MACE: It's still - it's still very early to see or say what the ramifications are going to be. That was a unique bank that mostly served start-ups in Silicon Valley.
And those customers have been hit by inflation. They have been hit by interest rates. They're low on cash. There was also, it sounds like, a panic run by some of their larger companies last week. The CEO sold himself millions of dollars of stock and gave his employees, I read this morning, bonuses right before the government took over the bank.
We cannot keep bailing out private companies, because there's no consequences to their actions. People, when they make mistakes or break the law, have to be held accountable in this country.
COLLINS: OK, so just to confirm, you don't support a bailout, right? Is that what you're saying?
MACE: Not at this time. COLLINS: OK.
MACE: I would - it's still very early. Again, it's, I don't even think, been 48 hours. But, at this time, I would not support a bailout.
COLLINS: I want to ask you about something your fellow South Carolinian, Nikki Haley, said. Obviously, she is running for president in 2024.
She said this week that she supports the - raising the retirement age for people who are in their 20s when it comes to receiving Social Security benefits. Do you agree with her on that?
MACE: I think that's something that has to be on the table we have to look at.
I'm 45 years old. I'm assuming that Social Security will be insolvent, that I won't have retirement funds from what I put into in my adult life, my working life. We do have to look at Social Security. We have got to look at our spending in this country, mandatory and discretionary.
If we're going to take on fixing the Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, you name it, we have got to get serious about it.
COLLINS: OK, so you do - you do support potentially raising the age to maybe extend the...
MACE: As long - as long as it's not anybody that's heading into retirement right now.
We do not want to take away those that are in retirement or those that are heading into retirement. But if we're talking about younger generations, my kids, for example, if they know what the - what the retirement will look like 40 years from now, 50 years from now, then that should be on the table, and can be.
We have to both. Republicans and Democrats have screwed this thing up, and they have got to fix it.
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