Rep. Thaddeus McCotter Announces "Save Social Security Act"
Sept. 12, 2011--Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)  announced he is introducing legislation which would allow individuals to establish voluntary personal social security savings accounts.  McCotter said his Save Social Security Act would not require benefit cuts or tax increases; rather it would "leverage spending reductions" achieved in part by block granting some programs to the states and by eliminating other programs (this aspect will be addressed in a companion bill).  McCotter said the personal accounts would give individuals a proprietary stake in the system.  The plan would include a benefit guarantee.  Citing Peter Ferrara, who helped develop the proposal, McCotter said it would amount to "the greatest reduction of government spending and debt in human history."  McCotter said he hopes his proposal will "help unite the generations."  "We want to avoid generational warfare," he said.  McCotter said his proposal is not privatization and he opposes privatization, but skeptics say it is similar to the effort in 2005 to introduce private accounts.  [releases/statements]

Asked where he stood on the current back and forth on Social Security between Gov. Rick Perry and former Gov. Mitt Romney, McCotter said that everyone knows the solvency of the system must be addressed and he hoped his proposal might serve as "a bridge between those two" (and might possibly be injected into tonight's debate in Tampa from which he has been excluded).  

McCotter developed his proposal with Peter Ferrara, who also spoke.  Ferrara, who helped McCotter develop this proposal, is senior policy advisor for the Institute for Policy Innovation, director of the International Center for Law and Economics and president of the Virginia Club for Growth, and has worked on and written about Social Security reform since the early 1980s.  Ferrara argues that the problem with the current system is "there is no savings and investment anywhere in the system...it's all redistribution."