Quotes About Social Security

#1. Instead of cutting Social Security, we're going to expand Social Security benefits.

Bernie Sanders

#2. I believe Social Security is unjust. I think it's wrong. I think it penalizes responsible people. It penalizes the young and it's a massive redistribution of wealth.

Yaron Brook

#3. Let me tell you exactly what we would do on Social Security. Yes, we'd raise the retirement age two years and phase it in over 25 years; that means we'd raise it one month a year for 25 years when we're all living longer, and living better lives.

Chris Christie

#4. Social Security makes up a much larger share of total retirement income for unmarried women and minorities than it does for married couples, unmarried men and whites.

Diane Watson

#5. No matter what politicians promise, Social Security reform will not change the fact that your money is taken from your paycheck and sent to Washington, where it will be spent.

Ron Paul

#6. Well, let's go back to the original intent of Social Security. It is an insurance contract.

Chuck Hagel

#7. Many seniors understand that Social Security is social insurance as opposed to a program where we put money aside for our own retirement. But most elderly individuals think they're getting their money back. So it isn't selfishness as much as a misunderstanding.

Richard Lamm

#8. In fact, you don't have a soul, you are your own soul. In other words, you are not this book, your social security card, your body or your mind. You are you.

L. Ron Hubbard

#9. President Bush is manufacturing a crisis by suggesting that Social Security is in imminent danger. It is not.

Richard Neal

#10. When public spending in the form of transfer payments makes various services and benefits free of charge, work is discouraged. Yet it is precisely Social Security that legislators fear to cut.

Edmund Phelps

#11. If you are wealthy enough, use part or all of your Social Security proceeds to invest in a favorite cause or two. Invest 10 percent or 100 percent of your monthly Social Security check in your favorite charity, foundation, think tank, church or synagogue, or other good cause.

Mark Skousen

#12. The reality is that the workforce relative to the number of people retired has shrunk and today in America there are only 3.3 working Americans paying payroll taxes to support each individual currently retired and collecting Social Security taxes.

John Shadegg

#13. The reason to deal with Social Security is that it is a system where we have a tradition and history of making sure it is solidly funded for 75 years. At the moment, we look out and we see it is solidly funded until 2037.

Jacob Lew

#14. The full retirement age is 67 and the lifespan is 80, so when they first conceived Social Security, they didn't think they were going to be paying benefits for 13-15 years. That's one of the reasons why this pyramid scheme isn't working.

Joe Heck

#15. Before the New York Times starts running "Portraits in Grief" of former Enron employees, it's worth remembering that even after the collapse, Enron stock is still worth more than the entire Social Security "trust fund."

Ann Coulter

#16. When I was young, many people worked for a company with a pension plan that covered them for as long as they lived. If they didn't have a pension plan, they could count on Social Security and Medicare.

Robert Kiyosaki

#17. The Republican promise is for policies that create economic growth. Republicans believe lower taxes, less regulation, balanced budgets, a solvent Social Security and Medicare will stimulate economic growth.

Rand Paul

#18. It will take hard work, but doing nothing on Social Security, for example, simply makes sure the system will go broke. It's time to make some reforms.

Joni Ernst

#19. They're all tied together: taxes, Medicare, Social Security, and the debt. We've got to have a setting of priorities, and looking at it - at each of them as disconnected, I think, doesn't properly address these major challenges.

John McCain

#20. The security of computers and the Internet is a horrible and dangerous mess. Every week we hear about breaches of databases of Social Security numbers and financial information and health records, and about critical infrastructure being insecure.

Matt Blaze

#21. What man could afford to pay for all the things a wife does, when she's a cook, a mistress, a chauffeur, a nurse, a baby-sitter? But because of this, I feel women ought to have equal rights, equal Social Security, equal opportunities for education, an equal chance to establish credit.

Betty Ford

#22. And because of these programs like Medicare, Medicare prescription drugs, Social Security, we now have the healthiest and wealthiest group of senior citizens that the world has ever seen. This is a continuing commitment to that.

James T. Walsh

#23. The basic building block of peace and security for all peoples is economic and social security, anchored in sustainable development. It is a key to all problems. Why? Because it allows us to address all the great issues-poverty, climate, environment and political stability-as parts of the whole.

Ban Ki-moon

#24. It's hard to exaggerate the importance of preserving the financial integrity of Social Security.

Bill Delahunt

#25. We must uphold the promise of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton and never allow the President and his Republican friends to threaten Social Security by putting it on the Wall Street trading block.

John F. Kerry

#26. The truth is, while the FBI is hiding behind the 5th Amendment, the Unabomer is qualifying for Social Security as a terrorist. Beam me up, Mr. Speaker.

James Traficant

#27. The President and I agree that Social Security needs to be preserved so that we can ensure that all Americans receive the retirement benefits they've been promised. But we disagree as to how best to fix the system.

Steve Israel

#28. Social Security Number Cards by themselves were never intended to be personal identity documents because they cannot confirm that a person presenting a card is actually the person whose name appears on the card.

Ron Lewis

#29. I do not believe that the Social Security system is in crisis. The Social Security Administration itself recently reported that the system is able to pay full benefits as they are defined today until at least 2042.

James T. Walsh

#30. Make no mistake, if the payroll-tax cut is extended, it will become permanent. Social Security will become another welfare program as the tie between what someone pays and what they receive gets broken.

Ari Fleischer

#31. I feel very strongly that the Democratic Party has, in the past, been the party of the future. I think when you look at Social Security and Medicare, when you look at the civil rights movement, the women's movement, I think the Democratic Party has always been in the forefront of change.

Richard Lamm

#32. We have a serious structural deficit problem. And it needs to be addressed. The president is trying to address it through reforms of Social Security, but the problem is there with other entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

John W. Snow

#33. The real sin with Social Security is that it's a long-term rip-off and a short-term scam.

Tony Snow

#34. I have long been a critic of Social Security, basically because I believe that it is not the business of government to tell people what fraction of their incomes they should devote to providing for their own or someone else's old age.

Milton Friedman

#35. This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russian Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.

Maria Semple

#36. The various Social Security privatization schemes, full and partial, would cost both the 'social' - that is the public, cooperative, societal - element of the program and 'security' - the rock-solid income guarantee afforded by the system. It should be rejected.

Ralph Nader

#37. If Congress wants to mess with the retirement program, why don't we let them start by changing their retirement program, and not have one, instead of talking about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare that was robbed $700 billion dollars to pay for Obamacare.

Mike Huckabee

#38. You know, and younger people today, you know, they may not have Social Security. They may not have a pension. They may have 17 different jobs. And so they have to be - they have to, you know, establish somewhat of an ownership, you know, mentality.

Stedman Graham

#39. You've got to stop and ask yourself once in a while ... why some asinine politicians would quicker cut out social security than the space program ... Go figure.

Timothy Pina

#40. The economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare.

Ben Bernanke

#41. If social security depresses savings rates, it is only because it is unfunded.

Robert Kuttner

#42. I don't support getting rid of Social Security.

Ken Buck

#43. To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above.

Ben Bernanke

#44. Take Obama's challenge, in January 2010, to the assembled CEOs at the Forum on Modernizing Government: "If you can book dinner on OpenTable, or a flight on Southwest or United online, then why shouldn't you be able to make an appointment at your local Social Security office the same way?

Aneesh Chopra

#45. It has to have a payroll tax that's dedicated to Social Security. The Social Security tax has been very successful over the years in raising almost all of our elderly citizens out of poverty.

James Roosevelt

#46. Our Hispanic community needs to understand how important the Social Security system is for not only its retired citizens, but also its disabled workers.

Grace Napolitano

#47. Only a small rich fringe hates Social Security for disincentivizing 80-year-olds from seeking full-time employment.

Alex Pareene

#48. The main purpose of Social Security is to redistribute wealth, to make an increasingly large number of Americans dependent on government for their basic needs in their retirement years.

Neal Boortz

#49. We all know that Social Security is one of this country's greatest success stories in the 20th century.

Mitch McConnell

#50. Despite the state of denial exhibited by most Democrats, Americans all across the nation acknowledge that changes are necessary to preserve Social Security for today's younger workers.

Jim Sensenbrenner

#51. Since Social Security faces a large gap between what it promises younger workers and what it can afford to pay them, private savings will likely need to play a larger role in retirement planning for younger workers.

Ron Lewis

#52. Raising the minimum wage means we have workers paying more in to support the Social Security system.

Elizabeth Warren

#53. You know, 600,000 millionaires get a Social Security check every month. I think there's enough waste and inefficiency.

Richard Lamm

#54. Our nation's Social Security Trust Fund is depleting at an alarming rate, and failure to implement immediate reforms endangers the ability of Americans to plan for their retirement with the options and certainty they deserve.

Pete Sessions

#55. The rate of return on Social Security for people nearing retirement is about 1.5 percent. By the time young children like mine are ready to retire, that rate of return will be a negative percentage.

Paul Ryan

#56. I am a huge admirer of Franklin Roosevelt's, and I believe social security has done untold good in alleviating the once-widespread issue of poverty among the elderly. FDR believed in the greatness and generosity of Americans - but he was also a cold-blooded politician.

Jon Meacham

#57. We should stop having a conversation about cutting Social Security a little bit or a lot.

Elizabeth Warren

#58. Ask anyone on Social Security if their check comes on time every month. Like clockwork. And it comes through the so-called dilapidated U.S. mail. My dad's check literally will come on the same day every month. The government has been quite good and efficient at creating a number of systems.

Michael Moore

#59. I just think that we ought to protect the Social Security fund.

John McCain

#60. I think every program needs to stand the sunshine of righteous scrutiny. Whether it's Social Security, whether it's Medicaid, whether it's Medicare.

Rick Perry

#61. Small changes done now would preserve Social Security at full benefit.

James Roosevelt

#62. [Politicans] are salespeople. Instead of rotisserie ovens they are selling this idea of preemptive war or social-security reforms.

Jon Stewart

#63. I am not a great fan of the payroll tax holiday because I'm nervous about what it does to the future of Social Security.

Bernie Sanders

#64. You know, Floridians, we've paid into Social Security. Like a lot of other government programs, we sent money to D.C. We expect to get that money back. We expect that our Social Security is real. So, we have to fix Social Security.

Rick Scott

#65. If you get beyond the political rhetoric [and assembled a group to solve Social Security] it would take them 15 minutes. It would take them 15 minutes only because 10 minutes was used for pleasantries.

Alan Greenspan

#66. I know of no serious proposals that would change the way Social Security operates for today's seniors.

Mac Thornberry

#67. Workers organized and fought for worker rights and food safety, Social Security and Medicare - they fought to change government. And they won.

Sherrod Brown

#68. Every generation faces a challenge. In the 1930s, it was the creation of Social Security. In the 1960s, it was putting a man on the moon. In the 1980s, it was ending the Cold War. Our generation's challenge will be addressing global climate change while sustaining a growing global economy

Eileen Claussen

#69. Social Security represents an $11 trillion unfunded obligation. And when I say unfunded obligation, I mean we have to come up with $11 trillion at some point to make the system whole.

John W. Snow

#70. The specific trigger for me was when the President [Barack Obama] put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block. Why I got into the race - it just seemed unconscionable that the Democrats were leading the charge.

Jill Stein

#71. You need education. You need subsistence protection. We need jobs and social security. These are preconditions under which it will perhaps be possible to deal with these complex circumstances.

Ulrich Beck

#72. I don't believe there's a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans' benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes.

Bernie Sanders

#73. Germany, I think, was first to substitute a Social Security program for its elderly based on this premise, that is, that we would tax workers to pay retirement benefits for those retired.

John Shadegg

#74. The remarks about my reaching the age of Social Security and coming to the end of the road, they jolted me. And that was good. Because I sure as hell had no intention of just sitting around for the rest of my life. So I'd whip out the paints and really go to it.

Norman Rockwell

#75. Last month, 80,000 Americans signed on to new jobs, but 85,000 Americas signed on for Social Security disability checks. Most of these people are not 'disabled' as that term is generally understood. Rather, it's the U.S. economy that's disabled, and thus Obama incentivizes dependency.

Mark Steyn

#76. If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.

Roger Ebert

#77. We must ensure that today's seniors' benefits are rock solid and find a solution that fixes Social Security for the next generation that is just entering the workforce.

John Thune

#78. In the current law we're seeing Social Security dwindle. And so what we're saying is if we're going to reduce taxes we just want to make sure that there are things within the law that pay for it.

Kevin Yoder

#79. From the time I was 8 until now, I've been working. My Social Security is looking solid.

Jose Garces

#80. A Harris poll I've seen says only 12 percent of the electorate names taxes as one of the most important issues facing the nation. Voters put tax cuts dead last, behind education, Social Security, health care, Medicare and poverty.

Lane Evans

#81. Increasing the minimum wagewill put billions annually into the Social Security trust fund.

Bruce Braley

#82. The whole program of unemployment insurance, Social Security, was a confession of the failure of our whole social order. And confession of failure of Christian principles: that man, in fact, did not look after his brother.

Studs Terkel

#83. Health care is a far more serious, immediate and destructive problem than social security ... The upfront investment needed to fund system wide [health care] reform ... would be far offset by the savings.

Henry Simmons

#84. When President Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, 65 percent of African Americans nationally and between 70 and 80 percent in the South were ineligible.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

#85. Corporations are reneging on pension obligations. Social Security is under attack.

Dennis Kucinich

#86. My neighbors aren't millionaires. They're retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare.

Marco Rubio

#87. I stand with the millions of seniors and working people who depend on Social Security and who expect the money they put in to be there for them when they retire.

Hank Johnson

#88. The most capricious modern entitlement is not just Social Security but to self-esteem.

George F. Will

#89. Our anti-crisis policy is directed to internal demand support, social security of citizens and creation of new jobs. Like many other countries, we are reducing taxes on production, investing money in the economy. We are optimising state expenses.

Vladimir Putin

#90. What will we do in a globalised world? All human beings are equal, so they have the same right to have the same lifestyle-the same social security, jobs, education.

Joschka Fischer

#91. I don't know whether other people should or shouldn't pay taxes. I know I can, and I am willing, to pay more taxes. I know I should not get Social Security. I don't need it.

Kenneth Langone

#92. There's been a lot said about Social Security reform. What has been left out of the debate is the double tax on Social Security benefits. I believe it's time to get rid of a tax that punishes seniors and discourages work and retirement savings.

Rob Simmons

#93. When the average Social Security benefit is $1328 a month, and more than one-third of our senior citizens rely on Social Security for Virtually all of their income, our job is to expand benefits, not cut them.

Bernie Sanders

#94. We want to develop innovative ways to promote savings so more Americans can save for their future, but first we need to reject privatization schemes and work together to strengthen Social Security.

Debbie Stabenow

#95. Speaking of tax fairness, it was Senator Kerry who voted to increase the income tax on senior citizens on Social Security, earning as little as $32,000 a year.

William Weld

#96. The federal government was entirely complicit. When President Roosevelt passed the Social Security Act of 1935, Southern conservatives and their Northern Republican allies forced the New Deal legislation to exclude domestic workers and farmworkers from all of its employment provisions. That shielded

Timothy B. Tyson

#97. There's nothing good about being certain about things. And I don't think there's any real talent in using language in a manipulative way, with phrases like "tax relief" or "Social Security reform." It's politically clever, but it's also completely disingenuous, and it's not something to aspire to.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#98. These smugglers, many of them present in trafficking through my State of Arizona, create false Social Security cards, false green cards, visas and a variety of other fraudulent documents as an essential part of their smuggling activities.

John Shadegg

#99. The so-called second New Deal of 1935 - including the Works Progress Administration, Social Security and the Wagner Act legalizing union labor - represented an effort to meet the rising voices demanding a more aggressive government approach to the collapse of national prosperity.

Robert Dallek

#100. I would love to see a march on Washington that says 'Save our Social Security'.

Barbara Boxer