HAHA! I was just waiting for this.
Quote:
WASHINGTON - President Bush is so worried about Social Security, he'd back raising taxes and cutting benefits to ensure the program's solvency, a leading Republican said yesterday.
Nothing is off the bargaining table, promised Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
"The answer is yes," Grassley replied on NBC's "Meet the Press," on whether Bush would sign a reform bill that upped taxes and cut benefits if it included private investment accounts. "And not only that, but, listen, the alternative of doing nothing is also a benefit cut."
Bush knows that "personal accounts will not solve the problem," Grassley said, adding that "there are 100 moving parts" to Social Security reform.
Bush administration officials wouldn't comment on Grassley's startling comments about a President known for tax cuts, and whose father infamously broke his pledge not to raise taxes.
Bush is glad the debate on reforming the system has begun, and "we're not going to address hypotheticals," said White House spokesman Taylor Gross.
Democrats swore Congress wouldn't move Bush's Social Security effort anytime soon. "I'm telling you now, Social Security reform by the President is dead, and he killed it," said Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem).
Even Republicans are split on whether the plan should be pushed now. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) agreed yesterday with House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who said recently that the country may not be ready.
"What we need to do is really demonstrate the reality of the problem," Frist told "Fox News Sunday."
James Gordon Meek |
We already saw the cutting benefit cuts part of it a mile away, but taxes now!?! I for one would not want to be paying taxes to kill a program that has shown nothing but success. And I know republicans will now take a second look, knowing they just might have to do the same. His plan
IS dead.
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