George W. Bush Quotes

Social security has enabled people to retire with dignity and overwhelmingly not be in poverty. We have to keep it solvent.

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.

Now, Social Security through the years, for many many people, has been a terrible investment. It's really a tax, that's all it is. Social Security is a tax.

Social Security is a fraudulent scheme in which the government collect money from you for your retirement - and immediately spend the money on something else.

We have so many people retiring that we do not have enough people paying into the system to be able to provide the benefits for those collecting those benefits.

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.

I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the mother in me.

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.

When you talk about Social Security, it's not just enough to say, we're looking at you, this really matters. It's the fact that a million Americans think it matters. Oh, wait, it's 2 million Americans think it matters. No, it's 4 million Americans. It's 6 million, wait, it's 10 million, it's 50 million Americans who care about this. That's how we're going to make change.

Lets all be reminded, 60 million Americans are on Social Security, 60 million. A third of those people depend on 90% of their income from Social Security. Nobody in this country is on Social Security because they made the decision when they were starting work at 14 that they wanted to trust some of their money with the government.

As I think all Americans understand on both sides of the aisle, the Social Security system as it is structured today is a pay-as-you-go system.

One of the strongest lessons I learned in doing six months of work on retirement topic was how absolutely crucial the Social Security system is for the great mass of Americans. The research of professionals and our own reporting convinced me that many millions of people are not capable of effectively managing the finances for their own retirement.

[Social Security ] is not in crisis at this stage. Leave Social Security alone. We have a lot of other places we can look that is in crisis. But Social Security is not.

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.

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.

Drawing on President Bush's reform plan, which would allow citizens to transfer part of their Social Security contributions into personal accounts, an alteration of the current system is needed to make necessary change.

Ask the shareholders of Enron how they would feel about privatizing Social Security.

A lot of people aren't saving enough. And incidentally, people are living longer now, and health care is improving. You might end up retired for 30 years - people are not really preparing for that.

Everyone thinks about retirement at some point.

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

I've never said anything about privatizing Social Security.

For too long, too many people dependent on Social Security have been cruelly frightened by individuals seeking political gain through demagoguery and outright falsehood, and this must stop.

The Republican candidates are talking about ways to transition this program and it is a monstrous lie. It is a ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you're paying into a program that's going to be there. Anybody that's for the status quo with Social Security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids, and it's not right.

I'm not in favor of privatizing Social Security or making cuts.

I think that when it comes to Social Security, all of us want to make sure that our senior citizens can retire with dignity and respect. And everybody has to be open-minded in thinking how do we firm up a system that, in fact, is going to be in difficulty in the coming years.