Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, it is such a disservice to the American people to make this issue a political issue. It is easy to demagogue because seniors are frightened about the possibility of losing their Social Security benefits. The facts are very clear: Thirty years ago it took 33 people to come up with the funding for every one retiree through their Social Security taxes. Today it takes three people to come up with the taxes to accommodate that Social Security benefit for every one Social Security retiree. And the estimate is in another 15 to 20 years it is only going to be two people working in the United States to have to pay enough taxes to accommodate every single one retiree. To suggest that we should do nothing now because we might ruin the system is ridiculous. There are a lot of ways that maybe we could help cure the program. What the President has suggested, what the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and others and I have suggested in the several bills we have introduced, in the last 7 years I have introduced three bills that have been scored, each of which has been scored by the Social Security Administration, to keep Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. Every time I introduce a bill, from the first one in 1994 until the one last year, the solutions have to be more drastic because we are running out of time. We are wasting these kinds of funds that are coming in. The problem is real.”