Maurice Hinchey: “Social Security is such a critically important program to every American that it ought to be examined from time to time…”

“Social Security is such a critically important program to every American that it ought to be examined from time to time, and we periodically ought to do whatever may be necessary to strengthen it to make sure that it continues to last. This Democratic program, the invention of Franklin Roosevelt, has served several generations of Americans extremely well, and it will continue to do so so long as we nourish the economic conditions that are necessary to sustain it. We learned something very important about Social Security just today. We learned that Social Security is directly tied to the national economy. When the economy is growing and doing well, when it is growing at a rate of 2 rac{1}{2} percent or greater, Social Security does well. When we tighten up the economy in the ways that the Federal Reserve Board has attempted to do, for example, in some recent years, then we threaten Social Security as we threaten other public programs and threaten the economic health of all Americans as well. So the first lesson that we ought to dictate to any commission that ought to be examining Social Security, and parenthetically let me say I am a little bit wary about these Social Security Commissions because the last one we had headed up by the now Chairman of the Federal Reserve did not do very much to save Social Security, and in some ways it weakened it.”