2011 GOP primary debate in Manchester NH: on Social Security

Herman Cain: Phase out of system with personal retirement plans at age 40

CAIN: Let's restructure Social Security. I support a personal retirement account option in order to phase out the current system. We know that this works. It worked in the small country of Chile when they did it 30 years. I believe we can do the same thing.

Q: Are you going to raise the retirement age as president?

CAIN: I don't have to raise the retirement age, because that b itself isn't going to solve the problem. If Congress decides to do that, that's a different matter. Let me give you one another example where this approach has worked. The city of Galveston, they opted out of the Social Security system way back in the '70s. And now, they retire with a whole lot more money. Why? For a real simple reason--they have an account with their money on it. We've got to restructure the program using a personal retirement account option in order to eventually make it solvent