The Washington Times reports that in several tight races, the entitlement program is being used as a cudgel against Republicans:
Republican and Democratic candidates have been sparring over Social Security in key races in New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, Washington and Pennsylvania, with some Republicans distancing themselves from President Bush's idea to create personal retirement accounts.I’d like to believe that the Republicans could make a case for the long-term solvency of the popular program, but it’s hard to fight back against the “privatization” lie. Better to put off reform until the program is bankrupt.
Extra – From President Bush’s press conference yesterday: “I'd remind people that pro-growth economic policies had helped us cut that deficit faster than we thought. I'd also remind people, if I were running, that a long-term problem facing the budget is Social Security and Medicare.”
2 comments:
I'll never understand why folks want to spend so much of their own money to get a job that (I would guess) pays in the low six figures.
If I had $7.5M to throw around, you can be sure the last thing I would want to do would be to campaign for office.
Yeah, it's completely inexplicable. How will Michael Bloomberg in New York, or Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, or so on, ever recoup their money? After all, they're far too busy governing wisely and neutrally to exploit their political dealmaking powers for future personal benefit. After selflessly losing money for four years, Bloomberg even re-ante'd to buy himself another term. What a chump!
Although a hypothetical argument could be made that, if only Dick Cheney were still connected with Halliburton, he could really be piling up the cash with this Iraq situation. It's a shame he cut his ties to that company.
Then there's the sad case of poor Hillary Clinton-- so busy reforming health care that she had no time to oversee her land investments. And how about Kerry and Edwards? If they had won, their respective personal fortunes might have dwindled to nothing. Boy, did they ever dodge a financial bullet!
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