Obama, Clinton Focus on Social Security
Associated Press, October 30th, 2007
Democrat Barack Obama complained on Monday that presidential rival
Hillary Rodham Clinton has failed to offer specific solutions to deal
with the financial crisis threatening the Social Security program.
Expanding
on his weekend criticism and a new television ad, the first-term
Illinois senator argued that Clinton, like others in Washington, is
ducking the issue of fixing the retirement program that is expected to
slip out of a surplus in about 2017.
"On issues as fundamental as
how to protect Social Security a candidate for president owes it to the
American people to tell us where they stand," Obama told about 100
people at a townhall-style meeting in Iowa.
Clinton answered
back, unveiling a new ad in Iowa and New Hampshire that contends she
challenged President Bush when he tried to introduce private accounts
and has pushed legislation to help people care for adult family members.
"These
days, it seems like every candidate on Earth is coming here for you.
But which candidate has been there for you all along?" says the ad from
the two-term New York senator.
Seniors play a critical role in
the Iowa caucuses, set for Jan. 3. In 2000 and 2004, nearly 65 percent
of those who showed up at the Democratic caucuses were older than 50.
Obama's
proposal calls for changing the rules that now impose Social Security
taxes on only the first $97,000 in income, a system that means higher
earners don't pay taxes on all their income while many middle-class
taxpayers do.
Clinton has sidestepped that question in public but
told a man at one recent event in Iowa that she would consider a "gap,"
with no Social Security taxes on income from $97,500 to around
$200,000. Anything above that could be taxed. Her answer was overhead
by an Associated Press reporter.
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