year 2052 without any changes whatsoever. No need to create private accounts. This is not a non solution, it creates a problem.

"And the difference between the two projections of when Social Security will be able to pay a hundred percent are strictly differences that are due to underlying economic assumptions.

"The Social Security actuaries are predicting that over a period of 75 years the American economy will only grow by 1.3 percent. Think about that. If it grows only by 1.3 percent, is that consistent with investing in the stock market? Of course not.

"Everyone understands that Social Security is insurance, but investments are inherently risky. If you want to invest, fine. But people have to remember the market goes up, the market goes down. People must remember that the market is not a sure thing. The market has had periods of advance and decline. Sometimes the benefits that people would get in a high market might be 6 times what they might get when the market is low.

"So, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for the opportunity to begin to introduce this discussion tonight about Social Security and speak out about the problems of privatization and why the American people ought to be very concerned that Social Security not be privatized."