W's January Surprise

[Nbadan]

Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:46 PM ET

By Mark Egan

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - If re-elected, President Bush plans a "big January surprise" and will move quickly to allow some private Social Security accounts that will reduce benefits for retirees and swell the U.S. deficit, Democratic Sen. John Kerry said on Sunday.

With just 16 days before the Nov. 2 presidential election, Kerry kept up his relentless criticism of Bush's record on the economy in his bid to win a neck-and-neck White House race.

Speaking at a Baptist church in Columbus, Ohio, Kerry seized on remarks by Bush published in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday that if elected to a second term he would "come out strong after my swearing in with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security."

Kerry said Bush's plan would cut benefits by up to 45 percent and would swell an already record deficit by $2 trillion over a decade.

"We just learned yesterday that the president told his biggest and wealthiest donors about his big 'January surprise,"' Kerry told the black congregation. "He's to come out strong, in his words, to fight for his plans to privatize Social Security."

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Reuters

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

This just in, Kerry will say anything to get elected. If he thought it'd help his cause to stand up and say "I love Osama bin Laden", he'd do it.