Thomas J. Donahue Quotes

I'm the guy that has written at great length about exactly how we should profoundly reform Social Security. If I were afraid of going after entitlements, I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't have put Medicaid reform in this budget, I wouldn't have called for the reductions in spending, which people will scream about, but I think are necessary.

But I will say, I think there are some Democrats that don't want to address pension reform. I have taken on the issue of seniority and tenure. I think we have to address entitlements and the president has done that in his budget. I think we have to extend Medicare and the president has done that. But also reinvest in that program.

I'd hate to paint with a broad brush, but many Democrats don't feel that we have a crisis in entitlements, and Republicans do.

And in terms of entitlement reforms, we have to save them from themselves, because if we don't reform social security and we don't reform Medicare, they're going to actually implode.

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.

Social Security is not just another government spending program. It is a promise from generation to generation.

Social Security must be preserved and strengthened. But we need to be candid about the costs and willing to make the tough choices that real reform will require.

The privatization plan weakens Social Security and threatens our economic security by creating trillions of dollars in new debt.

I think that whether you're on the right or on the left as an economist or as a policy maker, every serious analyst I know agrees that at some point you have to deal with entitlements.

We should stop having a conversation about cutting Social Security a little bit or a lot.

Democrats believe, plausibly, that middle-class entitlements are instantly addictive and, because there is no known detoxification, that class, when facing future choices between trimming entitlements or increasing taxes, will choose the latter.

It is better to implement reforms in times of economic strength.

If we learned anything from the depression we will not allow ourselves to run around in new circles of futile discussion and debate, always postponing the day of decision.

Social Security is on the books. We’ll pay for it as long as we have money or can borrow it.

Entitlement programs are on autopilot. I’m alarmed. We’re close to the danger zone.

What begins in Washington as simple, garden-variety grasping becomes an entitlement, the argument being that the longer the benefit has lived, the more the beneficiaries have built their lives around it, so ending it would be disruptive.

We should be reforming our entitlement programs to empower people.

If you are waiting for this thing that might happen tomorrow, it probably will never happen. You need to activate it now! No one else is going to do it for you, and ten years are going to go by before you even know it.

Social Security is fundamentally strong.

Social Security is not broke, and Social Security does not need to be privatized.

Americans never would alter the way entitlement programs are funded or education administered without serious study and widespread debate.

I've never said anything about privatizing Social Security.

The interruption we now impatiently put off may be the most important thing we could be doing at this particular time?