Gilbert Gutknecht: “And that affects families. That affects their ability to buy, their ability to buy new homes, remodel homes. I want to…”

“And that affects families. That affects their ability to buy, their ability to buy new homes, remodel homes. I want to point out one other thing, I want to get Mr. Pappas back involved in this discussion a bit, too, but this chart sort of shows some of the bad news that we are, according to the Congressional Budget Office, we are still about $69 billion short under the President's plan in the year 2002. That is sort of the bad news. But it gets worse. Because if this chart were extended, and we are going to have to get this chart extended, if you just leave everything else the same, when people my age begin to retire in about the year 2011, 2012, when we begin to really make demands upon the Social Security system, the Medicare system, and other things, and as our income levels begin to go into retirement mode, this chart begins to go right straight up. It is almost like an F-16 taking off in a completely vertical takeoff. While I think this chart is kind of bad news, it gets a lot worse if we do not get serious about solving Medicare, solving Social Security, a lot of those underlying problems and begin to make some modest changes today so we can save the fund for the future.”