Political Quotes

“what it was, probably, is a gimmick and it was. It was Democrats and Republicans. Vice-President Gore in some of his speeches said the lockbox is great, but Republicans did the same thing. The lockbox was a gimmick to make people believe that somehow we were making Social Security more secure is just not the case. The money was borrowed from Social Security. The money will be paid back, but the consequences of coming up with that money to pay back. My colleague mentioned $120 trillion; $120 trillion is the extra money that we are going to have to come up with over the next 75 years to meet Social Security benefits, what we have promised over and above what is coming in from the Social Security, or FICA, tax. If we put $9 trillion in an investment fund today, drawing 5 percent, then that $9 trillion that we put from that trust fund into an investment fund today would accommodate the $120 trillion over the next 75 years. The challenge is to reduce spending now, to hold the line on spending now so that we do not increase taxes, so we do not increase the debt. Maybe we should have a law that says we only can spend what we tax, and therefore, we would have to have a balanced budget.”