Mark Souder: “I am not sure at what point, perhaps the gentleman would know this more, but as I have heard, there is a point out here…”

“I am not sure at what point, perhaps the gentleman would know this more, but as I have heard, there is a point out here where the FICA tax alone could be around 43 percent, depending on where the shortfall is. This is not just a small matter, it is a budget-busting matter that we have been able to disguise this and lulled into this because of the number of people working versus the people in the retirement system. But a day of reckoning is coming. The longer we wait, the tougher the reckoning. Not only do individuals pay into this but a lot of people may not be aware that their employer is matching it. If you are self-employed, you know you have to pay both halves, and that one of the things I personally think we ought to be doing as a country and individual employers ought to be doing is showing what an individual's check would be if that match was not going in there. So we are not only spending the amount you are putting in, we are spending the amount that the employer is putting in. This devastating tax would cripple our economic system. Some people say, oh, there would be politically an uproar if we tried to change benefits and not do it. Quite frankly the baby boomers, I was born in 1950, we are going to be the biggest voting block when we are there and we do not intend to starve and the people who would have to pay our way are our kids and they are not going to intend to pay all of this if the Government defaults.”