Discuss and be fruitful, saith the Chairman … On Meet the Press this morning Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R) of California was so incoherent and off-message that it was hard for me to believe he wasn’t a Democrat.
As for Russert, I noticed his grudging coming-around on a few points of not prejudicing the argument with pro-phase-out vocabulary.
But how about Russert’s statement on the wage-indexing of Social Security benefits as opposed inflation-indexing? Russert said this method is âinaccurate by everyoneâs estimation. Should that be adjusted in order to be accurate and specifically related to inflation?â
Somehow I thought that was up for debate?
Most telling quote of the day from Chairman Thomas: âTo immediately say that [changing from wage-indexing to inflation-indexing of benefits] is a cut in benefits is a label that could be placed on anything that we did ⦠The terms that we use need to be watched because if you want to create a black and white disruption of the ability to try to solve the problem then you use certain words. If you want to be part of the solution you have to be careful of the words that you choose.â
[ed.note: Transcription courtesy of TPM-DVR-Enabled Impromptu Transcription Service (TM).]
