Published August 2005 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
Byrd's-Eye View By U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd Happy Birthday Social Security
As Americans this month mark the 70th Anniversary of the Social Security Act, many people remain concerned about the future of the program. West Virginians know, better than most, the absolute necessity of Social Security. It oftentimes is the difference between living with dignity or living in poverty. One in four West Virginians -- more than 400,000 retirees, disabled workers, widows and widowers, spouses and children --receives a monthly benefit check. The arrival of their benefit check is essential, and for 70 years it's been guaranteed regardless of hard economic times. It is no exaggeration to suggest that the Social Security checks on which these West Virginians depend could be undermined by efforts to privatize the system. Social Security privatization would subject the livelihood of workers to the volatile movements of the financial markets. Some may do better than others with stock market gains, but many West Virginia families could lose a lifetime of their savings in a single day. If Social Security is privatized, the arrival of a Social Security check for many families could no longer be guaranteed. When the market falls into a tailspin, it is the privileged few at the top -- not the ordinary workers -- who would have the golden parachutes. Social Security has always been a safety net for West Virginians, and not a roulette wheel for financial profit. It is an opportunity to share in a dignified and respectable living, and gambling with that opportunity is as unseemly as gambling with your weekly grocery money. Let us not be lured into trading away our safety net without adequate thought as to who the winners and losers would be under a privatized system. Social Security is a gift from the World War II Generation to this and every generation. It was forged from their suffering and resiliency during the Great Depression, and the task now falls to us to preserve that gift for our children and grandchildren. In 1935, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the law creating Social Security, he stated that the program would "give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty- ridden old age." That protection is just as necessary today, and we must not allow it to be weakened or taken away. I will continue to fight in the Senate, as I have always fought, to protect workers, and to retain the integrity, stability, and dependability of their Social Security system. Our future generations deserve no less. August 17, 2005