CNN Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics - Transcript

CNN Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics - Transcript

Well, Senator Hagel's Republican colleague, Charles Grassley of Iowa, is a very influential voice in the Social Security debate. He's the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the committee where any Social Security reform bill would originate. Senator Grassley joins me now from Capitol Hill.

Senator, good to see you.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY ®, IOWA: Well, I'm glad to be with you.

WOODRUFF: First of all, what about Senator Hagel's proposal to raise the retirement age to 68? What do you think?

GRASSLEY: Well, I think that that's one of those issues that very definitely has to be on the table. But that issue in and of itself only solves part of the solvency problem. So I think you put it along with some changing in the indexing formulas, the issue of raising the payroll tax, and a lot of other things.

Let's say there's 100 moving parts. I may be a little outrageous in saying that, but 100 moving parts. What 12 moving parts do you put together?

I think the best answer to your question is, does this lead us a step towards getting a bipartisan agreement? And I think the answer is yes. But this is strictly mathematical.

You know, if I laid 10 charts out here on the table of the problems of Social Security, no Democrat or Republican would disagree with them, that something needs to be done. And then you get to the issue of how to do them.

So what dozen parts to you put together to take care of the $10 to $12 trillion solvency problem that we have over the last-over the next 75 years? And that's set by the trustees, the very same trustees that have told us for the last 25 years we're going to have a problem starting about now.

WOODRUFF: Senator, very quickly, you mentioned raising the payroll tax. Are you talking about the payroll tax rate or raising the cap, the wage cap on which Social Security tax...

GRASSLEY: Yes. I want to make it very clear that I'm not very much in favor of raising the cap. And I am talking about the cap. But I do believe, as an honest broker, as chairman of the committee, in order to get a bipartisan agreement, I can't come to the table and say certain things aren't on the table. Now, the Democrats think they can get away with saying there's certain things that aren't on the table by saying, for instance, personal accounts wouldn't be on the table.

WOODRUFF: Senator, the president is now reported to be considering ending the exemption that future state and local employees receive from paying Social Security taxes. They currently don't have to pay these taxes because they contribute to public pension plans. Is that something that should be on the table?

GRASSLEY: Yes, it should be. But I want to tell you that there's only a handful of states where that's the case. In my state of Iowa, state and local employees pay into Social Security.

WOODRUFF: Senator, another-another thing about the timetable of all this. It was just about a week ago when you said you thought, and I'm quoting you now, you said you thought in another two or three weeks you would like to see some movement in the public opinion polls or you might have some question about the president's succeeding in selling his plan to the American people.

Are you still sticking with that timetable?

GRASSLEY: I'm sticking with it, but I'm giving the president yet a longer period of time to get the voice at the grassroots strong enough to come to Congress to move Congress along. And I do believe that that will happen.

On the other hand, the president has already made grade strides, because if you go back to last fall, Social Security was not on any citizen's chart of things that Congress ought to be dealing with. Because of the president's work, it's now listed as number one, two or three by the public at large in polls that is a problem Congress should be dealing with.

WOODRUFF: But you still have opposition, at least the polls I've seen, opposition to the private accounts.

GRASSLEY: Well, we sure do, because everybody was led to believe that that was going to be a solution to the solvency problem. And nobody really thought that, but that was all that was talked about.

And, of course, the Democrats have gotten a free ride out of this because they've concentrated on just the personal accounts and their opposition to it. And they've been able to avoid until I brought the issue up in the article that you quoted that-that really who's concerned about the next 75 years?

WOODRUFF: OK.

GRASSLEY: You know, Grandpa Grassley, am I concerned about my granddaughter having Social Security? And we've got to focus on that, too.

WOODRUFF: Just to be very clear, senator, and quickly, to go by the timetable you were cited on a week ago, we would be now down to another week or two. So you said you're taking another look at that. How much time does the president have now?

GRASSLEY: Well, it's going to take, you know, 60 days before it's going to-if he's successful, it will show up in the polls so that we can move. But listen, I intend as chairman of this committee to make this an issue regardless of whether the president's successful because I haven't had a chance in 20 years with presidential help to have an opportunity to tackle this issue. And as Chuck Hagel said, it's better to tackle it now, at $600 billion cheaper this year, than next year.

WOODRUFF: So you're extending the timetable?

GRASSLEY: Well, I'm extending it from the standpoint of what I'm going to do on my own initiative. If I do it because of the president's initiative, you know, it's just a few weeks away.

WOODRUFF: OK. All right. Well, we're going to-we'll keep looking at the calendar, Senator. Thank you very much.

GRASSLEY: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: And we appreciate you talking to us today.

GRASSLEY: You bet.

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