Political Quotes

“Reclaiming my time and on that point, there are three ways you shore up Social Security for the long haul. One way to do it is cut benefits. We are going to run out of the Social Security trust fund in the year 2034, so what are we going to do to prop it up for the long haul? With the average Social Security check in this country being somewhere around $700 and one-third of all recipients depending almost entirely on that check to live, two-thirds depending on that $700 check for more than half their income, I do not think cutting benefits is what we want to do. I do not think we ought to raise the retirement age. Americans are looking forward to their promised Social Security check. What do you want to take the retirement age to? 70? 72? 75? We do not want to go that way. So cutting benefits, I do not think, is the way to go. The second thing you could do is raise taxes. Well, the tax already is 12.4 percent to support Social Security, the payroll tax. More Americans in this country pay higher FICA taxes supporting Social Security than they pay income tax. So I surely do not think you want to do any more on raising taxes. That gets us to the third and only other alternative, and that is to take some of the general fund money and put it into Social Security so you prolong the life of Social Security and have it there, guaranteed, so those benefits will be there as we baby-boomers move into retirement and as our children move into retirement after us.”