[01/29/1998 - 10/19/1999]: 24194021-20060474F-001-023-2023

354F3A35.FIN Page 4 of 12
http://classified/email/data_source/exchange/record/cd009/aprl998/354f3a35.html 1/5/2010
most of the people I know and most of the people I grew up with at horr
middle class people. About half of them went to college, half of them di
They live on modest incomes. They are panicked with the thought that e
the
Social Security system won't be there for them, or, if it is there, the price
will be so expensive for our children that they won't have the money the
to
raise our grandchildren. And we don't believe that should happen.
So I cannot overemphasize what I believe is the importance of that. The
to have this year, among other things, four big regional, bipartisan, hope
nonpartisan, meetings and a whole other series of actions which will res
the end of this year, the first of next year, in a proposal that will make th
Social Security trust fund viable far beyond the present plan, which is 2<
which coincidentally is the year that all the baby boomers get into -- are
over. That will take it out there so that young people -- interestingly eno
a recent poll showed that young people in their 20s thought it was more
that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security.
(Laughter.)
I like the X-Files, but I don't like that statistic. (Laughter.)
So what we want to do is to run the Social Security trust fund out there,
how we're going to do it — it may or may not take the projected surplus^
the next 10 years, it may or may not. And then we can decide what to de
second thing we've got to do is keep the balanced budget in place. Nothi
do
- it may vary from year to year. If the economy goes downhill, you kno
get less tax dollars and you have to spend more for unemployed people,
structurally we have eliminated the deficit; the built-in big deficit that v,
from 1981 forward is now gone. So now if you see a deficit come up, yr
know
it's just because there's been a dip in the economy - if we stay with the
pattern of discipline we have now.
And when we all retire, there will only be about two people working for
one person drawing Social Security if we continue to retire at present ra
And keep in mind, a lot of people are retiring well before 65 now. Now,
seems
to me that we have to understand that at least our generation, the baby b
We know that if we make modest changes now to prepare for this, they
have
almost no destructive impact on us when we retire, but they will guarani
our children will be able to enjoy the same sort of opportunities - hopel
even greater opportunities than we have.
That, I think, is very important for our long-term financial health. You c
see in the troubles these other countries are having economically what h
if