John Shaw: “I say to the gentleman that he is absolutely right on target. It is not a question of can; it is a question of must. We…”

“I say to the gentleman that he is absolutely right on target. It is not a question of can; it is a question of must. We must do this. And I would say from a very bipartisan way that if any of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the minority party, if they have an idea that they want to discuss, bring it over. I will be glad to talk. I have chaired this Subcommittee on Social Security for 6 years. I am no longer the Chair. The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery) is now the Chair; the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) the Chair of the full committee. They are looking for ideas, and they are leaving the doors open for new ideas. So the Democrats cannot complain about being left out in the cold on this because we are soliciting their support. We are reaching out to them, and we want them to come down and come down with some good ideas. Not just come down and start throwing rocks at us. Come down with something positive. One cannot possibly debate these fiscal facts. This is what we are heading for. And these are not Republican figures that we are looking at. This has been done by the Social Security Administration, and we had the same graph when President Clinton was President. So this is not a Republican-created bankruptcy or crisis. This is an actual crisis that is out there just because we are not having as many kids as we used to have and we are living longer.”