Quote

I think that retiring the baby boomers is going to be one of the great challenges in America, that you cannot make fiscal sense out of the future of our children without taking on entitlements.

The baby boomers owe a big debt of gratitude to the parents and grandparents - who we haven't given enough credit to anyway - for giving us another generation.

We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die. Too often we learn the hard way. As soon as the baby boomers pass pensionable age, their lesson will be harsher still.

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.

Our country also hungers for leadership to ensure the long-term survival of our Social Security system. With 70 million baby boomers in this country on the verge of retirement, we need to take action to shore up the system.

What's just about a generation of people who rack up government debt for their own health care and retirement - while leaving their children and grandchildren to foot the bill?

I just see too many people retire and say, 'I'm going to take off, travel, spend time with my family' and they are just miserable. They end up dying. People who work and stay active, and like what they are doing, live longer.

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.