Chris Sununu: “earlier in the debate I made clear that it was frustrating that we had asked the other side for a proposal, a plan…”

“earlier in the debate I made clear that it was frustrating that we had asked the other side for a proposal, a plan, specifics to strengthen the Social Security system, and they had not given an answer. Here, finally, in the last minutes of a debate that has gone over 1 hour, we get an answer: They will commit to raising taxes. Because to suspend or eliminate tax cuts in order to cover this shortfall in Social Security is to make a firm commitment that you will raise taxes, that you will take new taxes into the general revenues and divert them to Social Security. That is a tax increase. There is no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Every worker in the country already pays over 12 percent of their payroll every week in taxes into the Social Security system. I say that is enough. We can reform, strengthen, and vitalize this program by empowering workers, giving them the option to control 2 or 3 or 4 percent of those payroll taxes every week and put it in a personal retirement account, not to gamble it on penny stocks but to put it in a fund similar to the Federal Thrift Savings Plan, a mixed basket of stocks, a very secure investment in bonds, perhaps a mix of the two, to invest not for 1 or 2 years but for 20 or 30 or 40 years; empower workers today to control more of what they earn. Surely that is a good thing for those workers because it gives them an asset they can leave to their family.”