Jeff Miller: “I am sure it is no surprise to many of you that some of my constituents do oppose personal retirement accounts, so when…”

“I am sure it is no surprise to many of you that some of my constituents do oppose personal retirement accounts, so when they do I ask them this very question: Would you agree or disagree Congress should have, when it created Social Security, set up a really true lockbox that earned interest on their FICA contributions? Of course they eagerly agree that the money should have been set aside and used only for Social Security benefits. I then follow up with the question: Then why in the world would you be opposed to a personal lockbox, if you will? It is not secret here in Congress we have not had the discipline in many instances to keep our hands out of the cookie jar of Social Security. Now to stop this I propose that in the future that Congress cannot get its hands on the money in the first place. As soon as workers can start to save part of their Social Security money in a personal retirement account, with their very name on it, this Congress will have to find its money elsewhere. Growing Real Ownership for Workers legislation is something that our colleague, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery) introduced, that would strictly use Social Security dollars for Social Security benefits. Now these GROW accounts mandate that Social Security taxes be used for benefit payments to those people who have worked hard, who have followed the rules and have earned the right to a secure retirement.…”