|
Committee on Ways
and Means For Immediate Release Mr. Daschle, Let's Work Together WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan effort will be needed to save and strengthen our nation's retirement program according to Chairman E. Clay Shaw, Jr. of the Social Security Subcommittee. He expressed the need for cooperation and action in a letter yesterday to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD). The Honorable Thomas Daschle Dear Tom: I was heartened by your January 4th remarks regarding the need to address Social Security’s financial challenges and the role personal accounts can play in strengthening the program. You said, “we need to get serious about retirement security.” You also said that you “support private accounts to supplement─ but not replace─ Social Security” and that “[w]e don’t have to choose between private accounts and a healthy Social Security system.” I couldn’t agree more. I, too, believe that personal accounts, funded by general revenues─ not by diverting a portion of the payroll tax, can be established in a way that guarantees full, promised Social Security benefits and brings the program back to sound financial footing. My plan, the Social Security Guarantee Plus Act of 2001 meets these criteria you laid out in your speech. H.R. 3497 guarantees full promised benefits to retirees, near retirees, and all workers with no tax increases, no government investing, and no individual investment risk. It fully preserves disability and survivor benefits, and provides workers the opportunity to own voluntary personal retirement accounts that secure and supplement benefits for everybody. In addition, the Guarantee Plus Plan enhances Social Security benefits for widows, working parents, divorced spouses, spouses with work not covered by Social Security, and eliminates the senior earnings penalty. Under my plan, all Americans would be better off, because the program’s solvency would be insured for 75 years and beyond, and workers participating in personal accounts would receive not only their full Social Security benefits, they would also keep 5% of the account balance when benefits begin. The remaining account balance would supplement payroll taxes in paying Social Security benefits. Workers who die before receiving benefits would have the entire account balance paid to their estates. I have enclosed documents explaining my plan in greater detail. I ask you to very carefully review my plan and ask that you and I meet to discuss it. We both know that when we work together we can achieve greatness for all Americans and welfare reform is just one example. We can work on a bipartisan basis to legislate for the next generation, not the next election, and save Social Security for both our kids and our grandkids. For more information on Chairman Shaw's Social Security Guarantee Plus Plan, please visit http://www.house.gov/shaw/ssindex.html |