More retirees rely on Social Security: AARP
As the Social Security system turns 90 years old, 65% of retirees rely on it. Surveys show that public confidence in its future continues to decline.
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Social Security faces six years of across-the-board benefit cuts, and older Americans want a solution that isn’t opaque and committee-run, AARP says.
A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation last week to quickly pass a Social Security savings bill that could supplement payroll taxes and shore up the dwindling trust fund that keeps benefits at 100%.
The bipartisan seven-member Social Security Advisory Committee will draft legislation to keep the program’s trust fund solvent for at least the next half century. The Protecting Retirement Opportunities and Preserving Income Security for All Act (PROMISE) would then be introduced by Congressional leaders to the House and Senate, and then considered by committees, which could hold public hearings and amend the bill.
Some prominent think tanks, including the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, support efforts to jumpstart Social Security’s path to solvency.
The BPC supported the bill as a “serious bipartisan process to break the status quo of inaction,” and the CRFB said it hoped the proposal would “revitalize a much-needed process to secure social security.”
However, AARP “strongly” opposes the bill. The nonprofit, nonpartisan group, which serves 125 million Americans age 50 and older, says Congress urgently needs to address Social Security financing, but there’s no reason for lawmakers to outsource that work to another organization, as they did with the PROMISE Act.
“We strongly oppose rushing Social Security reform through Congress,” Nancy Leamond, AARP’s chief advocacy and engagement officer, wrote in a July 21 letter to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana. Mr. Durbin and Mr. Cassidy are among the members of Congress who proposed the PROMISE Act.
How does the PROMISE method work?
The PROMISE Act would establish an “independent and bipartisan” Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) to develop and send to Congress a basic bill that would ensure funding for the Social Security Trust Fund for at least 50 years.
Majority leaders in the Senate and House, or otherwise members of Congress, can introduce basic legislation, which will then be referred to the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee for a hearing and an opportunity to make amendments.
The committee will vote or report on the basic bill. Otherwise, the bill would automatically be placed on the Senate and House calendars.
The Senate and House majority leaders, along with other members of Congress, could move the bill forward. Similarly, anyone in Congress can introduce an amendment after a follow-up action.
Ultimately, the House and Senate will vote on the bill after 100 hours of consideration. Final passage would require a three-fifths vote in the Senate and a majority vote in the House.
“Our bipartisan proposal will allow Congress to debate this issue in a transparent, fair, and bipartisan manner,” Durbin said in a statement. “We were elected to solve problems, and no problem is bigger than Social Security’s solvency and future.”
Why does AARP oppose this bill?
While Durbin has emphasized transparency, AARP said the bill provides the opposite. It said the PROMISE Act limits debate and amendments, which could allow lawmakers to cut Social Security payments.
“Strengthening Social Security should occur in a regular order, with full public openness and transparency, rather than a process that limits the types of amendments or sets arbitrary procedural deadlines to short-circuit debate,” said Nancy Leamond, AARP’s chief advocacy and engagement officer.
The bill requires the advisory committee’s recommendations to be submitted to Congress by Sept. 17, when both chambers are in session, or the next day, he said. Lawmakers can then hold public hearings to amend the SSAB plan, but they do not have to vote to advance the bill in major committees in Congress, as they would under federal law.
Instead, if there is no vote by Nov. 9, Leamond said, the bill will go straight to the House and Senate floors during a post-election “lame duck session” in which “leave members have no accountability whatsoever to their constituents.”
Other issues with the bill, she claims, include a 100-hour limit for consideration, amendments, and debate on the bill, and language that limits the types of amendments that are allowed.
“If every other bill in Congress passes in the normal order, why should something as important as Social Security go through a special process that cuts off debate, limits the types of amendments, and limits what can be discussed?” said Bill Sweeney, AARP’s senior vice president for government affairs. “For us, it makes no sense at all.”
AARP also opposes other bills that would create the Social Security Commission
AARP also said it opposes two other bills that would create a commission to address Social Security’s long-term solvency.
- The one-house bill proposed by Rep. Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, and Rep. Tom Suozzi, Democrat of New York, would create a 13-member commission tasked with submitting recommendations and legislation to Congress on ways to shore up Social Security financing. The bill would allow proposed plans to move forward with a quick up-or-down vote. AARP says individual lawmakers cannot introduce amendments.
- Another proposal would create a finance commission to reduce the national debt and annual deficit and increase a trust fund that would pay not only for Social Security but also for Medicare and the nation’s highways. But “Social Security is a self-funded program that does not contribute a penny to the national debt, and Congress should not make it a target of unrelated budget deliberations,” Leamond said. “Instead, any changes to Social Security should focus on the economic and retirement security of Americans.”
What should Congress do instead?
Social Security provides retirement benefits and financial security to 71 million Americans. It’s “a promise that after a lifetime of hard work, you’ll receive the money you’ve earned,” Leamond said. “Keeping that promise is one of Congress’ most solemn responsibilities.”
“If regular order is the gold standard for everyday legislative matters, then it should be the standard for something as important as Social Security,” Leamond said, noting that there were no shortcuts in the early 1980s, when Social Security was close to running out of trust funds.
“Congress held dozens of days of public hearings and increases, more than 100 floor votes on amendments, and a committee of the whole on the final bill. Your bill’s expedited process would move Congress in the opposite direction, making that level of scrutiny far less likely at the very moment when openness, deliberation, and accountability matter most,” she said.
Medora Lee is USA TODAY’s money, markets and personal finance reporter. Please contact us at mjlee@usatoday.com. Subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.
