Russ Feingold: “I regret I will be unable to support the amendment offered by Senator Allard to provide for budget procedures designed…”

“I regret I will be unable to support the amendment offered by Senator Allard to provide for budget procedures designed to reduce our national debt. While I strongly agree with the goal of debt reduction, I cannot support the amendment because of several important flaws. First, the amendment calls for at least partially privatizing Social Security as part of an overall reform plan for that program. While I believe we need to pursue modest reforms to Social Security, I strongly oppose efforts to privatize that program. For the past seven decades, Social Security has worked to keep retirees out of poverty. Roughly half of seniors would in live poverty were it not for Social Security. It would be a great mistake to eliminate the fundamental shared security that program provides by moving to a privatized system. Second, while a policy of planned debt reduction may be meritorious, there are clearly times when it would be wise to temporarily suspend such plans.”