Ed Royce: “Retirement security is one of the most important challenges that we in Congress are going to face in the years to come.…”

“Retirement security is one of the most important challenges that we in Congress are going to face in the years to come. The amount of benefits provided to seniors in the not-too-distant future is going to exceed the amount of payroll taxes taken in. One of the reasons for that is because Americans are having smaller and smaller families, Americans are living longer and longer, and, under that scenario, protecting Social Security becomes absolutely essential. That is why I cosponsored H.R. 2, the Social Security and Medicare Lock-Box Act of 2001. Mr. Speaker, what this bill does is establish a firewall to protect 100 percent of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Under this bill, the trust funds will not be spent on other government programs. I think all of us know that for some 30 years or so money was borrowed out of the Social Security trust fund. Basically over the last few years, if you will recall, President Clinton said, 'Let's protect 60 percent of the funds in the trust fund.' The Republicans in the House said, 'No, let's protect 100 percent.' For the last few years, that is what we have done. We have set aside 100 percent of those excess FICA taxes that have gone into Social Security. But setting it aside for the here and now is not enough. We need legislation for the long-term, like this bill, to ensure that we put up that firewall so that it is not borrowed again in the future.”