WASHINGTON – President Clinton last night said, “I reach out my hand,” to Republicans and Democrats alike as he kicked off a fight to save Social Security – smack in the middle of his impeachment trial.
“The state of our union is strong,” Clinton reported in his annual address – just hours after his lawyers began their battle to keep him from being ousted over Sexgate before his term ends.
In his State of the Union speech, Clinton unveiled a plan that calls for saving Social Security by letting the federal government invest in Wall Street for the first time ever – and uses the Uncle Sam surplus that Republicans want to put toward tax cuts.
“I reach out my hand to those of you of both parties in both houses and ask you to join me in saying we will save Social Security now,” said the president’s text.
Republicans quickly denounced the plan as an invitation to mischief and cronyism in stock-picking.
To add extra aura to the Sexgate-tarnished Clinton presidency, First Lady Hillary Clinton invited home-run slugger Sammy Sosa as well as civil-rights heroine Rosa Parks to sit with her.
Clinton linked Sosa to his wife, Hillary – the woman who has stood by him through Sexgate – recalling how the First Lady and Sosa dedicated a hospital together in the Dominican Republic after last year’s Hurricane Georges.
“Sports records are made and sooner or later they are broken. But making other people’s lives better – and showing our children the true meaning of brotherhood – that’s something that lasts forever,” Clinton said.
“So for far more than baseball, Sammy Sosa, you are a hero of two countries.”
Sosa’s invite came the day after a furor erupted in New York, in which Congress of Racial Equality leader Roy Innis accused Sosa of demanding private planes and cash donations to come to a Martin Luther King dinner.
White House spokeswoman Amy Weiss said no special arrangements were made for Sosa – “absolutely not” – and that the Chicago Cubs star made his own travel arrangements.
Clinton also unveiled plans for $1,000 tax credits to help families caring for senior citizens, up to $250 per baby to help stay-at-home parents get child care, a 55-cents-a-pack cigarette tax hike, and more defense spending including stepped-up efforts against germ, chemical and cyber warfare.
“America is working again,” Clinton said. “The promise of our future is limitless. But we cannot realize that promise if we allow the hum of our prosperity to lull us into complacency.”
Clinton delivered his speech in the chamber of the House before representatives who impeached him last month as well as the senators who are now deciding whether to kick him out.
The official Republican response took note of the extraordinary scene.
“Our country is not in crisis … No matter what the outcome of the president’s situation, life in America will go on,” said Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.).
Clinton’s Social Security plan calls for taking 62 percent of the budget surplus – which is expected to total $4.4 billion over the next 15 years – and using it to shore up Social Security.
It would also allow up to 15 percent of the Social Security system’s assets to be invested in the stock market in hopes of boosting returns and keeping the system solvent until the year 2055.
“With the number of elderly Americans set to double by 2030, the Baby Boom will become a ‘senior boom,'” said Clinton, who added the surplus allows Uncle Sam to address “the aging of America.”
Clinton’s Social Security plan got a quick, emphatic, negative reaction from Republicans, who slapped down the idea of Uncle Sam picking stocks.
“No, no, a thousand times no,” fumed powerful House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer (R-Texas). “It will open the doors to all kinds of mischief involving government dictates, favoritism and cronyism.”
Some lawmakers are backing an alternative approach to let individuals control some of their own Social Security money and invest it in stocks of their choice, not Uncle Sam’s.
Clinton’s retirement proposal also calls for using 11 percent of the surplus – or $33 billion a year for 15 years – to help poor and middle-class people set up personal retirement savings accounts.
In addition, the president would devote 15 percent of the surplus to saving the Medicare health-care system for seniors and 11 percent for domestic and defense spending including military pay hikes, with a bigger pay hike to keep military pilots from being lured by the private sector.