Opinion Pieces
Surpluses should go to you
By Paul Ryan
If there is one idea that most members of Congress and the American people agree on, it's this: The Social Security surplus should go to Social Security.
On Wednesday, along with senior members of the Social Security Subcommittee, I unveiled the GROW (Growing Real Ownership for Workers) Accounts Act, which does just this. Several senators are introducing similar legislation. Our legislation is guided by three basic principles: • The Social Security surplus should only be used for Social Security. • The surplus should not be used to fund other government programs. • The surplus should not be used to mask the true size of the national debt. At the very least, the first step in saving Social Security must be to make sure all of Social Security's taxes go to Social Security, rather than to other federal spending. Ultimately, this proposal takes that first step. Today, and for the next 12 years or so, workers will be overpaying their payroll taxes, thereby contributing to the Social Security surplus. We propose giving workers under the age of 55 the choice of having their Social Security surplus distributed to their Social Security Personal Retirement Account (or GROW Account) in the form of risk-free marketable Treasury bonds. This means willing workers would have real assets that they own, which would go toward their Social Security retirement benefits. These accounts would be the property of the workers, and they would be fully inheritable. Workers currently have no legal right to their Social Security benefits. But with GROW accounts, workers would own these assets that would help them pre-fund their Social Security retirement benefits. In other words, this proposal takes part of the unfunded promise of Social Security benefits and replaces it with the safest assets in the world — U.S. Treasury bonds. While this proposal in and of itself would not completely fix Social Security's solvency problem, it is a clear step in the right direction. And it sends a message to the American people that Congress is getting serious about saving the Social Security surplus for their Social Security retirement benefits. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and its Social Security Subcommittee. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-06-22-oppose_x.htm# |
