Debbie Stabenow Quotes

We want to develop innovative ways to promote savings so more Americans can save for their future, but first we need to reject privatization schemes and work together to strengthen Social Security.

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.

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?

I support voluntary personal retirement accounts for Social Security. It should be people's free choice.

For people who have for been putting their hard-earned money into the system for years, the president's idea would replace their safety net with a risky gamble with no assurance of a stable return of investment.

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.

Do I want to see people take their Social Security payments and put them into private accounts, open up an eTrade account and go into the stock market? Absolutely not.

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

I do believe in pensions.

The next generation is going to have to understand that Social Security is just one leg of a stool. We need to actually bring back that savings incentive, and the only way you're going to be able to do that is if you have a job.

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.

I can't retire.

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.

A whole generation of Americans will retire in poverty instead of prosperity, because they simply are not preparing for retirement now.

Money isn't everything, but it is when you start thinking about putting money away for your retirement days.

Well, today people have to be self-reliant if they want a secure retirement income.

I figure the faster I pedal, the faster I can retire.

I look back on it, yeah, I'm in a much worse financial position than I was eight years ago. I'm going to have to go out at age 62 and kind of readdress some of that.

Personal savings accounts to me are one of the most powerful things, not necessarily in saving, solvency, or bankruptcy of the program, but in guaranteeing, the words I used a few minutes ago, a safe and secure retirement for our seniors.

Since Social Security faces a large gap between what it promises younger workers and what it can afford to pay them, private savings will likely need to play a larger role in retirement planning for younger workers.

Social Security not only helps Americans enjoy a secure retirement, it has also kept millions of Americans out of poverty.

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

I stand with the millions of seniors and working people who depend on Social Security and who expect the money they put in to be there for them when they retire.

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.