Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator. This is really an interesting question, and I think everyone admits that there is a gap between the amount of money coming in and the amount of money that we are going to need to pay, and that is shown by this cash deficit. The fact is, we have to somehow or another in Social Security bring these two lines together. I think everyone would agree that is the option. Right now, the shortfall over the life of the program is $11 trillion between the revenue line and the benefit line--the benefit line being up here, the revenue line down here. How do we bring those lines together, and how do we keep it solvent in the future? What the President suggested is that if we do some-- let us assume it is all borrowing. We cannot make any spending cuts. We borrow up to-- again, according to Alan Greenspan--$1 trillion to $2 trillion over the next 15 to 20 years to prefund Social Security, just like we prefund every other retirement system in America. In fact, they are required by law to prefund. We put the money into a diversified portfolio of investments and then that borrowing at the beginning creates an elimination of the $11 trillion long-term problem. So I would ask, is a $2 trillion investment now worth saving $11 trillion and making the system permanently solvent in the future? I would answer that question with a resounding yes, and we put the Social Security system on stable funding forever and have it supported by ownership.…”