Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing
"An Oversight Hearing on the Bush Administration's Plans to Privatize Social Security"
Friday, January 28, 2005
10:00 a.m. - Noon
628 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Social Security has been the most successful domestic program in our nation's history, providing economic security for Americans of all ages. Since 1935, Social Security has been America's only guaranteed source of retirement income.
President Bush and other proponents of privatization argue that Social Security is in crisis and that private accounts are the answer. Yet privatization proposals have provoked controversy because, among other things, they call for significant Social Security benefit cuts and massive borrowing by the federal government.
The claim that Social Security is in "crisis" has also been controversial because the Congressional Budget Office, which provides nonpartisan analyses of economic and budget issues for Congress, projects that Social Security will be able to pay all benefits through the year 2052, with no changes at all. Even after 2052, the program will be able to pay retirees a higher benefit (in today's dollars) than what current retirees receive.
Witnesses on the first panel will discuss the President's plans to privatize Social Security. Witnesses on the second panel will address whether the Bush Administration has improperly used the resources of the Social Security Administration to promote its political agenda on private accounts.
Panel I
James Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, will discuss his grandfather's legacy and how Social Security has provided economic security for millions of American families.
Kenneth Apfel served as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration during the Clinton Administration. Mr. Apfel will rebut the Bush Administration's claims that the system is in crisis and discuss the significant benefit cuts that the President is expected to propose.
Douglas Holbrook is the Vice President-Secretary/Treasurer of the Board of AARP, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that represents 35 million Americans age 50 and older. Mr. Holbrook will address how introducing risk into Social Security through private accounts would be detrimental to the financial security of American families.
Michael Tanner, the Director of the "Project on Social Security Choice" at the CATO Institute, will argue in favor of the President's privatization proposal.
Peter Orszag, the Joseph A. Pechman Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, will discuss the massive amounts of federal borrowing that would be required to transition to private accounts and address how significant Social Security benefit cuts would undermine the economic security of Americans.
Senate Democrats are united and fighting.
Comments are closed on this story.