Protecting Social Security
Recently I joined more than 200 members of the House of Representatives in an effort to ensure the future of Social Security by co-sponsoring the Social Security 2100 Act, legislation designed to expand the benefits program and keep it solvent.
Supported overwhelmingly by Democrats in the House, the legislation would increase benefits, including the minimum amount that retired Americans receive.
The Democratic Party has resisted attempts to privatize Social Security. The proposed legislation will fix the system, and ensure that the program does not run out of funding.
Andrew Biggs, who worked as a commissioner of Social Security under former President George W. Bush, praised the proposed legislation, saying that it ensured the solvency of the program.
The Social Security Act was a brainchild of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. The legislation creating the program was signed into law in 1935, creating a financial safety net for senior citizens and unemployed Americans. Approximately sixty-four million people received Social Security benefits in 2018.
The bill is a common sense approach to a problem that we face as a nation. Social Security represents a promise that our nation made to its senior population, one premised on a pledge that they would not be left to suffer in poverty once their working years were concluded.
Social security represents the only income that many of our senior citizens have at their disposal. Many worked jobs where they did not receive a pension and a large number of seniors have exhausted their savings due to personal medical emergencies or those experienced by relatives.
Over the years people have become increasingly anxious about what they will do in their retirements, and whether or not social security benefits would be there for them. The legislation attempts to abate that anxiety and give people the confidence that they will be taken care of.
Similar legislation is being proposed in the Republican-controlled Senate. I would hope that the measure would pass in the Senate as this is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but an American issue that benefits our nation’s seniors who have been the bedrock of our economy. I urge my Republican colleagues, in the House and in the Senate, to support the Social Security 2100 Act. It is in the best interests of all of our citizens, and is in the best interests of our nation.
