Political Quotes

“it is a special joy for this Senator, in his last months of his last term, to rise on this subject in perfect unity with the chairman. I will make remarks out of habit and custom perhaps, but I could not say anything better than has been said. I endorse it completely. The House has done us a service in sending us a bill which we have been working on for years. Just 4 years ago, we increased the earnings limit to where it would be $30,000 by the year 2002. But now this gets rid of it. It is an anachronism. As the chairman said, when we enacted Social Security, unemployment was 25 percent. Sir, it is now 4 percent. The range of skills in our economy was wholly different then. Coal mines were no place for 70-year-olds; computer terminals are. It is as simple as that. An absolutely important, central point to make is, the repeal of the earnings test has no long-run cost. All of the foregone benefits of continued work were made up later when retirement came, or at age 70. As the chairman has accurately said, calculating that makeup can be fantastically complex and has been costly. It is the one complaint citizens have with Social Security. They believe they are not getting what is theirs. The adjudication and so forth is a needless waste and an expensive one. With this legislation, the problem will be behind us.”