In Case You Missed It...

On Social Security, Clinton does not want to raise the payroll tax cap entirely .... calls it unfair.. a trillion dollar tax hike on the middle class....

Obama compares HRC to Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani...saying she is "playing with numbers in order to make a point..." Audience oohs....

Clinton: "It is absolutely the case that there are people who would find that burdensome. I represent firefighters, I represent school supervisors. You have to look at this across the board... I listened very carefully to what Sen. Obama said... he basically said that he was looking at a lot of different things and wanted a bipartisan commission...that's what I think we should do."

Comments

Hillary's answer was something I would expect to hear from Grover Norquist.

I would love to know who the questioner thought gave the better answer...

Posted by David | November 15, 2007 9:55 PM

This audience is a big fat bunch of losers.

THEY BOO WHEN HILLARY IS QUESTIONED?????

HOW WILL SHE WIN THE GENERAL ELECTION IF SHE CAN'T BE ASKED HARD QUESTIONS???

Posted by Lame Nevada Idiots | November 15, 2007 10:01 PM

She also suggested that raising the income cap on FICA is a tax on retirees.

Think about that. FICA is a PAYROLL tax. What kind of annual PAYROLL income is a RETIREE going to be receiving. The idea is absurd.

But nobody called Senator Clinton on it, so she slides it through ... and a lot of Iowa caucus participants are retirees.

And oddly the Hillary partisans in the post-debate wrap-up somehow missed that deceptive sleight of hand ... and treated the booing that prevented Senator Obama from getting to that part of it as if it was spontaneous.

Posted by BruceMcF | November 16, 2007 3:15 AM

This was also the response in which Clinton said she would take the same approach as Ronald Reagan.

Posted by Gus | November 16, 2007 3:29 AM

This is so what's the problem with HRC...I'm going to post the whole exchange about SS because what gets remembered is Obama called her Mitt and Rudy like...and she deserved it because her answer WAS exactly what the Reps would throw out...

Senator Obama? OBAMA: Well, first of all, Judy, thank you for the question, and thanks for the great work you do on behalf of the culinary workers, a great union here.

(APPLAUSE)

Look, this is something that we've talked about in our campaign. We've got 78 million baby boomers who are going to be retiring. And the first thing we have to do is to put an end to George Bush raiding the Social Security trust fund to pay for a misguided war in Iraq.

(APPLAUSE)

If we take some of that money back and we start getting control of our budget and have fiscal discipline, that will make some of the difference. But not all of it, because we're going to have more senior citizens, more retirees and fewer workers.

So I've been very specific about saying that we should not privatize, we should protect benefits. I don't think the best way to approach this is to raise the retirement age.

But what we can do is adjust the cap on the payroll tax. Right now, anybody who's making $97,000 or less, you pay payroll tax on 100 percent of your income. Warren Buffett, who made $46 million last year, pays on a fraction of one percent of his income.

And if we make that small adjustment, we can potentially close that gap, and we can make sure Social Security's there.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Thank you.

OBAMA: Last point, just because I have to answer the full question. Medicare is a tougher problem because we've got health-care inflation going up. And I am meeting people all across the country who just can't manage even if they've got health insurance.

Their premiums have gone up 78 percent since George Bush took office. It's a scam. And people are getting desperate.

The only way we're going to fix Medicare is if we get that rising cost under control. And that means having a universal health care plan, where every single person has prevention, and they are able to get the treatments they need.

We're instituting health technologies and managing the chronically ill so that we save money, we provide coverage for everybody. That, over the long term, will save Medicare enormous amounts of money and it will be there for you.

BLITZER: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE) Senator Clinton, you've been criticized by Senator Obama and, I think, Senator Edwards, among others, for refusing to take a hard and fast position on whether you would raise the tax above those making $97,500 a year, to try to secure Social Security in the long term.

Are you ready to make a hard and fast statement, now, on your position on what Senator Obama just said?

CLINTON: Well, I'll tell you what I'm for. And I think Judy raises two really important issues. I am for getting back to fiscal responsibility. I think I counted you said "deficit" three times.

Six and a half years ago, when George Bush came into office, he inherited a balanced budget and a surplus.

(APPLAUSE)

And the Social Security system was on a path to be solvent into 2055. We have long-term challenges with Social Security.

We have a crisis with Medicare, just like we have a crisis with health care costs.

We have a crisis with energy costs.

We have a lot of very intense challenges we have to meet right now.

So what I want to do is move back toward fiscal responsibility. I think if we don't do that, we're not going to deal with any of these problems adequately.

Then I think we will demonstrate that we're serious about getting our house in order again, and then I think we have to have a bipartisan commission.

I do not want to fix the problems of Social Security on the backs of middle-class families and seniors. If you lift the cap completely, that is a $1 trillion tax increase. I don't think we need to do that.

But I want to say one final word about Medicare. Number one, Medicare should be able to negotiate for lower drug prices. It was a travesty...

BLITZER: All right. Thank you, Senator.

CLINTON: ... when the Bush administration did not allow that to happen, and I have a lot of other ideas about we'll preserve and strengthen Medicare.

BLITZER: So, Senator, you're not ready to accept a raising of the cap on that? But I know that Senator Obama wants to respond to you.

OBAMA: I will be very brief on this because, Hillary, I have heard you say this is a trillion-dollar tax cut on the middle class by adjusting the cap. Understand that only 6 percent of Americans make more than $97,000 a year. So 6 percent is not the middle class.

(APPLAUSE)

It is the upper class. You know, this is the kind of thing that I would expect from Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani, where we start playing with numbers. We start playing with numbers in order to try to make a point.

(APPLAUSE)

And we can't do that. No, no, no. This is too important -- this is too important for us to pretend that we are using numbers like a trillion dollar tax cut instead of responsibly dealing with the problem that Judy asked for, and she said she wants a specific answer. And she said she wants a specific answer and that's what I provided.

But understand that this is the top 6 percent, and that is not the middle class.

BLITZER: Senator?

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: First of all -- first of all, I think that you meant a tax increase, because that's what it would be.

But, secondly, it is absolutely the case that there are people who would find that burdensome. I represent firefighters. I represent school supervisors. I'm not talking -- and, you know, it's different parts of the country. So you have to look at this across the board and the numbers are staggering.

Now, when people say, "Be specific," I listened very carefully to what Senator Obama said when he appeared on one of the Sunday morning shows, and he basically said that he was for looking at a lot of different things and using a bipartisan commission to do it. I think that's the right answer. That is where I have been from the very beginning.

That's what worked back in 1983 when we had a real crisis in Social Security. The government got together. President Reagan and Speaker Tip O'Neill put together a bipartisan commission.

Then everybody looked at everything at once. It wasn't one person's idea or somebody else's idea. Everybody had to get into a room and say, here's what we're going to do to fix the problem. That's what I want to do, because I think that's what will work for America.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: I want everybody to stand by because we have a lot more to talk about, a lot more of these questions from undecided voters here in Nevada, but we're going to take a quick commercial break. Much more from the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, right after this.

Clever of Wolf to have a break right there so no one could refute her complete non-answer to the previous non-answer she gave...what malarky.

Posted by G Davis | November 16, 2007 3:32 AM