The answer is in full employment, Dennis Kucinich says.

Question: How do we prevent a Social Security meltdown?

Dennis Kucinich: Social Security is rock solid through the year 2040 without any changes whatsoever. Now it’s true the Bush administration has taken massive amounts of money – like IOUs – out of the system; but they have a legal obligation to repair it. This isn’t . . . repay it. This isn’t something that, you know, is like an optional thing. They go to jail if . . . if they don’t keep their responsibility there to put that money back in the system and keep refreshing the system so that people get paid. No one’s missed a payment. I want everyone who is watching this to be aware: Social Security has never missed a payment, and there’s no reason for it to. Now one of the things if Social Security starts to run, you know, short of money in real time . . . I’m not talking about these projections because Social Security’s condition in the future is really a result of projections. Now if the projections show that we’re starting to run short of money and the revenue begins to drop, then you raise the cap on the money that is taxable for Social Security so that you can meet the . . . the demands of and requirements of the system. So you know if you keep going low with your projections, you raise the cap. But what no one’s talking about . . . and because I’m the only one running who’s talking about a full employment economy . . . if you prime the pump of the economy, if you get people working, there’s more money in . . . coming in, so the fund is supported.

Recorded on: 10/19/07