Lynn C. Woolsey: “I, for one, am embarrassed at how little this Congress has produced. I would think the leadership of this Congress, of…”

“I, for one, am embarrassed at how little this Congress has produced. I would think the leadership of this Congress, of this House, would be red in the face when they look at themselves in the mirror. I, too, voted for Social Security first and tax cuts afterward. But I want to tell the Members, I represent if not the, one of the best-educated districts in the Nation. They know about this stuff. They have been saying to me since the day I was elected in 1992, when is the Congress going to pay back what this country owes our Social Security Trust Fund? I have said, it is going to be paid back. We are on our way to a surplus. It will happen then. I am telling the Members, it had better happen, because if we do not, not only are we putting the Generation Xers and the baby boomers at risk, we are putting our national debt at risk, because a great percentage of that national debt is what we owe back to the Social Security trust. It is a win-win. It is a two-fer, if we take care of Social Security. We need to get Social Security off-budget. Social Security deserves to stand on its own. It must be secure. I will not fool around with privatizing Social Security, but I certainly would encourage people to have a base, and we have to find a way to encourage people to invest more. We cannot just depend on Social Security for our retirement, because that is not enough. It is not intended for that. It is intended for a safety net.”