Political Quotes

“to follow up on the fact that we are hearing that there is no money in the trust fund, I am quite shocked to hear that because back in the 1980s, when the decision was made to come together, President Reagan, based on Alan Greenspan's commission, with Bob Dole and Tip O'Neill, they came together and on purpose designed a system to create surpluses for all of us baby boomers so there would be more dollars available in a surplus. And, in fact, what the President looks at, of course, just like when you go to a bank, you don't look in and just see dollars because there are investments being made and so on. In the Social Security trust fund, individuals have been given secured bonds, the equivalent of a secured bond, an IOU, each one of us as individuals, with the full faith and credit of the United States behind it. My question is this: We are giving those same kinds of assurances to those who buy our foreign debt, that we have the full faith and credit of the United States behind it. Would you suggest that we would pay China back and Japan back and our foreign creditors before we would pay back the people of America who have paid into the Social Security trust fund and have been given a secured IOU? Mr. DeMINT. An excellent question. Those are legal obligations of the Federal Government which we have to honor. But the Supreme Court has said Americans have no legal right to a Social Security benefit. It is not their money. They don't own it.…”