Political Quotes

“I suggest the chart is not accurate. According to the Congressional Budget Office, extending the tax cuts would cost about .7 percent of the gross domestic product between now and 2050, whereas the Social Security deficit is 1.4 percent of GDP. Even if we repeal all the tax cuts, not just on the wealthiest but on everybody that we provided--that is child credit, that is marriage penalty, all of those things--if you take all of those tax reductions the President has put forward, they only make up half, according to the Congressional Budget Office, of the shortfall. It does not solve the problem, No. 1, and it also would be mixing apples and oranges. We have never in the history of this system had a general fund tax transfer to Social Security. We have always funded Social Security within the Social Security system through payroll taxes, and I showed the increases of taxes over time. So now we are talking about something fundamentally different. We are talking about general fund revenue to fund Social Security. I do not think most people would see that as an insurance policy anymore. I think they start to see it as a transfer program looking more like a welfare program than what has historically been a social insurance program. I do not think we want to head down that road. I think we want to keep the integrity of the Social Security system in place.”