Washington, DC - 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.
