Political Quotes

“So, let us go on down some other suggestions. Restrain spending. We all get this from home. If we just spent no more next year than we spend now, in 3 years we will balance the budget. If we spend no more than we spend now, we will balance the budget. I will give you some problems. You can decide what you want to do with them. Let us just take Social Security. Let us assume Social Security now spends $1,000. You have 10 recipients and they each get $100 apiece; $1,000, that is all we spend on Social Security. And let us say there is 10 percent inflation. Under the present law, all of those recipients would get a 10-percent increase. They would all get $110, and we would spend $1,100 on Social Security. But we said we are not going to spend any more than we spend now. Therefore, do they all get just $100 and their purchasing power declines a bit? Or I will give you another scenario. We are only going to spend $1,000. There are 10 recipients on Social Security. But the population is aging. Let us say next year one more person becomes eligible. Now we have 11, not 10. But we are only going to spend $1,000. Do they all get about $90 instead of the 10 that got $100? When you pose this to people, they say, ``Well, we did not think about that. Maybe we can give Social Security recipients their cost-of-living increase and still hold all others.'' But now they do not expect to hold all other things this year. You are going to have to spend less this year. Do you know what you get?…”