Advertisement

Social Security Plan Likely to Be Revisited in the Fall

Share
From Associated Press

Congress will not move on President Bush’s desire to overhaul Social Security before this fall, key Republican leaders said Thursday.

“There are additional ideas relating to retirement savings building support within this House,” House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas said minutes after the chamber recessed for the week. “I expect that the House will focus on these issues in the fall.”

The announcement came several hours after senators cut short a planned Social Security strategy session, filing out of a Capitol meeting room for a series of votes without an agreement to return or when to meet again.

Advertisement

“There are competing demands for the time of senators and House members, so work will probably continue well after the August recess,” said a statement issued afterward by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Finance Committee.

He added: “I won’t give up trying to bridge the divide. The sooner we act, the better the choices we have to secure Social Security.”

His staffers tried to sway uncommitted lawmakers by reviewing a series of proposals to slowly increase the retirement age or change the way benefit growth was calculated, but senators emerged noncommittal.

“It’s all combinations and hybrids of other ideas,” said one attendee, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine). “There’s nothing new.”

Snowe, who opposes the type of private savings accounts proposed by the president, said action was unlikely until Democrats engaged in the negotiations. To date, Democrats have refused to do so, saying the president’s plan to fund the accounts with a diversion of payroll taxes would undermine the program’s ability to provide a guaranteed benefit check.

Another attendee, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), said he doubted that the Finance Committee would take up any legislation before Congress began a monthlong August recess, but he quipped, “Miracles occur around here.”

Advertisement
Advertisement