Official Congressional Record
Mr. President, I would like to speak on a separate topic. In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt decided to try something. The idea was to create a pension plan for every American. Why? Because many people, despite working hard their whole lives, doing their best to save money, ended up almost penniless when they retired, when they were forced to quit working. Those were the days when Grandma and Grandpa moved into the spare bedroom in your house. If that didn't happen to you, ask your father or even grandfather--they will remember those times. So Franklin Roosevelt said: Let's create a pension system so that after you retire, there will be some money coming in. You pay into it all your working life. When you reach the age of retirement, you get a benefit from it. They called it Social Security. It was passed into law in 1935. It made its first payment 5 years later in 1940. I think it has become arguably the most important social program in America. Certainly, more Americans have participated in Social Security than almost every other program. And they should. They earned it. They worked for it. They were promised. The promise should be kept. How is Social Security doing? Well, that is why I am standing here before you today. Last month, the Social Security Board of Trustees released an alarming report about the status of Social Security's finances. That Board found that Social Security will be unable to make full payments to eligible Americans by 2032. That is not that far away--6 years. This is alarming, and it is a call to arms to Congress. I was elected to the House of Representatives in 1982. Scared to death that I was going to be a one-term Congressman, I was looking over my shoulder every 5 minutes to see what was going to knock me out of my perch there. Well, they came in and said: There is news for you, new Congressman. Social Security is about to go broke. The year was 1983, and we could see in the short term, Social Security unable to make its benefit payments. That would have been a disaster in 1983. We rose to the occasion. We had a Republican President, Ronald Reagan. We had a Democratic House of Representatives with Tip O'Neill. We set out to write a change in Social Security that would save it so it could keep making payments. Well, it took a long time, it took several months, but we got it done, and we passed it. Our goal was to buy 50 years of solvency for Social Security, make changes to the program so that it would last, keep paying its benefits as promised for 50 years. That was 1983. I voted for it. Democrats and Republicans all voted for it. To my knowledge, not a single Member of Congress lost reelection over that vote. People said: We had to do it. There was no question about it. It was a tough vote, but it was the right vote. It was 1983. Fifty years of solvency--where does it take you? To 2033. And what is the situation we were just told? This program that we value so much is going to last until the end of 2032. It worked. Fifty years of changes worked. Now the question is basically this: Can we respond with the same bipartisan effort to buy 50 years more of solvency in Social Security? I think we can. Social Security unable to make its payments in 2032 is an alarm bell. It is a call to action for Congress, both political parties--not just Democrats but Republicans as well. Social Security is the bedrock promise of secure retirement and has been for over 90 years in America. Americans pay into the system throughout their careers of hard work, and come the time, that same program was supposed to be there to give them peace of mind when they seek retirement. Well, we know we have 6 short years to achieve that. What is going to happen at the end of that 6-year period? The Board of advisers tells us Social Security will only be able to pay 78 percent of benefits. Translate that, Durbin. Put it in English. That means the average senior citizen faces monthly--monthly--benefit cuts of $450--$450 a month cut from Social Security. For some, that is quite an inconvenience. For others, that is quite a disaster. It would force many seniors to choose between purchasing groceries, paying their utility bills, or filling their prescriptions. Honest to goodness, it is that basic. Seventy million Americans, including seniors and people with disabilities, rely on Social Security to afford the basics in life: food, medication, housing, utilities, and so many other things. In my home State of Illinois, more than 2 million people receive Social Security. Twenty percent of Illinois seniors rely on Social Security for virtually all of their income. That is it, that Social Security check. If Congress sits on its hands and does nothing to respond to this crisis, millions of Americans will be expected to make ends meet with fewer and fewer dollars each month. The fact of the matter is that Congress has known about this issue of insolvency for quite some time, but year after year, Congress has avoided confronting the question, instead kicking the can down the road for a future Congress to show the courage to step up and save the program. That is unacceptable. We owe it to our seniors. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our reputation. We know that the longer we wait, the more drastic the policy changes become. We owe it to every American to save Social Security. Today, I am doing something that is rarely done in the Senate: introducing a bill sponsored by a bipartisan group of Senators--four Democrats, four Republicans. Our goal is to protect and strengthen Social Security. Our bill is called the PROMISE Act. It seeks to create a fair, bipartisan process to ensure Congress finally debates and votes on the future of Social Security. Under our proposal, the independent and bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board would collect public input and send a proposal to Congress that would keep the trust fund for Social Security solvent for 50 years at least. That would kick-start a process in both the House and the Senate to do something we rarely, rarely do around here. It is called legislating--writing a law, passing a law. Under our bill, Congress would have the opportunity to hold hearings, offer amendments, debate competing proposals, and ultimately vote on them. You say at this point: OK, Senator Durbin. What is this plan to save Social Security? That is the beauty of this proposal. We create an opportunity for alternative plans to be offered, and the one with the most votes--as long as it gets 60 votes in the Senate--the one with the most votes will prevail and will be the work product of the Senate on Social Security. Our legislation does not lower the 60-vote threshold of the Senate, nor does it predetermine any specific outcome. It may not work. We may not be able to put together any bill that gets 60 votes. But goodness gracious, we were sent here to try, weren't we? It simply guarantees that the American people, through their elected representatives, are finally going to have an open, transparent debate. I have gone to Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle and said: What we want to do is give you your day in court, give you your day in the Senate. You bring your best idea and the Parliamentarian looks at it and says there is proof here that this has at least 50 years of solvency for Social Security, you can offer this amendment, Senator. Give it your best. Members would be able to offer substitute proposals provided that it is at least 50 years of Social Security solvency. Let me say it another way. Every Member with a serious proposal for the most important social program in America would have the opportunity to bring their idea to the table, to the floor, and get a vote. That is so rare around here. It restores the Senate to debating, amending, and voting under regular order--compared to what we see today. Many of my colleagues have been working on proposals for a number of years. Many are broadly popular. I will note that the senior Senator from Ohio, a Republican, and the senior Senator from Massachusetts, a Democrat, recently shared their idea to shore up the program, a bipartisan plan. They may offer an amendment to do just that. Congress has no shortage of ideas; we simply have a lack of will on both the left and the right. Many stakeholders would rather wait for that perfect political moment. Well, that is a mistake. I worry that moment will never come, and Americans will suffer because of that calculation. The PROMISE Act finally creates a pathway for those ideas to receive the consideration they deserve. Americans sent us to Congress not to observe the problems but to solve the problems, and that is what I am trying to do with the PROMISE Act. There is no greater long-term challenge before Congress than preserving Social Security. No excuses--we can do it this year. So I urge my colleagues to support this bill, to set up the process, the procedure, to bring it to the floor and have alternative substitutes for Social Security's future offered for consideration, for debate, and for a vote. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and finally kick-start the process of tackling this important issue. We will be working to pass this measure before we depart for the August recess. Is it a long shot? Maybe it is. But I think, when we understand the gravity of the challenge and the important responsibility we shoulder when we accepted this position as Senators, we will understand that we have to rise to that challenge. The eight of us--four Democrats, four Republicans--are willing to step up and say: Let's move forward. Let's not be afraid to legislate. Let's do it for the good of Social Security and the millions and millions of Americans who count on it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
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