Opening remarks

[National Dialogue Moderator <moderator>]

    Strengthen Social Security Without Cutting Defined Benefits


I am pleased to participate in this forum on Social Security.  I look
forward to discussing the future of one of our most popular and most
successful government programs.  

As the ongoing national dialogue attests, the Social Security system is at a
crossroads.  The decisions we make this Congress will have aftershocks that
will be felt well into the second half of the 21st century.  Concern for our
children and our children's children demand that those decisions be made
carefully, seriously, and compassionately -- keeping in mind Social
Security's historic commitments.

I hope it will become clear from our discussions that we can strengthen
Social Security for the future without raising the retirement age, without
cutting benefits, without shifting the risk onto individuals through
individual private accounts funded by FICA taxes, and without raising tax
rates. We can restore actuarial solvency to Social Security -- without
raising the retirement age by one year, and without cutting benefits by one
dollar.

We must work together to ensure that we do not undermine the bedrock
stability of Social Security which provides defined, inflation-adjusted,
lifetime benefits to millions of American families.

I look forward to a healthy discussion on this critically important issue.

Thank you,
Representative Jerrold Nadler