Willie Hefner: “we better be very careful in Social Security. Now we are talking about people's Social Security being taxed. Now the…”

“we better be very careful in Social Security. Now we are talking about people's Social Security being taxed. Now the people in my district, the majority of them that count on Social Security are not people that pay any tax. These are people that worked in textile mills for 40 or 50 years and their husband and wife worked for 40 years and retired on $18 a month pension from their jobs. So they have to count, absolutely count, on Social Security and Medicare for their survival. That is the reason they get so upset. Now I do not have any problems with talking about something to make, where people can make an investment in a private account of whatever, but we do not talk about Social Security as it really is. And at my age I have people in my district and relatives that when their families had a catastrophe in their early lives and they had small children and one of the spouses had no skills, could not work, Social Security comes in and they get some benefits until these kids finish school. That is an insurance policy. Nobody ever talks much about the benefits of Social Security, and people could not go out and buy that protection for what they pay into Social Security, and that is what it was set up for. So before we start fiddling too much in privatization of Social Security, we better be sure what we are doing.”