Political Quotes

“They have laid out the rates of return for people born after 1980. As I have told you, they are less than 2 percent. Over time, they go down because the problem, over time, gets worse. As you pay into the system as a young worker, the obligations of the system get greater, and there really will be no rate of return. As a matter of fact, by 2042, not only does your money not work for you, it is not enough to pay benefits to people who are already in the system. Here is the good news. If we could, in a bipartisan fashion, work together, I am confident we could construct a program for younger workers--voluntary in nature--that would allow them to take part of the money they pay into Social Security, invest it in a different system-- equity and nonequity, depending on what they want to do--that will dramatically outpace a 1.8 percent return. Here is what I suggest to you as reality. If you had a business and you wanted to sell an annuity to young people in America, and you laid out the program of that annuity and it mirrored Social Security, nobody in the country would invest in it simply because they can get a better rate of return leaving it in a checking account. Now, everything about Social Security is not total retirement. There is a component of Social Security that pays for people who have been disabled and injured. That aspect of the program is extremely important also. But to have a better business view of Social Security is necessary.”