Oh my, has there ever been a worse non-answer to a debate question than this?
BROKAW: There are lots of issues that we are going to be dealing with here tonight. And we have a question from Langdon (ph) in Ballston Spa, New York, and that's about huge unfunded obligations for Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs that will soon eat up all of the revenue that's in place and then go into a deficit position. Since the rules are pretty loose here, I'm going to add my own to this one. Instead of having a discussion, let me ask you as a coda to that. Would you give Congress a date certain to reform Social Security and Medicare within two years after you take office? Because in a bipartisan way, everyone agrees, that's a big ticking time bomb that will eat us up maybe even more than the mortgage crisis. MCCAIN: Social Security is not that tough. We know what the problems are, my friends, and we know what the fixes are. We've got to sit down together across the table. It's been done before. I saw it done with our -- our wonderful Ronald Reagan, a conservative from California, and the liberal Democrat Tip O'Neill from Massachusetts. That's what we need more of, and that's what I've done in Washington. Sen. Obama has never taken on his party leaders on a single major issue. I've taken them on. I'm not too popular sometimes with my own party, much less his. So Medicare, it's going to be a little tougher. It's going to be a little tougher because we're talking about very complex and difficult issues. My friends, what we have to do with Medicare is have a commission, have the smartest people in America come together, come up with recommendations, and then, like the base-closing commission idea we had, then we should have Congress vote up or down. Let's not let them fool with it anymore. There's too much special interests and too many lobbyists working there. So let's have -- and let's have the American people say, "Fix it for us." I'm used to non-answers in political debates but this one really caused me a double take. Did he really say what I think he just said... sadly, he did. Yikes! Now, in all fairness to McCain, Obama didn't answer the question either, but somehow he manages to avoid that 'jaw-dropping-omg-duh' moment that McCain earned. On Oct 7, 10:48 pm, Hollywood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > wncs, > > No pal of mine. > > On Oct 7, 9:40 pm, wncs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > <gag> He is not my friend. > > > On Oct 7, 10:38 pm, "d.b.baker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > "My friends," I'm sorry I wasted Governor Palin's time and talents in > > > my pathetic effort to call you "my friends." > > > > The end.- Hide quoted text - > > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
