HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 18
(By Mr. Speaker, Mr. Kiss and Delegates Caputo,Amores, Argento,
Barker, Beach, Beane, Boggs, Brown, Browning, Butcher, Campbell,
Cann,DeLong, Doyle, Eldridge, Fragale, Hatfield, Hrutkay, Iaquinta,
Kominar, Longstreth, Louisos, Mahan, Manchin, Marshall, Martin,
Michael, Miley, Morgan, Palumbo, Paxton, Perdue, Perry, Pethtel,
Pino, Poling, Spencer, Stalnaker, Staton, Stemple, Stephens,
Susman, Swartzmiller, Talbott, Rick Thompson, Ron Thompson, Tucker,
Varner, Webster, H. K. White, Wysong, Yost)
Calling on the Congress of the United States to reject plans to
privatize Social Security by cutting Social Security's
guaranteed benefits and diverting money out of Social Security
into private investment accounts and, further, calling on
Congress to commit to repaying to the Social Security Trust
Fund the moneys it has taken and spent for other purposes.
Whereas, Social Security's income protections-guaranteed,
lifelong benefits, cost-of-living adjustments to guard against
inflation, increased benefits for families, greater income
replacement for low-income workers, and disability and survivor
benefits are the backbone of retirement security and family
protection in the United States; and
whereas, Social Security provides crucial, often indispensable income protection for the 47 million individuals-one of every six
Americans-receiving benefits; and
Whereas, Social Security is the nation's most successful and
most important family income protection program, but it has
long-term funding needs we should address; and
Whereas, Some policymakers propose to address these needs by
cutting guaranteed benefits and privatizing Social Security, that
is, diverting a third or more of workers' payroll tax contributions
out of the Social Security Trust Fund and into private investment
accounts; and
Whereas, Privatization will worsen Social Security's funding
needs by draining resources from the Trust Fund into private
accounts, increasing the federal deficit by $2 trillion over the
first decade alone and more in the future and putting us in deeper
hock to foreign creditors; and
whereas, Some officials and members of Congress have suggested
the federal government will not pay back the money it has taken
from the Social Security Trust Fund over the past twenty years and
used for other things, thereby denying working families the money
they paid into Social Security and leading to further benefit cuts;
and
whereas, Privatizing Social Security will cut guaranteed
benefits by thirty percent for young workers, even for those who do
not participate in private accounts, costing them $152,000 over their retirements, denying them benefits they have earned and
imperiling their economic security; and
whereas, Cutting guaranteed benefits will hurt the elderly
because Social Security is the only secure source of retirement
income for most Americans, providing at least half the income of
nearly two thirds of older American households and lifting more
than 11 million seniors out of poverty; and
Whereas, Cutting guaranteed benefits will hurt women and people
of color, as they are more likely than white men to rely on Social
Security for most of their retirement income, they earn less than
white men and are thus less able to save for retirement, and they
are less likely than white men to receive job-based pensions in
retirement; and
whereas, Diverting resources from Social Security to fund
private accounts will threaten guaranteed survivor and disability
benefits, thus harming working families particularly
African-Americans, as roughly one in five workers dies before
retiring and nearly three in ten become too disabled to work before
reaching retirement age; and
whereas, Privatizing Social Security will burden state and
local governments, as cuts in guaranteed benefits will increase
demands for public assistance at the very moment growth in the
federal deficit, due to privatization, induces the federal
government to shift greater responsibilities onto states and localities; and
whereas, Congress should not rush through drastic and damaging
changes in Social Security that undermine its family income
protections but instead, should take the time needed to develop
careful and thoughtful reforms that address Social Security's
funding needs without slashing benefits or exploding the deficit;
therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Delegates:
That the House of Delegates hereby calls on the Congress of
the United States to: (1) First commit to paying back to the
Social Security Trust Fund all of the money it borrowed and spent
on other things; (2) carefully study a variety of potential changes
that will address Social Security's problems while ensuring the
program will continue to meet its purpose of providing income
protection and economic security for America's families; (3) ensure
that any changes adopted by Congress must strengthen Social
Security's family income protections without slashing guaranteed
benefits or exploding the deficit; and, (4) reject proposals to
divert money out of Social Security to fund private accounts; and
be it
Further Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates is
hereby directed to forward a copy of this resolution to the Clerk
of the United States House of Representatives, the Clerk of the
United States Senate and to West Virginia's representatives in the Congress of the United States.
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