Political Quotes

“first I thank and congratulate the Senator from Wyoming for his comments and also for his steadfast duty in coming here to make the case on a variety of different issues. This issue, in particular, Social Security, is a passion of mine, something I have worked on since I came to the Senate back in 1995. To me, this, as the Senator from Wyoming just said, is about a social compact from one generation to the next. What we are in danger of doing is breaking that compact. We are in danger of telling the next generation of Americans who are entering the workforce that if we do nothing now, they, as a generation, will not get a positive return on their money. In other words, they will not get out of the system money they put in. To me, that is breaking this compact. Every generation of seniors that has retired--in fact, those who are at or near retirement now--will, in fact, be able to get some measure of return on their money. Some earlier generations got very high rates of return. This generation's retirees will get a relatively low rate of return, but they will have invested money or paid into the program for people in the system while they were working and at least be able to get their money out of the system they paid in when they retire.”