Jeb Hensarling: “we have just received some news yesterday which I hope will sufficiently alarm every big spender that we have in the…”

“we have just received some news yesterday which I hope will sufficiently alarm every big spender that we have in the United States House of Representatives. Yesterday we received the annual report on the financial well-being of Medicare and Social Security from the trustees of those funds. They report that the fiscal situation has again deteriorated and, in fact, Social Security will become broke in 2040, 1 year sooner than expected, and Medicare will go broke in 2018, 2 years sooner than expected. This is not good news, Mr. Speaker; but a number of us have been speaking out for weeks, for months, for years that we must do something in this body to change the fiscal path that we are on. Now, today, if you are a senior receiving Medicare, receiving Social Security, you are going to be fine. But there is this great big baby boom generation that has been paying billions and billions of dollars into the funds, and soon they will be taking from the funds; and the fiscal situation will deteriorate rapidly. The challenge that we have, though, Mr. Speaker, is that too many people in the Federal city, too many people in this body, are focused on the next election and not the next generation. Now, the report we received is certainly not a crisis. It is not something we have to take care of today. We do not have to take care of it tomorrow, do not have to take care of it next week.…”