Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this past Monday I visited a senior center in Youngstown, OH, and met with seniors and others, talking about what they hear as threats to Social Security. They hear some of the wise people in this town, if you will--some of the people on television and the political pundits and the economists and the newspaper editorial boards--saying that we need to restructure entitlements or reform entitlements, and that scares them because they don't get very specific. They often, in those statements about reforming entitlements, don't--the people saying it and the reporters asking the questions don't really scratch underneath the surface and say: What does that really mean? It usually means cutting Social Security benefits, but more on that in a second. I spoke with a woman named Gloria, a 70-year-old widow, currently living in subsidized housing. She has lived on Social Security since her husband's death. Her benefits barely cover the costs of housing and groceries, not to mention health care. She told me that without Social Security, she would not know what to do to be able to get along in her life. We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to deal with this Nation's deficit. That means everything from eliminating farm subsidies--the directed payments we are doing in the farm bill, and Senator Thune and I wrote the language to do that. It means closing the carried interest loophole for Wall Street hedge fund managers.…”