Doesn’t this speak for itself ?
“Governor Bush supports lockboxing $ 2.4 trillion to save and strengthen Social Security.”
– Bush-Cheney Campaign 2000 website
(Quoted in LAT, Oct. 31, 2000)
“There is no box, there is no mattress. Paul O’Neill doesn’t have a hole in the backyard where this money goes. And all the dollars are fungible … What’s unfair is to mislead the American people into thinking this money’s in a box somewhere. It isn’t. That box has nothing but promissory notes in it.”
– Mitch Daniels
Office of Management & Budget Director
CNN, Late Edition, July 8th, 2001
P.S. Special heads-up to Senate Democratic staffers reading TPM from their offices. There are much, much better Bush lockbox quotes out there. But the TPM oppo research staff is small and greatly overextended. So have at it!
P.P.S. Ahhhaa! Another example of Bush’s lockbox talk from New Hampshire in January 2000:
“First, unspent surpluses in Washington, D.C. will be spent, you mark my words, you leave money sitting around the table in Washington, Washington politicians will spend it. Now, I believe there’s enough money. If you lockbox the payroll taxes, there is $2 trillion to make sure the Social Security system is safe and secure– $2 trillion. I intend to lockbox the payroll taxes and spend them only on what they’re supposed to be spent on, and that’s Social Security.”
That’s courtesy of PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, January 14, 2000
