[atlas:bill]

TO THE HONORABLE GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:

WHEREAS, Social Security is a federal program that does not recognize the retirement needs of many Americans; and

WHEREAS, Social Security tax revenues alone will be insufficient to pay current benefits as early as the year 2015; and

WHEREAS, The Social Security trust funds may be completely exhausted by the year 2037; and

WHEREAS, The investment return on Social Security contributions made by workers today is significantly below that available from other sources; and

WHEREAS, Workers deserve the opportunity to invest more productively for their own retirements; and

WHEREAS, More retirement investment opportunities might dramatically increase workers' savings rate and retain more young adults who otherwise would leave the state for jobs elsewhere; and

WHEREAS, The unfunded liability of the Social Security system exceeds nine trillion dollars, according to the chairman of the federal reserve system; and

WHEREAS, Many workers are already facing very low or even negative rates of return on their lifetimes of Social Security contributions; and

WHEREAS, The aging of the United States population means that fewer and fewer active workers will be supporting more and more retirees under today's pay-as-you-go financing for Social Security; and

WHEREAS, This ratio of retirees to workers has shrunk from 15:1 in 1950 to less than 3:1 today and soon will fall to less than 2:1; and

WHEREAS, Raising payroll or income taxes to compensate for this demographic shrinkage will mean that today's workers get an even worse return on their federal retirement contributions than they do now; and

WHEREAS, Broadly cutting Social Security benefits also would worsen rates of return; and

WHEREAS, States and localities that allow their own employees to invest a portion of their taxes for retirement have shown that workers can do better for themselves with such accounts than under Social Security; and

WHEREAS, An increasing number of countries, including Australia, Chile, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, now allow their citizens to allocate their taxes to such personal retirement accounts; and

WHEREAS, The Social Security trustees have consistently and repeatedly stated in their annual reports that the Social Security system will be unable to deliver on its long-term promises under its current financing scheme; and

WHEREAS, The public, especially younger people, are therefore rightfully suspicious of Social Security's ability to deliver on its long-term promises to them; and

WHEREAS, Bipartisan Social Security reform proposals now before Congress would address these problems by creating a system of personal accounts with a portion of Social Security taxes; and

WHEREAS, The Social Security Administration's own actuaries have judged these bipartisan proposals to be fiscally sound for the next seventy-five years; and

WHEREAS, These proposals would reduce or eliminate the pressure for higher taxes or broadly reduced benefits while reducing Social Security's unfunded liability; and

WHEREAS, These proposals would not affect people in or near retirement, nor those eligible for or drawing Social Security's disability benefits;

NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that the Congress of the United States enact legislation amending the Social Security Act and other statutes to allow workers to allocate a portion of their Social Security taxes to personal retirement accounts that they themselves would own and control, and reject legislation that raises federal retirement taxes, broadly reduces Social Security benefits, or fails to lower Social Security's unfunded liability.

BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable George W. Bush, President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.