Pension Funding Quotes

More retirees, longer life expectancy, larger benefits, and fewer workers - these trends have meant substantial increases in the payroll tax. Since the social security program began, the payroll tax has increased more than 500 percent.

If we have political forces in the Bundestag, and in parts of the coalition, who... say they want to spend money on pensions, not weapons. Then I say, be honest and say you don't want a German army.

There is a valid nationwide sentiment of concern over public pensions, and poor funding ratios are viewed negatively by financial markets.

We have so many people retiring that we do not have enough people paying into the system to be able to provide the benefits for those collecting those benefits.

Devolutionary reform will not provide a factory, a machine or jobs, build a school, train a doctor or put a pound on pensions.

To stabilize the nation's public-employee pension systems and to prevent federal taxpayers from being billed for failed pension funds, I have introduced the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act in Congress.

Social Security is legally prohibited from contributing to the deficit. It cannot use debt to pay out benefits.

An independent Scotland could afford pensions full stop - after all, it is our taxes and national insurance contributions that fund them now.

Aside from the poor example it sets, the federal government enables reckless spending on public-employee pensions by offering hope of assistance from Washington if things get bad enough.

Businesses create every penny of the wealth we need to pay for our nation's schools, our NHS and our pensions. They are our only path to prosperity.

Actuaries shamelessly, although often in good faith, underestimate pension obligations by as much as 50 percent. Their clients [usually politicians and political entities] want them to.

And it's also producing a growth in debt to the United States that will weight very heavily in a country that has to address issues like having more old people to be covered by Social Security or by pension in the future.

Legislators should demand that we not go through the entire pension reform debate just to apply a band-aid when this patient needs a quadruple bypass.

Over the next decade, cities and states across America will be compelled to tighten their belts as the really big bills - the pension bills they cannot afford - come due. They'll have to go after existing contracts with current workers.

I am on record as saying that we need to put more money into the Social Security Trust Fund. That's part of my commitment to raise taxes on the wealthy.

A Congressional Budget Office report released as recent as June 2004 says the system will be able to pay full benefits until 2052, and 80 percent after that.

Even without reforms, the Social Security fund will be able to meet 100 percent of its obligations until 2042.

Taxpayers should demand that their states honestly assess public pension plans, accurately measure the assets and liabilities, and take steps to provide fair benefits to public employees that limit taxpayers' liability.

If you are advocating full retirement benefits starting at 60, my reaction is the system is already 31 percent underfinanced and can not afford what it's now doing, let alone such a policy change.

Fixing the pension system was one of the biggest problems Rhode Island faced.

The Europeans waited so long that they are impacting people who depend on their pensions. We are still early enough to fix it for the next generation. A few states have started scaling back their programs, while others have come hat in hand for billion-dollar federal bailouts.

It is my hope that I will be able to work with legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle and Gov. Hickenlooper to find a solution to fix our ailing pension system.

Where public pensions are concerned, many jurisdictions are running out of road.

No matter how many times you say Social Security is broke, the reality is that Social Security's independent revenue stream and its Trust Fund's investments maintain the program's solvency until 2037, when it may begin to fall short.