Fiscal Note
No appropriation required.
Title
Calling on the Congress of the United States to reject plans to privatize Social Security by cutting Social Security's guaranteed benefits and diverting money out of Social Security into private investment accounts.
Body
WHEREAS, Social Security's income protections-guaranteed, lifelong benefits, cost-of-living adjustments to guard against inflation, increased benefits for families, greater income replacement for low-income workers, and disability and survivor benefits-are the backbone of retirement security and family protection in the United States; and
WHEREAS, Social Security provides crucial, often indispensable income protection for the 47 million individuals-one of every six Americans-receiving benefits; and
WHEREAS, Social Security is a vital safety net that protects the retirement security of 924,150 Wisconsin residents; and
WHEREAS, Social Security is the nation's most successful and most important family income protection program, but it has long-term funding needs we should address; and
WHEREAS, some policymakers propose to address these needs by cutting guaranteed benefits and privatizing Social Security, that is, diverting two-thirds or more of workers' payroll tax contributions out of the Social Security Trust Fund and into private investment accounts; and
WHEREAS, privatization will worsen Social Security's funding by draining resources from the Trust Fund into private accounts, increasing the federal deficit by $4.9 trillion and putting us in deeper hock to foreign creditors; and
WHEREAS, some officials and members of Congress have suggested the federal government will not pay back the money it has borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund over the past 20 years, thereby denying working families the money they paid into Social Security and leading to further benefit cuts; and
WHEREAS, privatizing Social Security will cut guaranteed benefits by 46 percent for you...
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