On "Forbes Newsroom", Rep. John Larson (D-CT) spoke about what privatized Social Security could look like.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00You're saying the writing's on the wall here, there's not hundreds and hundreds of billions
00:05of dollars worth of waste, fraud and abuse.
00:08This is all just a goal to privatize Social Security.
00:12When you say that, what does privatize Social Security even look like?
00:16Yes.
00:17Well, again, think about this.
00:24The Trust Fund, the genius of Roosevelt, and the genius of coming up with a federal
00:31program that people pay in weekly, all you have to do is look at that pay stub and it
00:38says FICA right on it.
00:41It's not a tax, it's an insurance premium.
00:46It says federal insurance contribution, whose, yours, and mine, and every American citizen's.
00:55I'll be it, except some of the very wealthy who pay nothing or circumvent the FICA rule
01:03or are done paying on January 2nd into a program that everybody else pays into throughout the
01:11year, which is why President Biden said we have to lift the cap on Social Security.
01:19Again, most citizens don't know that there's even a cap.
01:23Now that cap rises every year.
01:25It's currently $170,000, but President Biden said, we'll lift it on people over 400,000.
01:35When I hold a town hall, one of the first things I do is say, raise your hand in the
01:40room if you're making over 400,000.
01:44Funny thing about that, Brittany, I've never had anyone raise their hand, well, except
01:50once in East Hartford, my hometown, and I looked at the person and I said, you're making
01:56over 400,000.
01:57They go, no, but it felt good to raise my hand, and so I had to give them credit for
02:02that.
02:03The point being, just by having that group pay their fair share, we not only extend the
02:11solvency of Social Security, but we're able to add benefits.
02:17Here's the other thing that Americans should be screaming about.
02:22When was the last time Social Security benefits were enhanced?
02:28I actually know this from our conversation from last year, over 50 years ago.
02:33Exactly.
02:34Richard Nixon was president of the United States, and some would say, well, wait a minute,
02:39didn't Ronald Reagan and Tip, and I said, yep, that happened, but they didn't enhance
02:45the benefit.
02:46They extended solvency.
02:49How did they do that?
02:51They did so, back in 83, by raising the age from 65 to 67.
02:58Here's the catch.
03:00For every year you raise the age, that's a 7% cut in benefits, so when you hear our colleagues
03:10on the other side saying they want to raise the age to 70, that's a 21% cut in your benefits.
03:21How does it make any sense, if people are living longer, and they are, that they should
03:28be living on less?
03:31Shouldn't we be working to make sure that the Social Security program and the trust
03:37is not only solvent, but is also able to expand and provide benefits that people need?
03:46And Congress has that responsibility, but it hasn't done that in more than 50 years.
03:53People should be outraged, and I'll tell you who's getting outraged and what's causing
03:58people to call their offices and congressional offices are the 10,000 baby boomers a day
04:09who become eligible for Social Security and are saying, hey, wait a minute.
04:16What happened to my Social Security, and when am I getting these benefits?
04:22And they're now telling me that they could push this off to age 70, or that the last
04:29time these were modified or enhanced was 1971.
04:38Some would say, well, no, but even didn't last December, didn't Congress include people
04:43that were excluded in 1983?
04:47Indeed, it did, and Congress passed a bill that eliminated what's commonly referred to
04:54as WEP and GPO, which prevented municipal employees, teachers, firefighters, and police
05:00officers, which amounted to about 2.9 million people in the country from getting Social
05:08Security benefits that they have paid into.
05:12That's the good news.
05:14The bad news is, though, it wasn't paid for.
05:20And so President Trump has also said, I'm protecting Social Security.
05:27Not only am I protecting it, I'm going to give everyone on Social Security a tax cut.
05:33Well, that same tax cut provision, as we discussed last year, is in our proposal, but there's
05:40a big difference.
05:42We pay for it, and in doing so, make sure that the trust fund stays intact and people
05:50still get the tax relief they richly deserve.
05:56Not to pay for it is a $998 billion hit to the trust fund.
06:07And where does that come from?
06:10Out of the very people who participate in Social Security, over 35 million, who it's
06:19the only thing that they have, sat or still in the wealthiest nation in the world, 5 million
06:30fellow Americans, most of whom are women, get below poverty level checks from the federal
06:38government, from an insurance plan that they entrusted to their government to take care
06:48of them.
06:51And they're getting below poverty level checks.
06:55Why?
06:56Because Congress has not acted.
06:59Now, if Congress doesn't want to pay them, don't you think it has an obligation to say,
07:06we're sorry, but we don't think it should be adjusted.
07:10We think that that's fair.
07:13There's no way that that would ever happen.
07:17But if people don't vote, or if Elon Musk can get his hands on $2,700,000,000,000 and
07:31then say, oh, well, we'll privatize this, meaning, and they'll show you examples where
07:39they can return far greater money and will benefit more people, and that's what they'll
07:46tempt the American people with.
07:50But that's the Ponzi scheme.
07:52That's where the billionaires continue to get more money.
07:57And Social Security goes from being an absolute guarantee to being at risk.
08:06And you don't have to go back to 1929.
08:10You only have to go back to 2008, where people saw their 401k become a 101k.
08:17Now, are there things that we could do collectively as Democrats and Republicans and strengthen
08:23the trust fund and work?
08:25And I've talked with actuaries and financiers and people to strengthen the trust fund, but
08:31keep it in the Social Security trust, out of the greedy hands of the private sector,
08:39but a government program that's an absolute guarantee that can yield more than just Treasury
08:46notes?
08:47Absolutely.
08:48And that's the work we should be rolling up our sleeves and doing together to make this
08:52possible.
08:54And with reporting like yours and baby boomers taking to the phones and say, hey, what about
09:02that?
09:03And oh, by the way, don't privatize my fund.
09:07I want the guarantee.