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IDP: Grassley flip flops on privatizing Social Security - again
3/5/2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 4, 2010

Contact: Ali Glisson 515-244-7292

Grassley flip flops on privatizing Social Security - again

DES MOINES, IA – On his monthly call-in show last night, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley advocated against a plan to privatize Social Security- the same plan he was for only a few years ago.

"We may want to check in with Senator Grassley tomorrow to see where he stands on privatizing Social Security. Senator Grassley's plan to privatize Social Security would have made a fortune for the Wall Street elite and hurt everyday Iowans," said Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan.

The following is a transcript from last night's show:

Transcript:

(Caller) LONA: Senator Grassley, I am a Democrat who has voted for you many times. I appreciate your service to our state. I want to know if you still support privatizing Social Security?

SENATOR GRASSLEY: I was never in favor of privatizing Social Security, but I was in favor of giving people a choice. People could, uh, could, uh, under what we are talking about, although it never got into a bill, so I can’t, you can’t, you can’t tell me, you aren’t telling me, I mean I just want to say generically that I introduced a bill to do any of this stuff that I am telling you, but we were trying to negotiate in 2005 where people could stay in traditional Medicare, not Medicare, Social Security as it has always been, continue down that road, or they could take 1 percentage point, 2 percentage points of the taxes they pay in and they could have the government put that in a separate account for them, say like the federal employees do with their 401ks, for example. But the federal government would manage it. When you use the word privatize, it means that we would not have the government running Social Security and we wouldn’t have Social Security, I have never been for that.

FACT CHECK: In 1996 Senator Grassley offered the motion to kill an amendment that would allow individual private investment with two percent of the 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax because it was the 'partial privatization of Social Security.'1

Fast forward: "He worked with former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., for example, on a proposal to partly privatize Social Security by taking two percent of the payroll tax for individual retirement accounts and investing it in the stock market for higher returns.2

Sources:

1. Omaha World Herald, 5/29/96 2. Omaha World Herald 1/13/01




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