Political Quotes

“I earnestly implore my committee chairman, the key is simply to exclude the revenues from balancing the budget in an amendment to this amendment, and that would be presented next week. I believe it is the only way to have an honest amendment. I also believe that it makes sense. There are 40 million people today on Social Security. By the time this amendment is ratified and the first balanced budget is prepared, there will be 80 million Americans on Social Security. Young people working today can expect that the money will not be there to pay for their retirement, and yet they are paying FICA taxes. That is not right. They should not have to pay if the money is not going to be there. If the money is used to balance the budget, it just brings the crunch to Social Security that much sooner. I do not think that that should be a by-product of a balanced budget amendment. More fundamentally, I believe it is a flaw that will cause its nonratification by enough States to make it the law of the land. What I want to say, the bottom line is if we can adopt the amendment--and I just read the amendments to the Constitution again this morning--I think if we are going to have monetary policy in the Constitution, it is fitting, just as there are technicalities in other amendments on double jeopardy and that kind of thing, that there be an amendment which simply exempts the revenues from the trust funds that hold the FICA taxes.”