creasing rate destroying the possibility of security in our later

years.

I believe the military expenditures must end. I am aware the bluntness of this statement might cause it to be discounted. But I believe experience will cause recognition of its validity if we have time. I have said what I believe.

About a year or so ago the public issues and legislation committee of Windom and Windsor Counties set up its five legislative priorities. One which was extremely controversial, and which we postponed taking, was the recognition that as a major senior issue, competition for the tax dollar between the military expenditures and the other services of our Government is a major issue with us. I think with that I will close. Thank you. Mr. JEFFORDS. Next, Frank.

STATEMENT OF FRANK MARAVILLE, RUTLAND COUNCIL OF SENIOR CITIZENS, RUTLAND, VT.

Mr. MARAVILLE. I am Frank Maraville, from the Rutland Council of Senior Citizens. We are affiliated with the National Council of Senior Citizens.

I would like to brag just a little. I am the sparkplug, I believe, that organized the seniors in Rutland. And at this time we have some 425 gold card members.

I am seriously concerned about cuts in pensions, such as social security, railroad annuities, and so forth. I am a good candidate to be here talking, since I was cut on last October 1 on my railroad retirement, $38.29 a month. At the same time that that cut came, I acquired a medicine cost for the rest of my entire life amounting to $30 a month.

This, along with my pension cut, amounts to $68.29 per month, $819 a year. This last sure hurts a guy who is 82 years old and never thought that it could happen to him.

Thanks to Reaganomics-let's fight to keep what we have. And I thank you very much.

Mr. JEFFORDS. That is a very excellent statement. Certainly it comes from your own understanding and personal understanding and involvement. I thank you very much.

Mr. MARAVILLE. Incidentally, Mr. Chairman, I distribute your literature in Rutland.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Thank you, I appreciate it. Ken.

STATEMENT OF KENNETH PARR, EAST BURKE, VT.

Mr. PARR. I am Kenneth Parr, East Burke, Vt. I am speaking as a private citizen. I belong to a political minority. I am a solid dollar Democrat. I wish to speak of fundamental concepts that are necessary for any successful system of pensions, whether they are private systems or social security concepts.

My statement can be broken into three parts: First, all systems of old-age security, private or public, are mainly based upon our productivity during our young and versatile years. During that time, we must be healthy and fully employed productive workers, who produce a surplus needed for later years, no matter what systems are used to transfer that surplus.

Therefore, the committee's efforts must also be directed to the problem of keeping our people employed. Your efforts will not be very effective if we continue to permit a social and economic system that has vast numbers of its people unemployed, underemployed, and destructively employed.

Your committee should strongly advise other committees whose interests are related to this matter of total national productivity that your recommendations will be weak and insipid if productivity cannot be maintained at ever higher levels.

Second, your recommendations will ultimately fail unless they are based upon the fundamental principle that our society will operate virtually inflation free. I know of no rational statistical projection that can demonstrate that any plan-not any plan, private or public, will succeed under a steadily eroding dollar.

All retirement systems must be built upon mutual confidence between people, those who are working today, and those who are too young to work, and those too old to work. A wobbly dollar is the antithesis of confidence.

Inflation breeds a short term, day-to-day economic existence, largely speculative and opportunistic, with nothing set aside for the proverbial rainy day. Just as free speech and free congregation are regarded as human rights, we should all struggle for a solid dollar as our human right.

Again, this committee should advise other committees that its recommendations will be futile without the guarantees of a solid

dollar.

I would like to add here that-I notice all the salesmen for IRA's and bank plans have left. But if there are any left, are you telling your 30-year-old clients that that million dollars you see in quarterpage ads in the Wall Street Journal will buy a plate of spaghetti and one meatball when it comes due?

Now, I am a recipient and a victim of private pension plans. And I have seen my annuities wither over the last 12 years in purchasing power.

I would like to add another point in connection with CPI indexes and COLA's.

I think that the attempt by various interests to have new calculations of CPI's are nothing but divisive attempts to divide people and set them against each other. The CPI is nothing but a statistical device, it has no real reliability. If we have 20 different CPI's, one for vegetarians, one for religious groups that don't eat pork, one for the ones that eat a lot of lamb, people who are renters, people who are paying on a mortgage, people who already own their home, we will have 20 different CPI's, all of them unreliable. The arguments for doing away with COLA, CPI indexing, are strong-if we could do it for all of society-not just social security recipients.

Third, now I can speak of a matter that your committee must handle all by yourself-the social security aspect of retirement must be made more just. I am not talking about the dollar amounts involved. I and many of my friends believe that all workers must contribute to and receive benefits from the same basic social security system. In this respect, no group is more equal or exempt than another. If as a nation we gain, we all should gain equally with re

spect to the basic program. And if as a nation we lose, we should lose equally.

This committee knows, because they are participants, that many millions of our Government workers and others do not participate in the system that I was forced to participate in. Instead, they have legislated special systems which allow higher cost-of-living adjustment formulas, earlier retirement, and super earlier retirement for nebulous medical and redundancy reasons.

Some of the people in these programs at an early productive age take extremely expensive training at taxpayer expense and use it to begin another career in private life. And they cause the citizen who paid privately for his similar training to compete with the early retiree, and to pay for it again in the cost of retraining a replacement in the Government or military post. The cases are not frequent, but neither is murder, which can emotionally shake up millions of people. We damn well have plenty of legislation to take care of the latter.

The fair solution is to put everyone on the basic social security system and then, and only then, can the special groups bargain for and privately build the balance of their retirement programs.

In our case we have told all of our active Members in Congress they cannot expect our vote if they have not pledged to move directly toward total citizen participation in the basic social security system, whatever its payout is to be.

Again, I say no group should be more equal than others in this

matter.

I want to thank you very much for your attention.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Thank you, Ken. That was excellent.

We will now take a break. When we come back, Ester Urie and Frank Bracey and then Bob Kingsley.

[Short recess.]

Mr. JEFFORDS. Our next witness is Ester Urie.

STATEMENT OF ESTER URIE, COALITION OF VERMONT ELDERS, WILLISTON, VT.

Ms. URIE. I am Ester Urie, from Williston, Vt. I am president, currently, of Coalition of Vermont Elders, although I speak as an individual today.

We have heard many details of the problems and the possibilities of solutions, so there is no need to repeat. I would simply speak as a nontechnical person concerned about the welfare of Vermont elders. The facts have been before us for a long time, yet very little seems to have been done.

We as Vermont elders are concerned about the delays in reaching solutions. We are also concerned about the seeming use of issues such as social security and its reform as political issues.

Many of our Vermonters are scared as they hear about possible changes in social security. The reality of action may be less traumatic than the rumors of things that may happen. We tend to fear the unknown more than reality. Five minutes in a dental chair is probably less traumatic than the 10 hours that precedes the visit to the dentist's office. So I think we can accept the changes which are about to come, and we can accept them as long as they are neces

sary, as long as they are fair, and as long as we know about them in time so that we can make plans for adjustment to them.

We may have to accept some slight reductions in the cost-ofliving adjustments and other forms of benefits from social security. But we can accept them if they are phased in over a long period of time, and as long as no one who is tremendously needy is cut off from benefits.

Sometimes we feel that we are being used as a political football. I think a witness to that fact is that there will be no report from the special commission until after the fall elections. It is things like this that make us skeptical about the true intent of Congress—with no reflection upon our present Congressman. We ask for equal treatment with other phases of society. If we are going to sacrifice, we feel that other areas should also.

Vermonters are used to facing reality, so we can accept the fact that some changes must come. We just ask that what is done is done equitably, and that those in real need are not penalized.

It would seem with all the experts and information that is available, Congress could come to some credible solution, and that those solutions could be made acceptable through educational programs with which the leaders of the groups of elderly in Vermont are willing to help over a period of time, as long as people do have a chance to become more independent of social security through personal savings, private pensions, and other plans.

What some of us are saying I think here in Vermont Shakespeare said several centuries ago when he wrote the words for Hamlet: "Take arms against a sea of trouble and by opposing end them." We are very grateful to Congressman Jeffords for his concern and for the excellent information which he sends to us, which we try to use in our contacts with the older citizens. So we do look forward to action and information in regard to that action. We would just ask that it be done with equitable adjustments to all phases of society.

Thank you.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Thank you very much. That is a very responsible statement which I think reflects the feelings of most people, that everyone has to take a little bit of the problem and bear it themselves. But it has to be done in an equitable and fair manner, and then it will be accepted. Some of the suggestions have not been that way.

Thank you very much.

Next is Frank Bracey.

STATEMENT OF FRANK BRACEY, NEWPORT, VT.

Mr. BRACEY. I am Frank Bracey, a private citizen. I am a retiree. I am grateful to Congressman Jeffords for the opportunity to come and testify. I am grateful for the many reports he has been sending me and for the fantastic and tremendous work he has done in Washington for us. We owe him a debt of gratitude, I feel.

I have said before, I will say again, I am retired. I want to say that as many millions of other retirees and senior citizens, I have been paying social security withholdings for the last 37 years. The

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Government has been taking specified amounts from my earnings, whether or not I approved.

The social security plan, as I see it, was to insulate senior citizens from above the poverty level when we came to that place when we are to retire, and that it should provide an equitable income to the retirees so that we could move out of industry and into the retired situation with dignity, with assurance, and with security in keeping with our economy.

I feel that the ceiling on earnings should be on all of the earnings for all of our people here in the United States. I also feel that they should be over and above the ceiling that has been quoted as a little over $32,000 a year, and then they would pay no more withholding.

I also feel that retirees, if they want to, should be able to work. I like to work. I have been working for the past 4 years since retirement. I enjoy working. I don't have a hobby, because I have spent all of my life working, bringing up a family, even at an older age, and not being able, I feel, to earn the kind of incomes that many people have.

And I do have, of course, my social security. I am grateful for it. My wife has a social security benefit. And we have some personal private pension plans into our economy. But I must say this. I feel that I would want the assurance that my social security check as well as my wife's would come year after year.

I also feel that the moneys that are being paid into the senior citizens is well invested, because I am sure that all of mine that I receive each month is spent-it goes back into the economy of the United States.

I have listened to many excellent reports this afternoon. I am grateful for having been invited to come. It has been a really worthwhile situation.

I am grateful to you, Congressman Jeffords. I appreciate it and thank you very much.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Thank you so much for coming. I certainly appreciate those very kind words. I also find your statement most thoughtful and helpful. Thank you.

Our next witness is Bob Kingsley. Bob, go ahead. It is good to see you here.

STATEMENT OF BOB KINGSLEY, PRESIDENT, RUTLAND/ADDISON COUNTY CENTRAL LABOR COUNCIL, VERMONT

Mr. KINGSLEY. I am glad you bring this issue up to Vermont. I am Bob Kingsley. I am here in my capacity as the president of the Rutland and Addison County Central Labor Council, representing approximately 2,000 workers in two counties in western Vermont. I am also a member of the Vermont Coalition for Jobs, Peace, and Justice.

I am here first and foremost to state clearly that the pension system in the United States and the social security system in particular is not an issue which concerns the elderly alone. I can testify through my own personal experience that the recent attempts by the Reagan administration to begin to dismantle the social security system have caused deep concern on behalf of nearly every