Political Quotes

“I considered myself an interpreter. I apologize for any infraction. Let me start out with these charts. Social Security Benefit Guaranty Act. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Social Security program over 6 decades ago, he wanted it to feature a personal investment component to build retirement income. Social Security was supposed to be one leg of a three-legged stool to support retirees. It was supposed to go hand-in-hand with personal savings and private pension plans. In fact, researching the archives, it is interesting that in the debate in 1935 in the Senate, the Senate on two occasions voted to have it optional to have a personal retirement savings account. So individuals owned accounts. Even in that case they could only be used for retirement, but there would be some individual ownership. When they went to conference, the House and the Senate ended up having government do the whole thing. It was made from the very beginning as a pay-as-you-go program, where existing workers paid in their Social Security tax and almost immediately those dollars were sent out to beneficiaries. So it was a pay-as-you-go program with existing workers paying in their taxes to pay for existing current retirees. The system is really stretched to its limits, and the actuaries are concerned. They say that Social Security is insolvent. We just changed it in 1983, reduced benefits and increased taxes.…”