Rep. Deborah Pryce: My privatization cheerleading last year is totally “ancient history”
U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce: My cheerleading for the Bush-privatization scheme less than a year ago is totally "ancient history."
Congresswoman claims to be "adamantly opposed to privatization" of Social Security despite her lead role in promoting the Bush-proposal to do just that all the way back in 2005
Washington D.C. - Americans United enjoyed a good laugh today thanks to comments made by U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH-15)'s campaign office that appeared in the Columbus Dispatch which run counter to the Congresswoman's aggressive and well-documented efforts just last year to dismantle Social Security with a risky privatization scheme. According to a piece today by James Nash - entitled -- "Kilroy says Pryce, GOP off base on Social Security" -- George Rasley, a spokesman for Deborah Pryce's campaign, called Bush's proposal to raid the Social Security Trust Fund to help pay for private accounts, and Pryce's support of it, "ancient history." But, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer pointed out last week, all the way back in 2005 Rep. Pryce "signed a strategy document advising GOP lawmakers how to frame arguments that could convince constituents of the benefits of Bush's plan."
Americans United also noted last week that Rep. Pryce's affinity for privatization is no one night stand. On May 24, 2001, more than 100 Republican Members of Congress - including Deborah Pryce -- sent a letter to President George W. Bush's 'Commission to Strengthen Social Security', urging it to propose "personal retirement accounts" to "transform Social Security." The full letter can be viewed here: http://web.archive.org/web/20010620131710/http:/www.demint.house.gov/socialsecurity/commissionltr01.htm
"Congresswoman Pryce can't be serious when she says her support for Bush's risky privatization scheme is ‘ancient history' when only a matter of months ago she was writing the ‘talking points' her Republican colleagues used to try to sell the rotten bill of goods to their constituents --- can she?," said Jeremy Funk, Press Secretary for Americans United. "Rep. Pryce is playing desperate word games to try to confuse her constituents about her well-documented pro-privatization record -- but Ohioans know better. Rep. Pryce and her friends in Congress are not going to get away with condemning their own personal definitions of ‘privatization' and then trumpeting ‘personal retirement accounts' in the same breath. Any proposal that seeks to take even one penny from the Social Security Trust Fund to advance private accounts is privatization - pure and simple. Deborah Pryce can and will continue to call her risky investment scheme anything but privatization, but the result is still the same: massive benefit cuts for the middle-class and trillions of dollars in new debt. And nothing will change the fact that privatization wouldn't add a day to the life of Social Security - not one single day."
Americans United, the group which led the fight to beat back the Bush-privatization proposal in 2005, has renewed their national campaign to get privatization off the table once and for all. AU recently unveiled a TV ad that ran in 5 states, including Ohio, which highlighted the President's renewed effort to privatize Social Security. Bush first hinted at his intentions of resuscitating his hugely unpopular privatization proposal during a speech in Washington D.C. on June 27th, assuring his audience that "now is the time" and that "If we can't get it done this year, I'm going to try next year. And if we can't get it done next year, I'm going to try the year after that." On July 11th, Bush took action with the release of his administration's Mid-Session Budget Review. The President's budget includes a proposal to divert $721 billion from the Social Security trust fund to private accounts over the next 10 years - virtually the same proposal which was overwhelmingly rejected by the American public in 2005. The ad can be viewed here: http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/blog/entries/dont_cut_social_security/
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