Political Quotes

“Reclaiming my time, in fact, for years Congress has spent the Social Security surplus on other things, and it looked as though those things were all affordable because in fact it did not look like deficit spending, when in fact it was taking the Social Security surplus and diverting it to other things. Sometimes people ask me why Congress did that. I always say, you know, if we could bring back the Congresses, if we could get Roosevelt to come back or the ghost of Roosevelt to come back, if we could bring back the Congresses in those days, or even the Congresses in the 50s and the 60s, we could ask them that question. I will bet if they looked at things through our eyes, they would think that maybe they should have put these dollars away into accounts that the American people would own and keep them away from Congress. But all we can do is act as good stewards of the Social Security dollars that are coming in today. None of us can reach back and change what happened in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s. I think the American people understand that. They realize that it is not today's Congress that spent the Social Security surplus in the 60s, but they do expect us to do what we ought to do to make it solvent for the future.”