Political Quotes

“this is a very important amendment, and I hope the American people are listening. Social Security is probably the most important Federal program ever developed in the modern history of this country. It is an enormously popular program, and it has been an enormously effective program. The truth is that it has significantly reduced poverty among seniors. Before Social Security, about 50 percent of seniors lived in poverty. Today, while the number is too high, it is somewhere around 10 percent. The extraordinary beauty of Social Security is that in good times and in bad times--in an economic boom, depression, or recession--Social Security has paid out every check owed to every eligible American without fail. No one has ever received a letter that said: You know, we are in the middle of a recession, so we have to cut your benefits in half. That has never been the case. We take it for granted, but that is an extraordinary record. Because we have a number of Republicans who simply do not like government programs, there has been for many years an effort to either cut or privatize Social Security and give it over to Wall Street. What we hear are a lot of misleading arguments. The argument is, well, Social Security is unsustainable, and it is not going to be there. And they throw out all of these reasons.…”