Jim Bunning: “As the Senator knows, I offered this very same amendment on the budget bill to repeal the Social Security tax from 85…”

“As the Senator knows, I offered this very same amendment on the budget bill to repeal the Social Security tax from 85 percent to 50 percent, and the very same people who would support that today voted unanimously against it on the budget bill. So the inconsistency that the Senator from North Dakota shows today is something I have a very big problem understanding. If you are for it today, and you want to take these away from seniors, and you also want to take tax away from seniors, you ought to have been consistent and voted to take it away during the budget resolution debate we had on the floor. I know this Senator voted with me on the budget resolution when we tried to repeal it. And I hope we are able to get this amendment accepted. Mr. McCONNELL. I know the Senator from Kentucky agrees with me that we ought to do all three. We ought to get rid of this Clinton Social Security tax. We ought to do a significant dividend exclusion that is, to the maximum extent possible, permitted under our overall ceiling in the growth package. And we ought to begin to address prescription drugs, which the leader has indicated we are going to do in June. If we do those three things, I would say we are well on the way to providing the kinds of relief for seniors--both on the tax side and on the prescription drug side--that they richly deserve, that we have talked about for entirely too long around here and have never done anything about.”