CounterRevolutionary wrote:
That year, Ronald Reagan cut income taxes and Senate Protemp, Tip O'Neal with Minority Leader Bod Dole crafted that SS deal. The Democrats held a supermajority and it passed, regardless of Reagan's veto. You must be a very young man.
He opened with this statement in January: "Speaker of the House O'Neill, Majority Leader Baker, and I have today received from the commission on social security a "Recommended Bi-Partisan Solution to the Social Security Problem" (summary attached).
This bipartisan solution would solve the social security problem defined by the Commission. It is my understanding that the Speaker and the majority leader find this bipartisan solution acceptable.
Each of us recognizes that this is a compromise solution. As such, it includes elements which each of us could not support if they were not part of a bipartisan compromise. However, in the interest of solving the social security problem promptly, equitably, and on a bipartisan basis, we have agreed to support and work for this bipartisan solution.
I look forward to the Congress beginning consideration of this package through hearings before the House Ways and Means Committee on February 1. I believe the American people will welcome this demonstration of bipartisan cooperation in offering a solution that can keep a fundamental cooperative and responsible manner in trust, while solving a fundamental national problem.
I wish to thank the members of the Commission, and especially Chairman Greenspan, for their tireless effort and for the cooperative and responsible manner in which they have met a most difficult challenge."
He followed with this statement in March after the legislation passed:"I want to take this opportunity to express my admiration--and the gratitude of the American people--for the responsible, bipartisan spirit the House of Representatives has demonstrated in its prompt passage of the bipartisan plan to save the social security system. I am particularly glad to have had the chance this afternoon to personally thank six leaders who played special roles in making this possible: Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, Minority Leader Bob Michel, Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, the senior minority member of the committee, Barber Conable, Chairman Jake Pickle of the Subcommittee on Social Security, and, of course, Representative Claude Pepper.
In the months leading up to this critical vote--and again over the past 24 hours-- we've seen men and women of both parties and many shades of opinion set aside their differences and join together for the good of the country. The result has been a new lease on life for one of our most basic government programs, social security--a program that, directly or indirectly, affects the present and future well-being of every man woman, and child in America, and generations yet unborn.
Over long months of study, debate, and deliberation--and in close cooperation with the executive branch--a fair, workable plan to save the system was hammered out by the National Commission on Social Security Reform. All of us had to make some compromises and settle for less than what any one faction might consider ideal. But we did it, and, as Speaker O'Neill promised, the House of Representatives has acted promptly and responsibly to pass the resulting bipartisan plan.
That is an achievement we can all take heart from. And I hope and believe it reflects a bipartisan spirit of putting people before party that will guide us all in meeting other national challenges in the days ahead.
Meanwhile, I look forward to prompt action in the Senate on the social security plan--and I look forward to a signing ceremony in the very near future."
The commission's he referenced was the President Reagan charged the National Commission on Social Security Reform, chaired by Alan Greenspan. HE set up to address problems faced in Social Security. Reagan didn't veto the legislation because it was HIS legislation. You seem to have forgotten but in those days addressing problems this country faced was more important than ideological grandstanding. If Reagan was around today both he and Dole would have been drummed out of the Republican party for being RINO's.
And then I was a young man, today not so...