January 06, 2015
U. S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Representative:
I am writing on behalf of the millions of members and supporters of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare to oppose Subsection (q) of Section 3 of House Resolution 5, a resolution adopting rules for the House of Representatives for the 114th Congress.
This resolution creates a point of order against legislation to reallocate funds from the Social Security Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund to the Disability Insurance Trust Fund unless it is accompanied by benefit cuts or tax increases that improve the solvency of the combined trust funds. The Disability Trust fund will run short of revenue to pay full benefits some time in 2016, potentially putting 11 million disability beneficiaries at risk. This provision would make it more difficult to simply rebalance the two funds as has been successfully done 11 times in the past (reallocations have been made in each direction between the two funds) – forcing benefit cuts or tax increases to the Social Security program.
It is hard to believe that there is any purpose to this unprecedented change to House rules other than to cut benefits for Americans who have worked hard all their lives, paid into Social Security, and rely on their Social Security benefits, including Disability Insurance, in order to survive. This rules change has to be regarded as a sad chapter in the Congress’s long history of assuring that Social Security can continue to meet the needs of the American people.
The National Committee is strongly opposed to this rules change and the Social Security benefit cuts that would be much more likely to occur as a result.
Sincerely,
Max Richtman
President and CEO