Political Quotes

“I want to talk briefly about Social Security. I see a lot of young people in our gallery today, and not only for their future, and what might happen in their retirement years but all workers today, including all retirees today, need to be concerned about Social Security. Let me just give a brief history of how we started our Social Security program. In 1935, somewhat after the depression, there were a lot of seniors, if you will, going over the hill to the poorhouse. A decision was made by the Congress and by the President to develop a program where existing workers paid in their taxes to pay for the benefits of existing retirees, again, sort of a Ponzi game where existing workers paid in taxes. Immediately it was sent out to existing retirees. It worked very well when it first started because up until, up through the late 1930s, there were almost 40 people working, paying in their taxes for every one retiree. By 1950, that got down to 17 workers paying in their taxes for every one retiree, 1950, 17. Today, guess how many workers are working paying in their FICA tax for every retiree? Three workers today are working now, paying in their taxes for every retiree. Of course, with fewer and fewer workers in relation to the number of retirees, the only way to keep enough money coming in was to increase the tax on those workers. Here is a statistic that should give us some trouble, and that is, since 1971, we have increased Social Security taxes 36 times.”