Bob Filner on Social Security Democratic Representative (CA-51)

Voted NO on raising 401(k) limits & making pension plans more portable.

Voted NO on reducing tax payments on Social Security benefits.

Voted YES on strengthening the Social Security Lockbox.

Reject proposals for private saving accounts.

To reject proposals to partially or completely substitute private saving accounts for the lifelong, guaranteed, inflation-protected insurance benefits provided through Social Security. The Congress finds the following:

1. President Bush promised to partially privatize Social Security, and appointed a commission to develop a plan on his behalf.
2. The commission developed three alternative plans that would partially privatize Social Security.
3. The plans divert substantial monies from the Social Security Trust Funds to pay for the private accounts, which threatens benefits for current beneficiaries by significantly weakening the financial condition of the Trust Funds.
4. The plans' cuts in disability and survivor benefits directly contradict the President's promise that disability and survivor benefits would be preserved under privatization.
5. Furthermore, these reductions in guaranteed benefits apply to all workers, regardless of whether they chose to have an individual account or not.
6. Substituting private accounts for guaranteed Social Security benefits increases financial risk for retirees, disabled workers and their families.
7. Moreover, other proposals to privatize Social Security, such as the 'Social Security Guarantee Plus' plan or the 'Social Security Ownership and Guarantee' plan, establish private accounts that directly or indirectly reduce Social Security benefits.

• The Congress hereby commits to preserve the guaranteed, lifelong, inflation-protected benefits provided under the Social Security Act to retirees, disabled workers and their families, and the survivors of deceased workers; and
• Congress therefore rejects the President's plans to partially privatize Social Security, and other proposals to privatize Social Security by establishing private accounts that would undermine traditional Social Security benefits.

Rated 100% by the ARA, indicating a pro-senior voting record.

The mission of the Alliance for Retired Americans is to ensure social and economic justice and full civil rights for all citizens so that they may enjoy lives of dignity, personal and family fulfillment and security. The Alliance believes that all older and retired persons have a responsibility to strive to create a society that incorporates these goals and rights and that retirement provides them with opportunities to pursue new and expanded activities with their unions, civic organizations and their communities.

The following ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.

No severe changes; no privatization.

RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives against severe changes to Social Security.
• Whereas Social Security's essential protections for workers and their families cannot be matched by private savings, which are a complement to, but not a substitute for, Social Security's guaranteed benefits;
• Whereas, as one such protection, Social Security provides a guaranteed benefit that one can never outlive, and unlike private savings or investments, is not subject to the ups and downs of the stock market;
• Whereas, for 75 years, Social Security has never been a day late or a dollar short;
• Whereas the American people made clear in 2005 that they did not seek severe change in Social Security when they resoundingly rejected President Bush's attempt to privatize Social Security;
• Whereas the current minority party plan for Social Security is even more extreme than the plan they advanced in 2005:
  1. it cuts guaranteed retirement and survivor benefits for all workers, whether or not they wish to have a private account;
  2. it diverts trillions from the Trust Fund into private accounts;
  3. it increases Federal borrowing by $4,100,000,000,000; and
  4. it subjects workers' basic retirement security to market volatility and the risk of losses; and
• Whereas privatizing Social Security means benefit cuts, diversion of Trust Fund resources, subjecting individuals to market risk and losses, and increasing Federal borrowing by trillions of dollars:
• Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Congress should stand with the American people to reject severe changes to Social Security, including any and all attempts to privatize Social Security, and instead should commit to work bipartisanly to make common-sense adjustments to Social Security to strengthen it for future generations while preserving its guarantees of secure income and family protection in the event of a worker's death, retirement, or severe disability.

Reject privatization; don't raise the retirement age.

Some 200 Democratic House and Senate candidates have signed on to a pledge rejecting any effort to privatize or scale back Social Security benefits or raise the retirement age. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee sponsored this pledge among Congressional candidates.

Exclude Medicare and Social Security from deficit reduction.

Expresses the sense of Congress that:
1. any deficit reduction plan put forward by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction should not balance the budget by eroding America's hard-earned retirement plan and social safety net;
2. Medicare's ability to deliver high quality health care in a cost-efficient manner should be strengthened and its benefits should be preserved for current and future retirees;
3. appropriate reform to strengthen Social Security's long-term outlook should ensure that it remains a critical source of protection for the people of the United States and their families without further increasing the retirement age or otherwise decreasing benefits; and
4. federal funding for the Medicaid program should be maintained so that senior citizens, poor and disabled children, and others with disabilities are able to gain and retain access to affordable health care.