Bob Kerrey: “I do not know if I will take 10 minutes or not, but it was called to my attention this morning when I got back in town…”

“I do not know if I will take 10 minutes or not, but it was called to my attention this morning when I got back in town that there was an opinion piece that appeared in the Washington Post yesterday, Sunday, written by Mr. Henry Aaron, a senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. The headline is ``The Myths of the Social Security Crisis.'' Henry Aaron, a distinguished fellow and economist, goes through one, two, three, four, five myths. I do not know how many of my colleagues or how many people that are concerned about this particular issue read this opinion piece, but I wanted to immediately--and I will come later to the floor to deal with some of the statements Mr. Aaron makes in detail--but wanted to immediately come to the floor and urge colleagues who have increasingly started looking at Social Security as an issue that we need to address currently, to hear the following. First, Mr. Aaron says myth one is that ``Social Security is in crisis.'' This essentially is a strawman argument, the fact that some people are saying it is in crisis. Destroy that argument, therefore, we do not need to do anything. Mr. President, I hope we do not have to deal with problems only when they are in crisis. I hope that, particularly with a program that promises retirement payments to people 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years from now--and understand that every beneficiary of Social Security for the next 70 years is alive today.…”