Kent Conrad: “I always hesitate to characterize the statements or motivations of others. But I will simply say this. It matters a lot…”

“I always hesitate to characterize the statements or motivations of others. But I will simply say this. It matters a lot what we do here. You know, sometimes the actions in this Chamber do not matter and the actions in the other Chamber do not matter much. This action matters a lot. Here is why it matters. For those who say, ``Well, we have been doing that; we have been taking Social Security surpluses, so what does it matter that we keep on doing it?'' The reason it matters is because, back in 1983, we saw we were headed for a cliff, for a circumstance in which the Social Security system would be broke. So Congress took action. Congress put into place a system that would assure Social Security surpluses so we would be prepared for when the baby boom generation started to retire. We know now that we have a short period of time to prepare for when those baby boomers start to retire. The idea is to run surpluses to get ready for when those baby boomers have retired and have 48 million people on the system instead of 24 million, because if we do not have surpluses, we will have to have either an 82-percent tax rate in this country, or a one-third cut in all benefits. Does anybody believe we are going to have an 82-percent tax rate? I do not. That means we are going to have some dramatic cuts in benefits which people have paid into to secure for themselves. So the money is not available.”