Orrin Hatch: “I rise today to speak about pending nominees for the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees. As most of us…”

“I rise today to speak about pending nominees for the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees. As most of us know, under the law these two Boards consist of the Secretaries of Treasury, Labor, HHS, Commissioner of Social Security, and two public trustees, one from each party. One purpose of the Boards is to provide yearly reports on the operation of the trust funds and their current and projected status. Since 1983, when the two public trustee positions were established in the statute, the trustee reports for both trust funds have largely been devoid of partisanship or political influence. That, to me, has been a good thing. It means that the process generating the reports is free of political influence. It also means that the public can have confidence that the statements and assessments made in the reports--including those dealing with current and future financial conditions of the trust funds--are objective and not made to serve a particular agenda. The inclusion of public trustees on the Boards is an important part of the structure that provides this type of certainty. Yet, by the time President Obama is out of office, the two Boards will have issued more reports with vacant public trustee positions than have been issued under any President since these two positions were created. In a recent hearing, the Senate Finance Committee, which I chair, heard testimony from President Obama's nominees for the currently vacant public trustee positions, Dr.…”