By Congressman Bart Stupak

Social Security is an American success story.  Social Security was created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935 as an insurance system on which older Americans could rely on after years of hard work.

For 70 years, Americans have earned the right to retire with dignity and security. Social Security provides a guaranteed source of income that seniors can trust. Ranked 8^th in the country with 163, 632 retirees receiving benefits, northern Michigan knows the value of Social Security. Yet President Bush has set out to undo this American success story by removing the guarantee through privatization.  I do not support the privatization of Social Security and I am among a broad coalition of both Democrats and Republicans who are strongly committed to fighting against this plan.
 
The president has focused on manufacturing a crisis, claiming in his State of the Union address that Social Security will soon be "bankrupt."  However, the fact is that as long as workers continue to pay into the system, Social Security will never become bankrupt.  Now, I recognize that we face long-term challenges - with no changes, Social Security will still pay 100 percent of promised benefits until 2052 and 80 percent of benefits after 2052.  But, this is hardly the crisis the President portrays it to be.
 
Perhaps the President is talking about a Social Security crisis because he doesn't want to discuss the details of his plan.  The president's plan will actually make the long-term challenges of Social Security worse, wreak havoc on our deficit, and leave our children and grandchildren to foot the bill.   Under Bush's privatization proposal, the Social Security shortfalls will be worse, the Trust Fund will be exhausted eleven years earlier and it will cost $4.9 trillion over the first twenty years.         
 
Our children will face growing deficits at the same time they face steep benefit cuts.  Under President Bush's plan, workers will be able to put a portion of their social security payroll taxes into private accounts.  Future retirees will see their guaranteed Social Security benefit slashed by at least 40 percent, even if they do not choose a private account. 
 
Retirees who choose a private account will be hit with a "one-two punch"- first, a 40 percent cut to their guaranteed benefit, then, a huge hit on their private accounts. Under the president's plan, workers essentially loan themselves money from their Social Security benefit to invest in a private account. Retirees will have to pay that loan back, plus interest. It’s like investing in the stock market by using your credit card. The only real earnings workers will receive from their private accounts is the amount earned over and above what their contributions would have earned in traditional Social Security.  This is both risky and unpredictable. It is no wonder many in the President's own party have criticized the plan.    
 
I cannot support a plan that slashes benefits, saddles the next generation with trillions of dollars in debt, and introduces risk into the only guaranteed income on which our retirees can depend upon.  There are opportunities to strengthen Social Security and I look forward to working in a bipartisan fashion to do so. I have an obligation to 46 million Americans who currently receive Social Security benefits as well as millions of future retirees to protect this benefit they have earned.