Barney Frank: “Two pieces of legislation tell us a lot about the values of our Republican colleagues. This bill will take $114 billion…”

“Two pieces of legislation tell us a lot about the values of our Republican colleagues. This bill will take $114 billion in revenues out of Social Security, helping them make the case ultimately, in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, that we can't pay everything we want. Earlier this session, they voted overwhelmingly and killed a proposal to give each Social Security recipient $250--not $250,000 or $250 million, numbers with which they are more familiar--but $250. These are people who are going to be facing an increase in Medicare because we learned only in October that there would not be a cost-of-living increase. We couldn't afford the $14 billion to give $250 to older people who are having trouble paying their heating bills, but they can afford $114 billion that will go to everybody, including to people who make $100,000 a year, who will get eight times $250. The values of the Republican Party are revealed by this. By the way, we are in this situation because of dishonesty. When George Bush and the Republicans passed the tax cuts in 2001, they didn't want to admit the full account of how much it cost.”