Sean Patrick Maloney: “irresponsible budget and tax policies have squandered the budget surpluses that President Bush inherited and turned them…”

“irresponsible budget and tax policies have squandered the budget surpluses that President Bush inherited and turned them into a legacy of debt and deficits. Now he is trying to do the same thing to Social Security with a private accounts plan that would add trillions to our national debt. This plan is exactly backwards. Instead of thinking up ways to weaken the Social Security Trust Fund, we should be taking steps to guarantee that the assets in the trust fund are truly there to pay future benefits. We cannot do that if we run up large deficits outside Social Security that weaken our economy and increase our foreign debt. Anyone looking for a plan to address the Social Security problem can begin with two basic steps. First, take private accounts, privatization off the table; and, second, worry about the real crisis, which is the current budget deficit outside Social Security. ____________________”