Bob Kerrey: “let me talk about the wealth-generating portion of this. We know this represents the largest tax decrease in the history…”

“let me talk about the wealth-generating portion of this. We know this represents the largest tax decrease in the history of the country, somewhere between $300 billion or $400 billion over a 5-year period, an $800 billion tax cut overall, payroll taxes, a tax that for most Americans is the largest tax they pay. We know it establishes the solvency of the program for 75 years. We know it answers the question that lots of younger people have, which is, Is Social Security going to be there for me? We know it is fully paid for, that it is not only actuarially sound but fiscally sound as well. What is a new idea for people when they look at this program is, the potential to take Social Security and convert it, transform it into something in addition to survivors--I have to keep saying it because very often it gets missed--remains in place, disability remains in place, and the defined benefits program remains in place. But what we are doing is transforming it into something which, in addition to those three things, will now generate wealth--will generate wealth--for people. What happens in the process of discussing this is we begin to discover that this compounding interest rate formula that the Senator has referred to a couple of times as a real engine for wealth generation is a lot more powerful than we realized it was.…”