Tim Ryan: “There is not a plan. Basically what we are talking about and what the President last hinted for sure is he wants private…”

“There is not a plan. Basically what we are talking about and what the President last hinted for sure is he wants private accounts. He has made that perfectly clear. He has made it clear that privatization, throughout his career, since the time he ran for Congress in the seventies, he has been advocating these kinds of plans, where the private accounts go. Somehow, through a lot of fuzzy machinations, he figures out a way to say that will somehow shore up the system. What I want to do is basically paint the picture of where we are now, because you cannot say we are going to implement this 'option two' of the commission's plan or the blueprint that the President has insinuated or indicated portions of. But we know he is for the private accounts, and many on the other side are for the private accounts as well. But we cannot just do it. My point is this: Here is a graph of the annual deficit that we have in the United States of America as of 2004.”