Executive Session

Floor Speech

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SOCIAL SECURITY

Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, I wish to speak as in morning business to talk about the big issue pending before the Senate, which is the potential legislation by Republicans or Democrats to cut contributions to Social Security. I am very worried because in the legislation we considered last week, we had proposals to cut contributions to Social Security by $250 billion. This was legislation proposed by Democratic leaders and then a separate piece of legislation by Republican leaders. I think that legislation was a mistake on both sides.

We have precious few bipartisan institutions or contacts in this Senate. Senator Manchin and I--one Democratic and one Republican Senator, both freshmen--meet every Thursday for lunch. At our Thursday lunch last week, Senator Manchin initially said: I am having difficulty. I don't think I am going to be able to vote for the Democratic bill to cut Social Security contributions.

I said: I join you in that because I am not going to be able to vote for the Republican bill that cuts Social Security contributions.

So the two of us voted pro-Social Security and against the legislation before us.

I am very worried that we are forgetting the lessons that are currently playing out in Europe on this subject. As Margaret Thatcher said, ``Eventually socialists run out of other people's money.'' The collapse of European socialism underscores the lesson that you cannot run a retirement system without contributions.

We know already that the Social Security system is running slightly in the red. Contributions into the system are going to run $10 billion behind the cost of honoring benefits to seniors. But under this legislation we would underfund Social Security by $250 billion. We would increase the tide of red ink to Social Security by 20 times. I think that is a mistake.

AARP tells us that Social Security is not a welfare program, it is a retirement security program paid by the contributions of workers and we should run this program with the contribution of workers.

Remember, if we make this decision to cut contributions to Social Security, we replace those contributions with government bonds, but the government bonds we would ask seniors to trust no longer have a triple-A credit rating from Standard & Poor's. It is basically asking seniors to trust us.

When you look at the details of the Democratic bill and the Republican bill, you see another disturbing trend. The Democratic and Republican bills both depend on revenue streams that take many years to repay what is lost to Social Security. Under the Republican bill, there are promised cuts which could be reversed by a future administration or Congress. It takes until 2018 to repay the senior citizens what has been lost in Social Security contributions under the trust fund. Under the Democratic bill, there was a political tax on millionaires, and it takes until 2021 to repay seniors.

The message that Senator Manchin and I had, as one Democrat and one Republican, is, how about not charging seniors? How about not causing a tide of red ink to Social Security? How about making sure we maintain contributions to that program? Seniors have enough to worry about right now. They should not have to worry about the future solvency of Social Security.

One analyst described how, under the legislation, it requires temporary borrowing of an additional $240 billion for the Federal budget. I am worried that kind of borrowing could trigger an earlier loss of the debt limit of the United States, so we could trigger the battle we all expect for next January to actually happen--ominously for the President, prior to the election--if this legislation would pass.

Common sense should prevail, that we should run a retirement security
system with adequate contributions to maintain benefits, that we should agree on a bipartisan basis that Social Security is one of the most successful Federal programs ever signed, that we should say to seniors: Among all the other worries you have, you should not worry about Congress underfunding the trust fund for Social Security.
We should say to seniors: We are not replacing solid contributions coming in from workers with bonds that no longer have a AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's.

I urge members of AARP to reach out to their leaders and say: We urge you to forcefully advocate for maintaining adequate contributions to Social Security; that we don't think promises of a millionaire's tax that repays the debts until 2021 or spending cuts that repay the debts until 2018 are something we can fully trust.

So I urge Members of this body to maintain adequate contributions to Social Security, to defeat both the Republican and Democratic bills, to learn the lessons of Europe that we need to maintain a retirement security system with adequate contributions, and that we should not sink the Social Security trust fund in a wave of red ink on gimmick legislation which already would impinge the credit of the United States to a degree that it should not be impinged any further.

With that I yield the floor, and I thank my senior colleague from New York.

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