We can still find middle ground, truly secure our borders, deal with those already here and address our labor needs. But those who advocate giving current illegal aliens and future guest workers a special path to citizenship must compromise.

American consumers benefit from free trade and investment.

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.

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.

If the United States is to protect itself from the economic and the political threats created by this excessive dependence, we must reduce our reliance on foreign energy sources and on foreign oil as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

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.

As I think all Americans understand on both sides of the aisle, the Social Security system as it is structured today is a pay-as-you-go system.