Tim Ryan: “And that is not the way we did it in 1983. And everyone has been talking about this monumental national discussion and…”

“And that is not the way we did it in 1983. And everyone has been talking about this monumental national discussion and Tip O'Neill sitting down with President Reagan and Bob Dole, and we had all the great political figures of that generation coming together to say we are going to put politics aside, and we are going to fix the problem. And we are not here to bash the President or to bash the Republicans or to bash anybody, but we are here to say we have issues here that are going to affect the long-term interest of the country. In many districts across the country we are losing manufacturing jobs. One of the main problems we have with this whole thing is we do not have enough taxpayers working and making a good living and paying into the Social Security System. My own opinion is that is what would really help fix this long term. But we are just here to say we want to sit down and work with you. You cannot have a national discussion if you do not include the opposition into your town hall meetings. Boy, it would be great to go to a meeting and never have anybody stand up and question any votes you have had or anything like that. We cannot get away with that in our congressional seats, nor should we be able to. And so the President needs to come to Congress and work with us. We want to help him figure this out. Now, private accounts, for us, are off the table. That is ridiculous. That is not going to happen. But we want to work with the President”