Political Quotes

“I have been working on Social Security for the last 5 years. I am very concerned that we are putting off tough decisions that are going to mean that we either, in the future, substantially raise social security taxes on workers or we cut benefits. And we have done that before. In 1977, when we were short of Social Security funds to pay benefits, we both cut benefits and increased taxes. We did that again in 1983, when money was short in the Social Security Trust Fund. We again in that year cut benefits and raised taxes. So some people are suggesting that we add giant IOUs to the Social Security Trust Fund and assume that the Government is going to pay that money back at a later date. Let me briefly review a pie chart that shows the budget of the United States for this year. As we can see, the bottom green pie is Social Security. It represents 20 percent of the total budget. Defense only represents 18 percent of the total budget. The 12 appropriation bills that we spend most of the year arguing about is even smaller than the Social Security budget, with 19 percent. If we take all of the entitlement programs, it represents a little over half of the Federal budget.”