Political Quotes

“That is for part A, and that is the one the trustees are talking about, that is the one that is in trouble, and that is the one that we are talking about that we must do something to strengthen it, and save it, and preserve it so it will be there for our children. By the way, I think in 23 out of the last 27 years we have increased the payroll deduction for Medicare, so it has gone up, and up, and up, and we obviously cannot continue to do that. By the way, if we doubled or tripled that withholding, Medicare is still in trouble. So we have got to do something beyond that. So the first point that we need to make is that Medicare is not related to the budget. It is off budget. Now I know that we have been taking the money from the Medicare trust fund. We take if from all trust funds. I do not agree that we ought to do that. I think we need to stop doing that. We need to enact legislation so that we can stop doing that because right now by law the surplus funds in these trust funds have to be invested in U.S. securities. So, it is the Congress' fault that these funds are not there. Every bin where there should be dollars, like the highway trust fund, and the Social Security trust fund, and the Medicare trust fund, and the list goes on and on for a large number of trust funds, in those bins where there should be money there are just IOU's, and the money is owed to the Government.”