Political Quotes

“So by 2030, I think it is, if nothing changes, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and the national debt will consume 100 percent of our tax revenue. Clearly, we have to preserve this important program. The other thing I'd like to point out to people is, in 1964, when Medicare was conceived, people were having, on average, four kids per family. So the folks that came up with Medicare said, Well, people are having four kids per family now, most likely they'll continue to have four kids per family going forward. Let's make this a pay-as-you-go. There will always be four people paying for the two people ahead of them. It turns out families have shrunk. Now I'd point out in most crowds, most people have more brothers and sisters than they do children. Families have decreased in size. Instead of on average four kids per family, now there's about 2.5. That demographic shift has made all of the difference. Instead of a pay-as- you-go program where there is always as much money coming in as we needed to pay out, what has happened is families have shrunk, you have a large number of baby boomers, and then their parents, and beneath it, you have kind of a tree, if you will, where it goes straight down. Instead of the pyramid originally thought that would occur, we now have something that looks like that and then goes straight down. There is no longer this broader base of people paying in. We're not the first to recognize this.…”