Harry Reid Quotes

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 rate of return on Social Security for people nearing retirement is about 1.5 percent. By the time young children like mine are ready to retire, that rate of return will be a negative percentage.

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.

Americans should be able to enjoy a secure retirement after a lifetime of hard work. But too many Americans reach retirement without enough savings to supplement their Social Security benefits.

We need to make sure people continue to have access to retirement plans because everyone deserves the opportunity to retire with dignity and financial independence.

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.

With or without a Social Security fix, Americans don't have enough assets to retire on. There has to be a much larger debate.

President Roosevelt, the author of Social Security, was the first to suggest that, in order to provide for the country's retirement needs, Social Security would need to be supplemented by personal savings accounts.

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.'

We need more cartoonists to truly retire when they retire, and not run repeats.

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.

There is a kind of fear, approaching a panic, that's spreading through the Baby Boom Generation, which has suddenly discovered that it will have to provide for its own retirement.

Today, I'm 60, I'm not married, I don't have any kids. I would give up some Social Security to save a system that Americans are going to depend on now and in the future.

Our nation's Social Security Trust Fund is depleting at an alarming rate, and failure to implement immediate reforms endangers the ability of Americans to plan for their retirement with the options and certainty they deserve.

Privatizing Social Security doesn't make sense, and it's out of step with the fundamental value of ensuring that after a life spent working hard and contributing to the greatness of our nation, every American should have a secure retirement.

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.

What we should be trying to do is to encourage people to establish private retirement accounts and help them take pressure off the Social Security system.

Our government makes the simple promise of a secure retirement to every American who works for many years and contributes to our retirement benefit system.

I think the notion of retirement is just a dreadful, dreadful idea and I hope I never have to do that.

I think if we are actually going to accept our generation's responsibility, that's going to mean that we give our children no less retirement security than we inherited from our parents.

Social Security is an insurance policy. It's a terrible investment vehicle. Social Security has some great benefits. But it was never meant to be a savings plan. So we need to have a national debate. Should this 12.5 percent that we're contributing all go into a Social Security pool, or should half go into a mandatory savings plan?

On the other end of the spectrum, these women who do live long enough to collect Social Security face the challenge of being disproportionately dependent on the Social Security system for retirement income.

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.

But with a rate of return of 1.6 percent or less, or a negative rate of return, our children and our grandchildren, if we do not make changes, will in fact not have a secure retirement. Indeed, they will not have the funds when they go to retire to even minimally get by.