Political Quotes

“Well, you are certainly well stating my position and I believe the position of our colleagues and I believe of the President. Social Security is not part of the current deficit problem. It is an issue. We'll have to deal with it at any time between now and the next 7, 8 years. And we can. It's been done before. At least three times in my memory, Social Security has been adjusted. One was discussed earlier with the issue of the COLA. That's been adjusted. There are things that can be done to deal with Social Security, but that is a debate separate and apart from the deficit and the fiscal cliff debate. The fiscal cliff debate is a tax issue, and it's also a spending issue. Today we focus largely on the issue of what are we going to do about Medicare, a big part of the Federal expenditures. And our argument is this: we're here to protect Medicare for seniors, period. We're not here to cut the benefits for seniors. We're here to see to it that Medicare, which has been a program for seniors since 1964-65, is going to continue to be there for seniors as well as the benefits package that's there. There are reforms and changes that can be made to reduce the cost of Medicare but not to reduce the benefits. We've talked about many of those. So here's where we're coming. Within that area, there are very, very significant savings that can be made. The prescription drug benefit, $150 billion over 10 years.…”