Political Quotes

“I rise today to address one of the most important issues facing the supercommittee; that is, where does Social Security fit into their plans? I know the supercommittee is doing a great job. They are working in a steady way to see how we can be a more frugal government, but while we are trying to be frugal, how we also meet our responsibilities for the national defense and also how we maintain our social contract. To me, one of the most essential programs in the social contract; that is, the contract between the U.S. Government and its people, is Social Security. For more than 75 years, under every President, we have worked in a bipartisan way to ensure the security and the solvency and the safety of Social Security. Every President has agreed that Social Security should be undeniable, available to everybody, reliable, that it is there when you need it, and inflation proof--inflation proof. I was in the House when we were teetering on a collapse of Social Security. Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Tip O'Neill was the Speaker of the House. Bob Dole and Bob Byrd were in the Senate. We went to work and made sure Social Security was solvent for all of 30 or 40 years. Under Bill Clinton, we also took positive forward steps. Under President Bush he wanted to privatize it. That is the way he saw entailing its future solvency. We fought that. But we still had money in the trust fund. Now where are we? Well, there are those who say we have got to reduce the debt.…”