From ABC News "Efforts to set up benefits talks sputter":
Back-channel efforts by the White House and Capitol Hill Democrats to begin trying to negotiate a solution to the fiscal problems of Social Security and other federal benefit programs appeared to collapse Wednesday.There's a shocker. It seems that the White House has taken tax increases off the table:
But Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., accused the White House of acting in bad faith at a panel hearing that turned acrimonious over White House Budget Director Rob Portman's unwillingness to acknowledge that tax increases should be part of any fix for Social Security's long-term problems.Unlike the President, those fair-minded Democrats are willing to discuss all options to reform Social Security, as long as they're the right options:
Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee, a critical venue for any Social Security plan, said he too believed the president must give up his private accounts before serious talks could occur. If so, he added, "I'm more than open, if the president is truly willing to look at all options."Classic.
Extra - Thank heaven the government didn't impose those high-return personal savings plans on us.
2 comments:
Those imaginary returns are phenomenal! How could we not have signed up, or sign up now, right this minute? It's almost as if some believe the proposal to be yet another conservative plan to bleed a public assistance program until they can declare it "untenable"! It's as if the conservatives' history of bad intentions in such fiscal matters is working against them! But that can't be true! Didn't GWB say he was eager to reach across the aisle? And then actually attempt to do so, a short 6 years later? Boo to the Democratic skeptics!
Missing the whole point that if Social Security is such a great plan why did Congress opt out when they had the chance, and then lock the rest of us in. Yep, just ignore what they do, and listen to what they say.
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