Greg Ganske: “If someone does not like our program, then I think they have a responsibility to offer their own specific plan to save…”

“If someone does not like our program, then I think they have a responsibility to offer their own specific plan to save the program, which will be insolvent in 5 years. That is only fair. It is a very, very important issue. We either effect some reductions in the rate of growth or, in order to keep the system solvent, what is the alternative? The alternative is the same alternative that we have seen from Congresses for the last 30 years, and that is very simple: A doubling or a tripling of Medicare taxes. As both of you and I know, the effect of that would be very transitory. That could probably extend the life of the trust fund for 3 years, and then what would we do? We would go back there, if we return to the way that it has been done before, and we would double or triple those Medicare taxes again. I tell you what, I cannot do that to the working families in my district. If we look at an average income working family in 1950, and adjust the amount of taxes they were paying to the government to 1990 dollars, so that we are going to compare the same dollars for 1950 in taxes to the dollars in 1995, an average income family, not the rich and the wealthy, in 1950 was spending about $7,000 to the government in 1990 dollars. Today the average income family, 1995, is sending about $21,000 to the Federal Government.”