Paul calls on House leadership to cut taxes on seniors PDF Print E-mail
Paul calls on House leadership to cut taxes on seniors Letters to Gingrich, Archer call for repeal of Clinton tax on Social Security benefits
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, July 23, 1998

WASHINGTON, DC - Calling on the leadership of the US House of Representatives to restore the sacred trust between senior citizens and the US government, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) on Wednesday said a top priority of the US Congress should be repealing President Clinton's 1993 tax increase on Social Security beneficiaries.

In letters to Speaker of the House Newt Gringrich and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, Rep. Paul praised the leadership for a renewed emphasis on tax cuts.

"While I agree that there are a number of issues to be addressed in this year's tax bill, including further reductions in the capitol gains tax and estate taxes, I would like to call your attention to a bill which I introduced this year, HR 2723, 'The Social Security Beneficiaries Tax Reduction Act,'" wrote Paul in his letters. Because of the claims of budget surpluses, Paul said that "it is high time that we ask (the president) to 'give back' these taxpayer dollars to the senior citizens who have been forced to bear this burden, in the form of a repeal of this increase."

Paul said that the rhetoric of "save Social Security first" should be followed through by making sure that Congress takes care of the Social Security beneficiaries immediately by eliminating the taxes levied on their benefits for the last five years.

A big part of the problem, says Paul, is that the President's budget projects that over the next seven years, nearly $1 trillion will be diverted out of the Social Security Trust Fund in order to finance various big-government programs. In 1998 alone, $104 billion will come from the Trust Fund, with the amount diverted rising to $165 billion by 2005.

"We need to cut taxes and stop raiding from the trust fund, or else the 'saving Social Security' rhetoric will be just one more empty political slogan."

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