Mitt Romney Quotes

We need to take steps to strengthen and mend Social Security so that its promise of a secure retirement is just as real for seniors in the future as it is today.

We as Republicans understand that we have got to protect these... entitlement programs - these entitlement programs for our seniors today. And we have to sit down and have a discussion. We need more ideas on the table.

I'm going to be working the next 25 or 30 years. People like me, if we want, number one, for no benefit reductions for our parents and our grandparents, number two, for the system to survive and exist for us, and, more importantly, number three, for the system to exist for us children, we are going to have to make reforms to that system.

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.

My mom's now enjoying Medicare. She's already retired. She earned it. But for those of us, you know, the X-Generation on down, it won't be there for us on its current path.

But here's what I would tell people of my generation. I turn 40 this year. There isn't going to be a Social Security. There isn't going to be a Medicare when you retire. Forget about what your benefit is going to look like. There isn't going to be one if we don't make some reforms to save that program now.

Cutting benefits is not the right answer. Raising the retirement age is not the best option.

We obviously have to honor the commitments that have been made to the people who are already retired or near the retirement age. But we need to tell the truth about the fact that when we set the retirement age at age 65 in America, life expectancy was only 62.

The retirement age needs to be raised. A portion of Social Security ought to be privatized, if not all. And there probably needs to be some means testing. It's a Ponzi scheme that's not sustainable.

Not too many years ago, both parties acknowledged that our entitlement commitments were a sword hanging over our heads. But when President George W. Bush tried to begin discussions on Social Security reform, Democrats ridiculed and demonized him and told seniors he was after their nest eggs.

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.

Over time, the welfare state has become dysfunctional in a surprising way. But in a way it became a victim of its own success: It became so successful at prolonging life, that it becomes financially unsustainable, unless you make major changes to things like retirement ages.

What I'd like to do is be able to work with Democrats to reform current entitlement programs for future generations, grandfathering all the grandparents.

Today there are about 40 million retirees receiving benefits; by the time all the baby boomers have retired, there will be more than 72 million retirees drawing Social Security benefits.

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.

If I know I'm going to be in a little different system, I'm 39, I can plan for that; we can plan for that. Doing nothing, the status quo, is going to guarantee cuts for current seniors... reforming the system is the only way you shore it up.

The President has no real plan to address the fiscal challenges arising from the retirement of the baby boom generation, let alone a plan to fix Social Security.

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.

In order to fix Social Security, we must restructure it so that we continue to provide for our Nation's seniors that are approaching retirement age, but allow for younger taxpayers to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in private accounts.

Privatizing Social Security will take dollars out of young folks' pockets.

We have a rare and perhaps small window of opportunity to set partisan differences aside, and attempt to achieve what many in recent years have felt was unreachable - greater retirement security for ourselves and our children.

There's a lot we can do to improve American's retirement security, but it's wrong to replace the guaranteed benefit that Americans have earned with a guaranteed benefit cut of forty percent or more.

Our country also hungers for leadership to ensure the long-term survival of our Social Security system. With 70 million baby boomers in this country on the verge of retirement, we need to take action to shore up the system.

The 1935 Social Security Act established 65 as the age of eligibility for payouts. But welfare state politics quickly becomes a bidding war, enriching the menu of benefits, so in 1956 Congress entitled women to collect benefits at 62, extending the entitlement to men in 1961.

Our society has changed in unforeseeable ways since Social Security was created. For example, we are living longer, healthier, and more productive lives and while this is all great news, this has also placed added pressure on America's retirement system.