Here's the link: http://democrats.org/blog/comment/00011496.html

Jan 24, 2005
Take action on Social Security

On yesterday's Meet the Press, Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA), Chairman of
the Ways and Means Committee and President Bush's point man in
Congress on Social Security, suggested tying the amount of Social
Security benefits to race or gender.

It's a disastrous idea, one that doesn't even belong in the debate.
The Republican leadership — starting with President Bush — must
repudiate Thomas's idea of tying Social Security benefits to race and
gender immediately.

You can help. Click here to sign our petition to Bush today and
demand that he state publicly that the amount of a Social Security
check should never be tied to the race or gender of the person
receiving it.

Read on for the transcript of Rep. Thomas' interview on Meet the
Press.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you something else you said at the National
Journal Forum that raised some eyebrows: "Women are living longer
relative to men today than they were in 1940. Yet, we never ever have
debated gender-adjusting Social Security. But, at some point if the
age difference continues to separate and more women are in the
workforce and you have more of an equality of pay structure in the
workforce, at some point somebody might want to suggest that we need
to take a look at the question of whether or not actuarially we ought
to adjust who gets what, when, and how."

A gender adjustment—what does that mean?

REP. THOMAS: Well, it was one of my ways of getting people to focus
on the issue of age. To move from 65 to 68, which we did in 1983, was
a benefit cut. But it also creates hardships based upon the
occupation that you have, and it creates inequities on who you are
and how long you live. You could just as easily have a discussion
about occupations as to when would be a fair or an unfair time to
require. We also need to examine, frankly, Tim, the question of race
in terms of how many years of retirement do you get based upon your
race? And you ought not to just leave gender off the table because
that would be a factor.

Now, there are people who are saying, "Gee, this is great. We can get
them into a box and maybe we can win some seats in the next election
over this issue." This ought not to be about the next election. This
is about how we have an opportunity given to us by the president, his
willingness to work with us to solve some problems that are here and
now, but will only get worse. If we're not in a crisis now, we're in
a problem. Wait a few years. We will be in a crisis. We ought to
examine all opportunities to solve the problem. Then we can dismiss
them. But to not look at them denies us an opportunity to have yet
another way to solve our problem.

MR. RUSSERT: So if someone is a woman and they live longer, they
would get less per year?

REP. THOMAS: It's not that you would do it; it's something that you
need to look at. Because if you extend the age beyond 78, if you go
to 80 or 82, all of those concerns about race, occupation and gender
are exacerbated. And you shouldn't just extend the age without
understanding the additional complications and unfairness that you're
bringing into the system. That's the point I'm trying to make. Don't
look for a simple solution like shifting age without realizing you're
creating additional problems for yourself down the road. Same thing
with payroll tax. Same thing with individual accounts or other ways
to bring additional revenue in the system. All of them should be
examined. None of them should be labeled with the pejorative with an
opportunity to try to gain seats in the next election. You are doing
a disservice to the society if that's your intention in this debate.
My goal is to get it as broad as possible, look for bipartisan
support and give the president a bill on his desk that he can sign
that addresses the real societal inequities that we have with seniors.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think Congress, Mr. Chairman, would accept any
formula that said that people would be treated differently because of
their gender or their race?

REP. THOMAS: If we discuss it and the will is not to do it, fine. At
least we discussed it. To simply raise the age and find out that
you've got gender, race and occupational problems later, I would not
be doing the kind of service that I think I have to do. You and I
have been around quite a while. We went through the '80s. We went
into the '90s. And now we're in the 21st century. We saw the choices
that were made in the past. We went to the well over and over again
with the same old solutions which really aren't solutions. We've
reached the point where we have to fundamentally examine it in my
opinion. The president has given us that opportunity. We ought to
take it.

This is outrageous!

This one needs an extra push, to fire up the masses against it. I hope you don't mind, but I am going to post it to the Social Security forum.