Social Security Reform

SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM -- (House of Representatives - June 23, 2005)

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, it is time to turn down the rhetoric and to stop the raid on the Social Security trust fund and start allowing Americans to invest their Social Security taxes in personal savings accounts.

For more than 40 years, the United States Congress has shamelessly used payroll taxes intended for Social Security to fund Big Government spending. Thanks to the leadership of President George W. Bush, Congress has undertaken a national discussion about how we deal with the inevitable insolvency in the program. And while there are multiple plans for reforms, several of my colleagues yesterday offered a thoughtful approach.

The Ryan-Johnson-McCrery-Shaw plan is a good start down the right path for form, first and foremost by stopping the raid on the Social Security fund, by requiring that any surplus in Social Security taxes be returned to the American people in personal savings accounts. The plan ensures that Social Security taxes will be used for Social Security.

Let us stop the raid, start the accounts. Let us move forward with this commonsense plan.

I urge all my colleagues to give thoughtful consideration to the Ryan-Johnson-McCrery-Shaw plan for beginning the reform of Social Security.

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