New Strategy on Social Security (partial truth out of context Clinton quot

[papau]

Seems the GOP pick and choose Clinton's words effort is now using the 1998 Clinton speech at Georgetown University about the 1998 projected problem in 25 years for which Clinton said to NOT CUT TAXES - but they only recall "This fiscal crisis in Social Security affects every generation" and not the "Before we spend a penny on new programs or tax cuts (as in the $1.9 trillion of Bush tax cuts effect over the next 10 years), we should save Social Security first. I think it should be the driving principle . . . Do not have a tax cut. Do not have a spending program that deals with that surplus. Save Social Security first."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31333-2005Jan23.html

washingtonpost.com
New Strategy on Social Security
With Some Risk, Bush Officials Invoke Clinton, Moynihan
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 24, 2005; Page A03


With their push to restructure Social Security off to a rocky start, Bush administration officials have begun citing two Democrats -- former President Bill Clinton and the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- to bolster their claims that the retirement system is in crisis.

But the gambit carries some risk, Bush supporters say. Clinton's repeated calls during his second term to "save Social Security first" were specifically to thwart what President Bush ultimately did: cut taxes based on federal budget surplus projections. Likewise, internal Treasury Department documents indicate that Moynihan, a New York Democrat who was co-chairman of Bush's 2001 Social Security Commission, expressed misgivings about the president's push to partially privatize Social Security.<snip>

Moreover, Clinton never proposed diverting Social Security taxes from current beneficiaries to private investment accounts, as Bush has suggested, Clinton aides said. Instead, he proposed using the surplus to finance personal savings accounts on top of the Social Security system, said Jeffrey B. Liebman, a Harvard University economist who helped draft Clinton's Social Security plans.

"President Clinton did believe it was better for the country to act early on Social Security by increasing savings and protecting Social Security's guaranteed benefit structure," said Gene B. Sperling, who directed Clinton's National Economic Council during the Social Security push. "Clinton never suggested that the Social Security solvency challenge required radical restructuring."<snip>

An Oct. 22, 2001, memo from Treasury economic policy aide Kent Smetters to O'Neill said Moynihan backed a Social Security restructuring plan that would layer small personal investment accounts on top of the existing Social Security system rather than diverting taxes from the system. Under the Moynihan approach, individuals could contribute an additional 1 percent of their earnings into an investment account, which would then be matched by the federal government from general tax revenue.

That "add-on" approach has become mainstream policy for the Democratic Party, but it is a major departure from the approach Bush has embraced.<snip>

[Coastie for Truth]

1. Another Texas Knee Slapper

Like WMD's or Saddam's role in 9/11 or Saddam's special cojoined relationship with Osama.

[papau]

2. YEP! :-)

:-)