Bernie Sanders

If this great country has a future, there's one thing we have got to do, is completely change our attitude toward kids; they are the future of America, and we cannot continue to ignore them.

Our job is to make sure that they do not succeed in that goal.

Let me quote--this is very interesting, and it hasn't gotten the kind of, I think, attention that it deserves.

If we raise the retirement age even farther, it doesn't mean that they will be able to work any longer.

So I am not sure, Mr. Chairman, what world people are living in when they think, hey, you are 68, 69. You can go out and get a job. You don't need Social Security. It is really quite incomprehensible to me.

Right now, we have some of our colleagues who want to give $700 billion in tax breaks to the top 2 percent and want to repeal the estate tax, which will provide $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 3/10 of 1 percent.

These attacks on Social Security are part of that same effort by Wall Street and some other special interests now, who apparently are extremely unhappy that we have a Federal program that has worked enormously successfully for the last 75…

But this is an important point that we don't talk about enough. You know, we always lump everybody together.

It is a lot easier to talk about saving if you are making enough money to save.

45 percent of older workers last year were employed in physically demanding jobs or jobs with difficult working conditions.

Fifty-five percent of all income gains over the last 30 years have gone to the top 1 percent, while the bottom 90 percent have only received 16 percent.

The average Social Security recipient isn't living in a gated community.

There are those... who suggest that you should be perhaps working to the age of 70.

If the United States of America exists, your Social Security will exist because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government.

The best retirement system and the most secure one that we have is Social Security because that is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government.

Folks talk raising the retirement age again to 70.

I would turn these completely upside down. I am actually in favor of a mandatory retirement system with subsidies from the Federal Government.

Congress in its wisdom, against my vote, decided to bail out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion.

A couple of years ago, as a result of the greed and illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country has been plunged into a horrendous recession.

There are a lot of--as Senator Harkin has said so aptly, people are hurting all over this country.

What happens if you are a widow trying to raise two kids and your sole income is Social Security? What happens to you when you cut that?

What world are they living in? What world?

This Senator is not going to allow some Wall Street people, who have helped destroy this economy, move toward privatization or raising the retirement age.

Social Security has not added one penny to the national debt--quite the contrary.

It is very hard to think of them working that long.