More than one-third of Mexicans in the United States own property in Mexico, nearly 80 percent send money home and 25 percent have a spouse in Mexico. Assimilation and becoming an American citizen are not the objective for many of them.

The reality is that the workforce relative to the number of people retired has shrunk and today in America there are only 3.3 working Americans paying payroll taxes to support each individual currently retired and collecting Social Security taxes.

These smugglers, many of them present in trafficking through my State of Arizona, create false Social Security cards, false green cards, visas and a variety of other fraudulent documents as an essential part of their smuggling activities.

Global fuel and consumption, however, is projected to increase by 100 to 150 percent over the next 20 years, driven largely by the rapidly growing Chinese and Indian economies; and this growth and this increase in demand will force prices even higher.

The good news is, Americans know firsthand the benefits of a free market - more choices, lower prices, higher quality - and there is no reason why we cannot help them see these same benefits in health care.

But with a rate of return of 1.6 percent or less, or a negative rate of return, our children and our grandchildren, if we do not make changes, will in fact not have a secure retirement. Indeed, they will not have the funds when they go to retire to even minimally get by.

Indeed, I think most Americans now know that in 1935 when Social Security was created, there were some 42 Americans working for every American collecting retirement benefits.