Mike Bloomberg on Social Security Mayor of New York City (Independent)

2009: Called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme"

2009: Social Security a Ponzi scheme, 2020: boost receipts

A spokesman for Bloomberg defended him: "Mike believes that between now and that time, we will need to boost receipts by raising contributions from those who can best afford it."

New minimum benefit; expand support for senior savings

Don't kick the can down the road with retirement funding

The tax bill is an economically indefensible blunder that will harm our future. The Republicans in Congress who must surely know it--and who have bucked party leaders before--should vote no.

To reduce the deficit we must cut entitlements

BLOOMBERG: Winston Churchill once said, "You can always depend on America to do the right thing after exhausting all other possibilities." We've had a democracy for 235-odd years and it works in the end, and that's what's in important. Sequestering is here. It will go on for a while. It's not going to be the end of the world as we know it. And everybody was saying, "Oh, the worst-case scenario is exactly what we're going to implement." And now they're into the real world and they'll try to find ways to do more with less, and then hopefully Congress will come together and modify sequestering to cut things back where we can afford it and not where we can't. And keep in mind, no program to reduce the deficit makes any sense whatsoever unless you address the issue of entitlements, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest payment on the debt, which you can't touch, and defense spending. Everything else is tiny compared to that.