GOP Group Attacks Dem for Holding Social Security Position GOPers Promoted
The Simpson-Bowles plan called for raising the retirement age to 69 by 2075. So few of Pinellas County’s current seniors would lose benefits. But putting aside the policy pros and cons of Simpson-Bowles, the NRCC was ignoring an inconvenient truth: for years, Republicans have slammed Democrats for not accepting the Simpson-Bowles plan on entitlement reforms. (The Rs, of course, were not keen on the Simpson-Bowles provisions for greater tax revenues.) Repeatedly, top GOPers have lambasted President Barack Obama and the Democrats for supposedly disavowing Simpson-Bowles. In an April 2011, interview, House Speaker John Boehner chided Obama for not moving forward with Simpson-Bowles: “He took exactly none of his own deficit reduction commission’s ideas. Not one. Come on? It’s time to grow up and get serious about the problems that face our country.” A year later Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), the House GOP’s leading budget wonk, echoed this sentiment: “The president has chosen to disavow the fiscal commission.” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has urged Obama to “say yes to Simpson-Bowles.”
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