For Immediate Release:
March 8, 2001
SENIORS HAIL PASSAGE OF BUSH TAX CUT

Statement by 60 Plus Association President Jim Martin

Washington, D.C. — Tax cuts benefit all of society but particularly senior citizens who live on fixed incomes,” in the view of a national advocacy group for the elderly.

That assessment of House passage Thursday of part of President George W. Bush’s tax cut proposal was made by Jim Martin, head of the 60 Plus Association, a nonpartisan organization with 500,000 members.

Martin emphasized that “seniors feel safe and secure with the pledge by President Bush to protect the Social Security surplus.”

“These surpluses are not endangered by the Bush tax cut,” Martin stressed, “despite what Democrats imply. It’s shameful, actually it’s disgraceful, for Democrats to scare seniors with talk that tax cuts jeopardize Social Security.”

“After all, until the last Congress, Democrats spent every penny of Social Security surpluses ‘like drunken sailors’, as the saying goes, treating these surpluses as their own personal piggy bank to finance non-senior programs,” Martin said.

It’s now the height of hypocrisy for Democrats to falsely accuse the President of jeopardizing Social Security with his tax cuts.

The $1.6 trillion tax cut plan leaves $4 trillion of the projected $5.6 trillion surplus, setting aside the $2.8 trillion Social Security surplus leaves more than ample funds for debt reduction and to pay for increases in education, protecting the environment and defense.

Clearly this President says what he means and means what he says. He didn’t just promise tax cuts in the campaign while protecting Social Security and Medicare. He also delivered and for that senior citizens are grateful.

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