Reagan-Carter Presidential Debate: on Social Security

Jimmy Carter: Voluntarily name beneficiaries, but no other voluntary part

REAGAN: The social security system was based on a false premise. It is trillions of dollars out of balance.

CARTER: As long as there's a Democratic President, we will have a strong and viable social security system. Although Gov. Reagan has changed his position lately, on four different occasions he has advocated making social security a voluntary system, which would very quickly bankrupt it.

REAGAN: This statement that somehow I wanted to destroy it, that I am for voluntary social security, which would mean the ruin of it. The voluntary thing that I suggested many years ago was that if this is an insurance program, the person who's paying in should be able to name his own beneficiaries. That's the closest I've ever come to anything voluntary with social security. I, too, am pledged to a social security program that will reassure senior citizens that they're going to get their money.

Ronald Reagan: Social security system was based on a false premise

REAGAN: The social security system was based on a false premise, with regard to how fast the number of workers would increase and how fast the number of retirees would increase. It is actuarially out of balance, and this first became evident about 16 years ago, and some of us were voicing warnings then. Now, it is trillions of dollars out of balance, and the only answer that has come so far is the biggest single tax increase in our Nation's history, the payroll tax increase for social security, which will only put a band-aid on this and postpone the day of reckoning by a few years at most.

CARTER: As long as there's a Democratic President, we will have a strong and viable social security system. Although Gov. Reagan has changed his position lately, on four different occasions he has advocated making social security a voluntary system, which would, in effect, very quickly bankrupt it.