Rudy: No tax hike for Social Security

[brooklynite]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani ruled out a tax increase Wednesday to help shore up Social Security, a slight shift in position designed to reassure anti-tax conservatives.

The former New York mayor also said the best remedy for the current housing slump would be for Congress to make President Bush's tax cuts permanent, adding that would "do much much more for the economy than a tailored bailout."

In an appearance before the Club for Growth, he said that as mayor of New York, he had cut spending by more than "any contemporary of mine in the 1990s" in government, a category that presumably included former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a presidential rival.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071017/ap_po/republicans_economy

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Y'know, I liked him better as the "9/11 all the time" candidate rather than as just another anti-tax kook...

Gov. George E. Pataki and the Legislature are promising to repeal the commuter tax for New York State residents over the objections of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani...The Mayor has responded with a stream of criticism about Albany's ways, suggesting today that his political enemies -- he did not specify whom -- are seeking to use the tax to damage his chances if he runs for United States Senate next year. He said that even if the tax was unpopular in suburban counties like Rockland and Orange, the site of the State Senate race, he would still demand that it be kept, and planned to fight the repeal in court.

[The Count]

1. Um, Rudy dear, it was Social Security shoring the GOP deficit so far

So at this point, shoring SS would be more like paying back into that pension fund you guys raided.

[Warpy]

2. Not really. Unless he takes overpayments out of the General Fund

a tax hike would just be another back door tax increase that falls most heavily on the poorest workers to fudge the fiscal disaster that cutting the taxes of the richest has caused this country.

[0007]

5. Rudy & junior and his dick would like to gas most all children and the elderly

[madrchsod]

3. what a dumb ass

if the social security tax is`t raised then it fails...."do much much more for the economy than a tailored bailout." this morning bush said that it was a good start in figuring out to save his ownership society...

[CottonBear]

4. Don't raise the tax, just raise the income limit up to which everyone pays SS taxes.

The rich aren't paying their share. Raise the limit and the problem's solved.

[PoiBoy]

6. Exactly..!!

...remove the cap and stop "borrowing" the funds, and Social Security becomes solvent and stable.

[whistle]

8. That makes the greatest sense, use the same basis as medicare

...that is tax all income.

[whistle]

7. Social Security benefits will increase an average of $24 per month

...starting Jan 2008 which is well below the official inflation rate. How does Congress justify that? The true inflation rate is running in the double digits now for the lower 85% of income earners.

[CatholicEdHead]

9. Club of Growth is a joke

They are the ones who want to "drown government in a bathtub of debt".