Transcript for Sept. 3

MR. CASEY: Here’s what we’ve got to do on Social Security, Tim. You need a step by step process. First of all, we know that the best remedy for Social Security in addition to a lot of other challenges is economic growth.

SEN. SANTORUM: And that’s why we won’t raise taxes.

MR. CASEY: And you know, and you know what? A lot of—and I’m not willing to, to say that this, this issue...

MR. RUSSERT: But something that’s 52 percent of the budget, approaching 70 percent of the budget. You’re going to grow your way out of it?

MR. CASEY: You—that’s part of it, Tim. That’s only part of it.  You—you’ve got to—one of the ways you return to fiscal responsibility is making sure that we repeal that tax cut for the top 1 percent, that’s part of it.

MR. RUSSERT: Yeah, but we’re talking about Social Security.

MR. CASEY: That’s, that’s part of funding it.

SEN. SANTORUM: That top 1 percent has helped create the jobs that we’ve had over the last three years.

MR. CASEY: That’s part of funding it. Don’t interrupt me, Rick. That’s part, that’s part of how you grow it. Tim, here’s—I think that paying for Social Security over the next 75 years is a problem. I’m—I don’t, I don’t agree with your premise. I don’t think you’re talking about a crisis. The crisis is what he just outlined. The crisis...

MR. RUSSERT: But would you, would you be open to...

MR. CASEY: The crisis is privatization.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you be open to raising retirement age? Or perhaps a means task? Or looking at COLAs?

MR. CASEY: Tim, if we had, if we had a commission that recommended all of those steps, they would have a tough sales job on me. Because here’s what I know and here’s what a lot of people in America know. This is a problem but, but not a crisis, because the assumptions for the next 35 years are based upon a growth number of 1.8 percent, a—I think a far too low and far too pessimistic growth. We need...

MR. RUSSERT: So, so double the people on Social Security and Medicare, and life expectancy approaches 80, and the solution is do nothing?

MR. CASEY: No, no, the solution is...

MR. RUSSERT: Grow our way out.

MR. CASEY: Growth, return to fiscal responsibility, make the estate tax changes. In other words, get on the path to fiscal responsibility. Tim, we didn’t have a problem with Social Security in the ‘90s because we had a—we had good growth, and I think that’s one way to do it. I am just not willing to accept...

MR. RUSSERT: You didn’t have a baby boom, you didn’t have a baby boom generation in retiring.

MR. CASEY: That’s true. But I don’t think that—I think when you say 1.8 percent growth over 35 years, Tim, that is half the growth rate of the last 75 years.

SEN. SANTORUM: That’s exactly what I just said. No answer.

MR. CASEY: Hold on one second.

SEN. SANTORUM: No answer.

MR. CASEY: We’re going to do better than—yes, I had a much better answer than yours, because yours is, yours is what The Philadelphia Inquirer called “snake oil.” They called his, his so-called guarantee “snake oil.” His proposal is to privatize. His proposal drains a trillion dollars out of the trust fund. We agree that we shouldn’t drain the trust fund.

But, Rick, you know why they’re draining it right now? To pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy that you supported. That’s the wrong policy for Social Security and for the economy.

SEN. SANTORUM: He wants to, he, he wants to grow the economy by increasing taxes. That’s what he says. So here, here he’s saying we have to grow the economy so we’re going to take more out of it. That’s a great way to grow the economy. In fact, what we’ve seen is that, in fact, when we give people their money, let them keep the money that they’ve worked hard to earn, they reinvest it, they create jobs, and they grow the economy just like you suggested. He provided absolutely no answer, again. And he’s not only has not provided an answer for how he’s going to reduce the deficit, in fact his proposals are well over a trillion dollars. If you just go through his Web site and see all the things he wants to fully fund...

MR. CASEY: Your answers...

SEN. SANTORUM: We passed, we passed a Medicare bill—Medicaid bill earlier this year, cut $40 billion out of the growth of Medicare. He was against it.  I—we—another entitlement, welfare reform. 1996, the most successful piece of legislation, social policy legislation in history, took illegal immigrants off welfare, took, took prisoners off of welfare, took fugitive felons off of welfare. He was against it. It would—it saved billions of dollars over the last 10 years.

MR. CASEY: (Unintelligible).

SEN. SANTORUM: He was against it. He’s against anything that cuts government.

MR. CASEY: No.

SEN. SANTORUM: He’s for increasing taxes, and he says he wants to, wants to balance the budget. That’s just a joke.

MR. RUSSERT: Take 20 seconds, we have to take a break.

MR. CASEY: I’m for, I’m for fiscal responsibility.

Hey, Rick, you’re—there’s only one guy sitting at this table running for the Senate who voted for those record deficits and voted to raise the debt number more in, in a couple of years than every president from George Washington to, to Bill Clinton. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do. I’m, I’m the one who’s been fiscally responsible in my work. You ought to try it.

MR. RUSSERT: We’re going to take a quick break. A lot more of our Pennsylvania Senate debate, right after this.

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