Charles Rangel: “I am here because the President has challenged this body and the other to deal with the problem of Social Security. And…”

“I am here because the President has challenged this body and the other to deal with the problem of Social Security. And while the President no longer considers it a crisis, obviously when it reaches the point that you are spending more money than you are taking in, you do have a problem and you do have a challenge and we do have a responsibility. So I think the President has changed the crisis which would occur according to the Congressional Budget Office out to 2052 and even then it remains a challenge and not really a crisis. But we do not have a bill so we do not know specifically what the President would want to do. We do know that these types of problems you either have to cut the benefits, extend the age or raise the taxes; but the President has taken all of these things off the table and said we should deal with the question of privatization. I guess the more people in the district that looked at privatization and the more economists that studied it have caused the President to admit that privatization and private accounts and personal accounts has little or nothing to do with the question of solvency, which is basically what we are talking about. We Democrats know how good this program has been for America. We know that it has been an insurance policy that most working people cannot afford.…”