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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (167957)	8/6/2001 1:00:17 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

If the media is so very liberal, why are they reporting non-news about Condit 24/7 without ever mentioning that the Treasury Secretary has proposed eliminated Social Security and Medicare? You would think that a Demolib-loving media would be all over this one. From Fair.org: When a high-level government official calls for drastic changes in U.S. law, it ought to be big news. But in an interview reported by the Financial Times' Amity Shlaes (5/19/01 & 5/22/01), treasury secretary Paul O'Neill called for sweeping changes in U.S. tax and social policy, and some three weeks later, those statements have made hardly a ripple in the U.S. media. Most Americans have probably not heard a word about them. In the interview, O'Neill called the current U.S. tax system "an abomination" that required changes to its "very structure." His preferred changes? O'Neill "absolutely" supports the elimination of taxes on corporations-- and the shifting of the tax burden to individuals, saying government would work better if it "collected taxes in a more direct way from the people." He also called for the abolition of Social Security and Medicare, on the grounds that "able-bodied adults should save enough on a regular basis so that they can provide for their own retirement, and, for that matter, health and medical needs." In fact, O'Neill believes the U.S. should reconsider the whole purpose of taxation: "National defense is a federal responsibility," Shlaes paraphrases O'Neill as saying, "but all other outlays need review." And O'Neill assured Shlaes he was not speaking only for himself: "Not only am I committed to working on this issue, the president is also intrigued about the possibility of fixing this mess."