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E-mailBush open to taxing rich to save Social Security
At the same time, Bush renewed his pitch Wednesday for Congress to approve an overhaul that would include Social Security private accounts for many workers. He told an audience of 2,000 at an airport terminal that rich and poor alike should have the opportunity to invest in the stock market.
"Investors aren't just Wall Street people, as far as I'm concerned," Bush told the audience, invited by the state's all-GOP congressional delegation. "I think every citizen, every citizen has got the capacity to manage his or her own money."
The president gave only passing mention to options for fixing the program's long-term financial woes.
On Tuesday, however, he told reporters for New England newspapers that he isn't ruling out making more wages subject to Social Security taxes.
Asked directly, Bush said he would not bar raising the $90,000 cap, although he does not want to see the payroll-tax rate rise.
"The one thing I'm not open-minded about is raising the payroll-tax rate. And all the other issues go on the table," Bush said in the interview, according to an account printed yesterday in the New Haven (Conn.) Register.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said raising the cap on Social Security taxes is just one option among many being advocated.
"Just because he said it was an option doesn't mean he embraced it," Duffy said.
Under the current system, payroll taxes are paid only on the first $90,000 in wages. Last year's ceiling was $87,100. The Social Security tax rate is now 12.4 percent of pay, split between workers and employers.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and other lawmakers have argued that Bush's proposed personal accounts -- which would cost more than $1 trillion up front -- would be more attractive to Democratic lawmakers if the accounts were partially financed by raising taxes on the wealthy.
If Congress did nothing but lift the cap entirely and, therefore, subjected all wages to the tax, Social Security would be financially balanced for 75 years, although the system would face trouble afterward, according to one economic analysis.
In New Hampshire, Bush vowed to continue traveling the country to convince Americans that the system needs to be fixed. In turn, Bush hopes that Americans will persuade Capitol Hill lawmakers to act.
"I'm going to talk to the American people over and over and over again until the members of Congress recognize we have a problem," Bush said.
The president must continue to make his case, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Asked about the mood of Senate Republicans toward the issue, he said Tuesday: "Every member would like to see Social Security go away, but it isn't going to go away because the president won't let it go away."
With his quick visit in New Hampshire yesterday, Bush now has hosted Social Security-focused forums in eight states since his Feb. 2 State of the Union address.
New Hampshire is home to a pair of GOP senators who already strongly support Bush's ideas.
In neighboring Maine, however, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe has come out against personal accounts, and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has urged caution. Both are Republicans.
Portsmouth, N.H. borders Maine. Local-news coverage of Bush's visit yesterday was likely to reach Snowe's and Collins' constituents in the southern, populous part of Maine.
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