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From the employees' standpoint, in 1935, Social Security was a big gamble. Employees would be required to participate in the program, contributing a percentage of their income for their entire adult working life.

As you know, Social Security functions under the premise that today's workers will help finance benefits for retirees and that these workers will then be supported by the next generation of workers paying into the same system.

Social Security is the very foundation of retirement security for millions of Americans.

What's lost in this whole debate, unfortunately, is that Social Security is not a giveaway where we take money to give to other people. It's a contract with the government... that's worked for 75 years. It's the most successful government program that we've ever had.

Through good times and bad, American workers and their families have been able to rely on Social Security to provide guaranteed protection against the loss of earnings due to retirement, disability, or death.

Social Security is not just the foundation of America's retirement dignity and security, it ensures the economic stability and strength of our families and our state's economy.

The reason to deal with Social Security is that it is a system where we have a tradition and history of making sure it is solidly funded for 75 years. At the moment, we look out and we see it is solidly funded until 2037.

Social Security is something that we need to deal with, because people who are working today, who will retire in the future, people who are retired today, they have a right - and it's part of the compact that they can depend on their benefits. We should fix the long-term funding problem of Social Security because that's the right thing to do.

To allow all U.S. workers to put part of their earnings into private investment accounts would definitely erode the Social Security system and cause uncertainty for new investors.

Social Security is a plan that actually was designed in a much different time, in a different era, and with a different set of American demographics in mind.