Assembly passes resolution against Social Security plan

Kirsten Searer

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 | 10:01 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Assembly passed a resolution Thursday urging Congress to oppose any kind of privatization of Social Security.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, argued that 314,120 Nevadans depend on Social Security, and 45 percent of the state's senior citizens would be poor without it.

Privatizing Social Security would divert money that now goes to current retirees to be put in private accounts, she said. It could cost the government between $1 trillion and $9 trillion to continue making payments to people on Social Security now, she said. The government would have to borrow the money or cut from existing programs, she said.

"'Privatization turns Social Security from a guarantee into a gamble," she said. "Stock markets go up and down. There is no way to tell when the market will go up and when it will go down.

"If you retire when the market is down, you lose. If you get cancer and the market is down, you lose. Placing Social Security savings into Wall Street is a risky gamble."

Republican Assembly members said the emergency resolution caught them by surprise, but Assistant Minority Leader Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, stood up in opposition to the resolution, saying Social Security money placed in indexed bond or stock funds "does not seem risky."

"I'm concerned about Social Security, that's my form of retirement, or one of them," Mabey said. "But I don't know that privatization is so risky."

He pointed out that state and county employees use PERS, the Public Employees Retirement System, which puts money into index funds.

Twenty-seven Assembly members voted yes and 13 voted no, with two excused absenses. The vote split down party lines except for Assemblyman Brooks Holcomb, R-Reno, who voted in favor of the resolution. Holcomb said he has many elderly people in his district and doesn't want to jeopardize their Social Security.