George Voinovich: “Based on all of the research work that I have done, and the options that are available to us, to me this is the most…”

“Based on all of the research work that I have done, and the options that are available to us, to me this is the most practical way, Mr. President, to deal with the problem that we have had for too long in this country. I believe that with the passage of this lockbox legislation, we are going to go a long way in making sure that this money is not being used for spending programs that we are unwilling to pay for and have not been willing to pay for in the past. The real beginning of the deficits that we have had began when we merged the Social Security surplus in with the unified budget and started to spend it. In fact, in 1979 the national debt was something like $860 billion. Today it is $5.7 trillion. I believe that this is the first step that we need to take to restore trust in those people in this country who are worried about Social Security, understanding that it is not perfect--understanding that it is not perfect--and understanding that this Congress needs to come together, on a bipartisan basis, hopefully with the leadership of the President, and tackle the problems that we have with the Social Security system in terms of guaranteeing its viability for the future.”