HR0654 94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0654 LRB094 14677 MKM 49638 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Social Security is a public insurance program that aims to provide Americans with a minimal level of income once they have reached retirement age, while providing individual equity by returning a higher benefit to those that have paid more into the system over their history in the workforce; and

WHEREAS, Social Security became law under the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression, when half of the country's senior population relied upon another person for their livelihood; and

WHEREAS, Social Security now provides essential financial assistance nationwide and to nearly 2 million Illinois senior citizens, disabled individuals, and survivors who depend on their $20 billion in payments as the sole route to a life of dignity and independence; and

WHEREAS, Millions nationwide and more than 569,000 Illinois senior citizens would live in poverty were it not for their monthly Social Security benefit; and

WHEREAS, The demographic climate of the United States is beginning to change; the Baby Boomer Generation will begin to retire in the year 2008, dramatically increasing the percentage of the American senior population and placing a heavy burden on the Social Security system; and

WHEREAS, The growth in our country's labor force is expected to decrease to only 25% of what it has been in the last century, further burdening the Social Security system due to the lack of payroll tax revenue; and

WHEREAS, It is estimated that the balance of the Social Security Trust Fund, which has been accumulating a surplus since 1983, will begin to pay out more in benefits than it receives in revenue in the year 2017; and

WHEREAS, Although the Social Security Trust Fund has been accumulating a surplus since 1983, and that surplus has now reached nearly $1.8 trillion, the federal government borrows from that Trust Fund annually to fund other government spending; and

WHEREAS, There is now much discussion about reforming the Social Security system to ensure its financial viability, and those reform options vary from making very small adjustments to making sweeping changes to the program; and

WHEREAS, One of the most discussed reform options is privatization, which involves taking a portion of revenue coming into the Social Security Trust Fund and placing it in personal retirement accounts for individuals who choose to participate; and

WHEREAS, It has been shown that privatization of the Social Security system can lead to a variety of problems, including, increasing the national debt, forcing participants to pay exorbitantly high administrative fees, reducing the promised benefits for participants, and ultimately taking away the security of a steady retirement income; and

WHEREAS, Privatization of Social Security was tried in the United Kingdom, pronounced a failure, and now faces an overhaul using the current United States Social Security system as a model; and

WHEREAS, The changing demographics of the United States may cause stress on the Social Security system, but making smaller adjustments to the program that has performed so effectively over the last 70 years is a better option than making sweeping changes that would undermine the very philosophy of the program; and

WHEREAS, In response to published reports that the United States Congress was preparing to make extraordinary and unnecessary modifications to the Social Security system, Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan and members of the Illinois House of Representatives have conducted a series of regional forums, modeled on a previously successful series of statewide summits to review the State's budget and fiscal circumstances, to educate the public on the current status and future of the Social Security System in recent months; and

WHEREAS, The overwhelming reaction from Illinois citizens who have attended the forums and from highly respected non-partisan organizations that advocate on behalf of Illinois consumers, working families, and senior citizens has been that the current level of benefits to Social Security beneficiaries must be maintained and annually adjusted to keep pace with the rate of inflation, that federal lawmakers and the President stop borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund to fund other government spending, and that privatization of Social Security not be undertaken; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge President George Walker Bush and the United States Congress to resist radical and risky changes that could jeopardize the retirements of millions of Americans and make only the modest adjustments necessary to maintain the integrity of the Social Security system for decades to come; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be delivered to the President of the United States of America, the Vice President of the United States of America, and to Illinois' United States Senators and United States Representatives.