Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes

No American should ever have to spend his golden years at the mercy of insurance companies.

… minimum wages must be high enough to enable all citizens to purchase privately the necessary pension and insurance plans which would protect the them against illness, disablement, temporary unemployment and old age.

I want a comfortable old age and to be looked after - I have arthritis - and money is a factor.

Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.

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.

Health care does not worry me a great deal. I've been impressed by some wonderful old people.

Invest in people who will take care of you when you're old.

Over time, Europeans have come to rely on governments to protect them from the rougher facets of private enterprise and to look after them in old age.

It is certainly true that as we grow older, our need for healthcare also grows. It is also true that those who have lived their lives in the most difficult circumstances and experienced the most exhausting and challenging work places need healthcare the most.

My mother-in-law, Nanny, spent her working years as a bookkeeper at a medical office in Columbus, Ohio. Like so many Americans, she worked hard and paid into Medicare, knowing that one day she could count on having high-quality health care when she needed it most.

Retirement may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap.

Demographics show that we are entering a battle between young and old. I call it the 'Age War.' The young want to hang onto their money to grow their families, businesses, and wealth. The old want the tax and investment dollars of the young to sustain their old age.

The public has lost faith in the ability of Social Security and Medicare to provide for old age. They've lost faith in the banking system and in conventional medical insurance.

To be free, men must choose their own callings, bargain for their own services and provide for their families and old age.

I am proposing that every person over sixty-five years of age be spared the darkness of sickness without hope.

Everyone thinks about retirement at some point.

It all would have been much better if individuals saved for their own old age.

Someone said to me the other day: "Well, you're eventually going to live until 110." And I said: "Well, who's going to keep me? What age do I retire? 100?" How are you going to live all those years and who is going to keep you doing it? I have a couple of grandchildren now so I'm banking on them.

For 60 years, Social Security has meant more than an ID number on a tax form; more than a monthly check in the mail. It reflects our deepest values - our respect for our parents and our belief that all Americans deserve to retire with dignity.

You don't have to talk to me about pensions. I won't be around long enough to collect one.

What does it profit a 78-year-old woman to sit around the pool in a bikini if she cannot feed herself?

Other people salted away money for their old age, but Nanny preferred to accumulate memories.

Republicans are suggesting that you take your retirement money and invest it in the stock market to take care of yourself but that leaves you with choices that you may not know anything about. The purpose of social Security is that you don't fall through the crack and find yourself destitute.

Money, when considered as the fruit of many years' industry, as the reward of labor, sweat and toil, as the widow's dowry and children's portion, and as the means of procuring the necessaries and alleviating the afflictions of life, and making old age a scene of rest, has something in it sacred that is not to be sported with, or trusted to the airy bubble of paper currency.

No greater tragedy exists in modern civilization than the aged, worn-out worker who after a life of ceaseless effort and useful productivity must look forward for his declining years to a poorhouse. A modern social consciousness demands a more humane and efficient arrangement.