Political Quotes

“Mr. President, so the chairman knows, my planned time to introduce these amendments is 3:30. That is what they have given me time on. I did want to engage in some of the comments of the Senator from Vermont. As someone who was on the deficit commission and looking at that, the first presumption was making Social Security solvent was our goal, making it solvent for 75 years. The flaw in the argument given by my colleague from Vermont is the assumption that the IOU at the Treasury for Social Security is good. It is good as long as people will loan us money. It is not any good if they will not. So when people say, why fix Social Security? We can fix Social Security by taking the very haircut from the people the Senator from Vermont just described and markedly lessening the benefits, even though they continue to pay into Social Security, that they will receive, the billionaires and the millionaires. We can do that. But if, in fact, we do not send a signal to the international financial community that on the largest expenditure we have, that we are going to make it solvent, then we will not be in the market and available and have the ability to borrow the $2.8 trillion. Now, one other thing on which I would disagree: The Social Security trust fund trustees say Social Security is running a net deficit this last year and will run one this year and for every year forward in terms of what comes in versus what goes out. There is no question I want to keep our commitments.…”