State of the Union: Interview With Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD)

Interview

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I kind of look at security the way I would at the Department of Defense and our defense spending. We're never going to not fund defense.

But, at the same time, we -- every single year, we look at how we can make it better. And I think it's about time that we start talking about Social Security and making it better. We have got 11 years before we actually see cuts start to happen to people that are on Social Security.

And I think it'd be very responsible for us to do everything we can to make those funding programs now and the plans right now, so that we don't run out of money in Social Security and that it continues to provide all the benefits that it does today.

Simply looking away from it and pretending like there's no problems with Social Security is not an appropriate or responsible thing to do. So, I guess my preference would be, let's start managing it.

And I will just give you an example. Later on today, you're going to have folks that are very successful that are going to be around your table. Why don't you ask them whether or not the funding for their retirement comes strictly from government bonds or from the government itself? And don't they look at other resources that help to make their retirement plans better?

And I think we can do that if we start now on a bipartisan basis to make plans so that we have got the resources necessary. If not, in basically about 11 years -- and that's a heads-up for a lot of people that are 50, 51, 52 years old, the reductions that are built in are about 24 percent.

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A group of us are saying, look, we have got to do something about that. Let's talk about it. And there's a group of us that have been.

And so this is not something that we should be talking trying to scare people. This is something that we should be saying, let's plan now, so that Social Security has a long run ahead of it, more than 75 years. And why don't we start talking about the long-term plans, instead of trying to scare one another?

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More along the lines of allowing us to continue to guarantee the benefits that are there, but allow us to use other resources to make sure that they are there, so that the individual doesn't take the risk, but, rather, that the federal government does.

So rather than simply saying that -- and we have got proven track record in other areas of the federal government of doing this right now. But there's a group of us that have been working. I'm not the leader of the group, so I really don't want to get into a lot of the detail on it. But I really think there's a golden opportunity, and in a bipartisan way, to put Social Security on a long-term plan that would make it better in the future than what it is today and to assure its longevity.

But you do that by managing it. You do that by actually talking about it and not doing -- doing dog calls every time somebody says, let's try to address managing it.

And, look, what we have got right now out of a $5.9 trillion federal budget, the legislative part of this whole thing, the Congress, actually only votes at about $1.6 trillion to $1.7 trillion of that amount that's being spent. Wouldn't it be better if we actually tried to manage the rest of it as well...

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... and to actually be able to provide that management tool that right now does not exist?

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You know, we do want to continue the conversation in terms of how we make Medicare, Medicaid better and long-term successful.

I think Senator Scott had an idea that he proposed. I think the vast majority of us would say that we prefer to look at it in a different direction, one of managing it, as opposed to a discussion about having everything start over again.

And I think that's misleading in terms of what he really intended to do. But, look, the bottom line is, is, Republicans want to see Social Security be successful and be improved. And the best way to do that is to take a look at other successful pension programs that the vast majority of us, including a lot of the folks that you're going to be talking to, would include in their portfolios.

But we can do that as long as the federal government continues to make the assurances to the individuals who are looking forward to Social Security long term. But, once again, in the next 11 years, we have to have a better plan in place than what we do today, or we're going to see, under existing circumstances, some reductions of as much as 24 percent in some sort of a benefit.

So let's start talking now, because it's easier to fix it now than it would be five years or six years from now.

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And that's the message we're trying to get at is, isn't it responsible for Congress to actually say, we're going to start managing this...

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... we're going to try to do our best to make it better?

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I think the first thing that you do is, you assure people that are currently on Social Security or that are within 15, 20 years of getting it that they're not going to see changes in the existing benefits or programs.

I think that's really important, so that they can continue on the plans that they have got for retirement. But, second of all, you have to do a little bit of looking at what longevity looks like and whether or not people, if they're living longer, do we have to plan to make sure that we have got the resources to be able to pay for those benefits long-term?

There are some natural things that we have done in the past. We have looked at moving up by a couple of months the time period in which full benefits start. That's possibly something that we could look at in the future. There may be some possibilities of changing the amount of income which is subject to Social Security taxes.

I think those are reasonable discussions to talk about, because, right now, we have some increases there built into the existing program. But let's not talk about significant stuff until we actually look at what the other alternatives are.

We think that there are possibilities out there of long-term success without scaring people and without tearing apart the system and without reducing benefits. But it requires management. And it requires actually looking at and making things better.

Look, in South Dakota, we have got the South Dakota retirement plan. It's one of the best plans in the entire nation. But, every single year, we try to make it better. We try to do the internal mechanics of it, so that we actually make it better than it was the year before.

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And I will bet you that you can't find anybody in South Dakota that has that plan that isn't satisfied with the direction that we have done to make it better each year.

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Thank you.

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