Gail Collins Quotes

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.

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.

It is estimated that raising the retirement age to 70 would cut the shortfall by about 36%. But this proposal has some drawbacks. Women and men who have worked jobs that require manual labor all of their lives may not physically be able to do work until they are 70 years old.

Well, we certainly need to raise the retirement age. I've told my 19-year-old and my 22-year-old that they're not going to be getting retirement benefits at age 62.

The fine print in the President's Social Security proposal is that all present and future workers under age 55 will have their promised retirement benefits cut.

You cannot go to someone who is 65 or 70 years of age and tell 'em, 'This program that you retired relying on is now being pulled out from underneath you.'

The great thing about show business is that there's no mandatory retirement age.

More retirees, longer life expectancy, larger benefits, and fewer workers - these trends have meant substantial increases in the payroll tax. Since the social security program began, the payroll tax has increased more than 500 percent.

I'm too young for Medicare and too old for broads to care.

Most people understand life expectancy has changed since Social Security started in 1937 when folks lived to be 59 years old. Today, they live to be 77 years old.

As the wealthiest nation on Earth, we have made a commitment to provide health care for those over 65. In order to pay for this, each of us should contribute the same, flat percentage of our earned income.

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

Old age treats freelance writers pretty gently.

Part of the middle class promise is that, after a lifetime of hard work, you'll be able to retire and enjoy the fruits of that labor. Medicare was established to secure that promise.

You can look at history of these things, and Social Security wasn't devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career... So there will be things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed, maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised.

The baby boom is about to become a patient boom.

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 just never subscribed to the theory that at age 55, you fall off the face of the earth on the Tour. I always felt that was too young of an age for that.

So many people feel that once you reach a certain age then it's time for you to retire from a sport you love. I don't think that's true at all. I think age should not dictate that.

It's critical - that the people that are benefiting today from Medicare and Social Security that they not see benefit reductions. It's awfully hard to tell someone who might be 82, that they've gotta go back to work, because their benefits are gonna be chopped. That's not gonna happen.

It's time for a 21st-century retirement age. If 40 is the new 20 and 50 is the new 30, why shouldn't 70 be the new 65? The last time Washington politicians tinkered ever so gingerly with the government-sanctioned retirement age, Ronald Reagan was in office and Generation X-ers were all in diapers.

To be a former PGA Tour player typically means you're about 75 years old. They just don't stop.

It used to be 65 when you went into retirement. Before that, when you got into your 50s, you were getting older.

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.

Let me be clear, the discussions about Social Security are not about the retirement security of those Americans who are 55 or older - the Social Security system for those folks 55 and over will not change in any way shape of form - no ifs, ands, or buts.