Senate Committee on Human Services (HMS) - chair: Sonson, vice chair: Cabanilla

Tuesday, April 18, 2006, 9:10 a.m. Conference Room 22

Testifier: Jean Aoki, Legislative Chair, LWV-Hawaii

Click here to view SCR6 SD1

The League of Women Voters is in full support of SCR 6, S.D.1. We realize that a similar resolution was passed last year, but an issue of such importance bears repeated reminders to our national policy makers that people and groups across the nation want the social security system strengthened, not weakened While the Bush administration is talking about partial privatization, we are afraid that that is but the first step to the complete privatization of this most successful and revered program. We hear talk about cutting back on or even doing away with all of our entitlement programs. They say that these programs are consuming too much of the federal budget. The truth is that the FICA tax is bringing in more money than is currently needed. That surplus made possible President’s Bush’s first tax cut which went primarily to the very wealthy. Tax expenditures like preferential tax rates for corpora- tions, lower tax rates for investment income, subsidies, grants and unrealistically low rates charged for access to some of our natural resources on public lands do not appear on budget sheets as the revenue losses that they are. Their inclusion on the budget as losses would give a better perspective on how our national “income” is distributed. We urge your support for this resolution. Thank you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of SCR 6, S.D. 1.