Don Nickles: “This amendment is to help protect the solvency of the trust fund. As the chart shows, the trust fund falls under the…”

“This amendment is to help protect the solvency of the trust fund. As the chart shows, the trust fund falls under the middle scenario. The trust fund falls from about 6 years' of payments. There is enough money in the trust fund to pay 6 years' worth of benefits. Under that scenario, if we pass this bill, which we are going to do, it goes down to about 1.3. I keep hearing 1.6. I believe it is 1.3--barely enough to pay 1 years' benefit. That is because we use a 10-year average looking back. The fund has to fall so far before the tax increase is triggered. Under this amendment, we strike the 10 years and say let us make it 5. As the fund balance starts to fall under the railroad retirement assumption, it falls all the way down to $8 billion. We pay $8 billion in benefits right now. I am saying, let us not let it go quite that low. Let us look back over 5 because if it starts falling, that fund gets below the 4 years' payments--enough to pay for 4 years' worth of benefits--if it gets below that, let us have the tax increase triggered then. Not 10 years, it will be 5 years out. That will keep the fund solvent for railroad retirees. It will decrease the pressure on the railroad companies later on. It also gives some protection to taxpayers. It will decrease the likelihood that there will be a bailout or a necessity for a bailout to be falling on general revenues or general taxpayers in the year--whether it is 2015, 2017, or 2021, I do not know.…”