Political Quotes

“Madam President, last week I came to the Senate floor to talk about the crushing burden of debt that will soon be coming our way because of government spending, mainly driven by entitlement programs. I noted that our unfunded liabilities in Medicare and Social Security are over $40 trillion. In fact, last week we received the reports from the Medicare and Social Security trustees which noted that Medicare is already running a cash deficit of about $46 billion. Social Security is running a cash deficit of about $32 billion. For those who think we do not need to do anything because the so- called trust funds are not going to be in trouble until some point into the future, I think the important point to remember is that the trust funds and the IOUs that are the trust funds are not an economic asset that can pay cash benefits. At some point there is either going to have to be a massive tax increase, a huge reduction in benefits, or an incredible amount of additional borrowing. What we project will happen with Social Security at some point in the future is that there will be about a 20, 25 percent reduction in benefits when we hit that wall, which suggests we ought to be taking steps right now to avoid that. The important point is, when we start seeing cash deficits where the payroll taxes that are coming in no longer exceed the amount of benefits they are paying out but, rather, are running deficits, that also adds to the overall deficit we are dealing with as a country.…”