Bipartisan Senate Bill Addresses Social Security Shortfall

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With Social Security’s looming insolvency date roughly six years away, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a proposal Tuesday to grapple with one of the most consequential financial challenges facing the federal government.

The Protecting Retirement Opportunities and Maintaining Income Security for Everyone, or PROMISE Act, comes on the heels of the latest Social Security Board of Trustees’ annual report, which found that Social Security’s retirement trust fund is projected to face a funding shortfall in 2032, a year earlier than last year’s projections.

“The longer Congress waits, the more difficult it will be to address the program’s financial shortfall,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., one of the bill’s authors, said in a statement. “We were elected to solve problems — we owe it to our kids and grandkids to protect and strengthen this critical program.”

Durbin, who is retiring, is joining with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and outgoing Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., in backing the Social Security legislation, which calls for an “independent, bipartisan advisory committee” that would make recommendations to Congress.

Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Alan Armstrong, R-Okla., signed onto the bill right before its introduction.

The bill is designed to force Congress to confront Social Security’s long-term financing problem by guaranteeing that lawmakers vote on a solvency plan. It culminates in an up-or-down vote on a plan that restores Social Security solvency for at least half a century.

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