Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise not so much in opposition to the proposal by the esteemed chairman of our committee, as to see if it is not possible to clarify some of these issues. And to welcome the Senate to what should be a substantive, constructive debate over the next 6 months-- pending the time when our distinguished Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mr. Franklin D. Raines, has indicated the administration plans to begin to have legislation on this issue, in the first session of the next Congress. In my view, we ought to take up such legislation as a first order of business in that session. May I take the presumed responsibility of this body, which tends to have long tenure, to give a bit of history? In 1935, we established the Social Security system on a pay-as-you-go basis. It was no time, in the midst of a great economic depression, to take more money out of the economy than was being put back, even if it was only a nominal process. This went on until 1977 when we moved from a pay-as-you-go system to a partially funded system. I was a member of the committee of conference between the Senate and the House which adopted that change, and I can say there was very little attention paid to it. We put in place a huge surplus to provide for the baby boom retirement, as the phrase was.…”