Washington, DC, Feb 9 — A growing number in Congress view AMAC’s “Social Security Guarantee” solution as a long-term fix to the looming insolvency of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund. The Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) is a 1.3-million-member senior organization established as the alternative to the liberal AARP.
Meeting with prominent Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate last week, including House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), AMAC CEO Dan Weber urged Congress to address Social Security this year – and not continue to “kick the can down the road.”
Weber reported that “in each and every meeting, the AMAC proposal to save Social Security – the Social Security Guarantee and its free-market savings companion, the Early Retirement Account (ERA) – was well-received and is gaining broad interest in Congress and around Washington.”
The Social Security Guarantee offers 75-year solvency to Social Security’s OASI Trust Fund without increasing taxes on individuals or employers. The ERA component also fills a hole in the retirement planning market, creating an instrument that can be used by small and large businesses and providing an opportunity for financial services organizations to reach another 50 million workers who don’t have a retirement plan.
“The new Congress is a genuine bipartisan opportunity for legislators to avoid being labeled a ‘Do-Nothing Congress’ and instead be heralded as the ‘Do-Something-Good’ Congress,” said Weber.
“We are encouraged that more and more Members of Congress now see that Social Security must be – and importantly can be – fixed and that the pillars of the Social Security Guarantee provide a genuine framework that is viable.”
Weber added, “President Obama’s latest budget proposal offers no real solution to make the Social Security Trust Funds sustainable and should be rejected. The President only proposes a band-aid to reallocate funds from the OASI Trust Fund to bail out the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) Fund, which will become insolvent at the end of 2016 if action is not taken to reduce the rampant waste, fraud and abuse plaguing the program. The President’s proposal, which avoids addressing the problems in SSDI, serves only to further accelerate the insolvency of the combined funds and will result in an across-the-board 25% reduction in benefits in 2033.”
Plans to further engage Congress in the coming weeks and months to save and strengthen Social Security are already in the works. In the near term, AMAC has scheduled a Social Security Roundtable for March 4th, a Capitol Hill event that will feature leading policy experts and several Members of Congress who are interested in protecting this important program for future generations of hard-working Americans.
1 – The new name of “FEDERAL BENEFIT” IS A LIE – This is & always OUR money – Change the name back.
2- Put our money back into a trust fund & start paying back what they stole over the years!
3- STOP taxing our Social Security – we already paid taxes on it!!!
4 – Lets put Term Limits on all congress to stop this kind of corruption. Check out their FB page!
Betty, and let’s not forget … Stop giving Social Security Benefits to people who NEVER paid into it!
I hope they address Windfall Elimination penalty. I worked 17 yrs under SS, but went back to school to get a teaching degree. I will lose up to 40% of my monthly allotment because I did so. Not fair. I worked hard for those 17 yrs. I earned it.
I’m with you, Cindy. I did the same; went back to school to earn education degree while my boys were teenagers. Now I’m losing most of my SS that I earned at sewing factories.
Where can I get details about AMAC’s Social Secutiry guarantee and ERA plan?
Go to http://www.socialsecurityreport.org and click on Proposals at the top, then click on Prototype to see the plan.
I think you guys are full of it, the problem of social security and medicare stand from Congress seeing all the money in the SS Trust Fund and using it to cover their backs. Providing additional benefits without paying for, as a matter of fact they have not increase taxes to pay for those benefits for the last 20 or 30 years even thou everyone gets an inflation increase every year. In top of that if you make more than 100k you do not pay anymore which is ridiculous since you benefit from the program and this is a democracy and everyone should put together. A 1% increase in taxes for SS should be enough to take us to 2075 in the mean time you can continue to try to kill SS but it won’t work because there more of us that there are of you, so good luck. About the disability program and its problems it has been regularly funded for the last 20 years that way, and of course you did not mind when Congress stealing money from SS Trust Fund to buy airplanes, boats and submarines or fight wars we could not win. Only when we are dealing with poor people you worry about fraud and waste but you do not think that a plane that can’t fly like the F35 is not a waste of money.
Regards
Jose- FIRST of all – if you want to pretend you are “smart” learn ENGLISH and its spelling! Second if you insist on being totally BLIND to ideas that have REAL merit – do so but don’t share your idiot thoughts with people who can THINK for themselves. I’ll BET YOU are getting LOTS of “unearned” perks on MY dollar!!!
I’m still upset that my SS is taxed by the IRS, after I’ve paid tax on my gross earnings for 45 years, all the while paying into the Social Security system. It seems out of balance when our government sees fit to refund taxes to illegal aliens while taking more money from those who spent a lifetime paying into the government coffers.
Thank you for the opportunity to vent my frustration.
I totally agree ! How many times is fair to tax income? ONCE in my book !
Check out the REAL IRS laws about taxing SS…perhaps you are “back to work” and earning too much…check the FACTS first!
Could AMAC provide some feedback, as in actual quotes from the various members of Congress you spoke with, as to what these members of Congress intend to actually do in the near-term, if anything? What I’m looking to see are what specific actions are being committed to beyond the vague being “well received”. In Washington that can mean many things from actually being interested in doing something near-term as a high priority item to the other extreme of members of Congress simply sitting quietly in the room while you outlined your proposal and then they file out.. One denotes true interest and the willingness to actually do something. The other extreme denotes they simply agreed to sit in a meeting before going on to something else.
I have no illusions that Congress, as a whole, will do anything but “express interest” in discussing the future of Social Security for the next two years leading up to the 2016 elections. I have a pretty good idea of what the GOP agenda is for the next two years after listening to both Boehner and McConnell. Clearly tackling real Social Security reform isn’t on the table. Still it would be helpful to identify those members of Congress that showed any true interest in the issue of Social Security itself beyond using it it as a standard campaign talking point to frighten voters. That way we members of AMAC can realistically assess where various members of Congress line up on the issue.
Thanks
I agree with PaulE 100%
I spoke to a local AMAC Delegate and he told me AMAC is having a Social Security Workshop in DC on March 4th, in the Capitol building.
There will be a round table discussion addressing the problems and possible solutions facing Social Security.
He said that several Congressmen said they would attend for at least part of the session and make comments.
AMAC is trying to get C-Span to cover it.
Thanks for the update Jimmy H. Good to know.
Still it would be beneficial to know what various Congressmen, who have already met with AMAC to date, have provided in the way of feedback / commitments to this subject. ,