Ways and Means chairman tries to sink Social Security reform

This is pretty clearly a stupid, petty attempt by Chaiman Thomas to create unnecessary controversy around Bush's social security plan. Nobody in his right political mind would suggest tying social security benefits to gender, let alone race! By creating this mess, Thomas hopes to sully Bush's plan before it's even introduced. It's no secret he's miffed Bush chose to push SS reform over his pet issue, tax reform. But instead of helping Bush get SS done, and move on to taxes, he's doing everything he can to get in the way. From Robert Novak's January 1 column:

While President Bush always has planned not to tackle tax reform until 2006 after the Social Security change is passed, the most influential tax drafter in Congress has been quietly planning to put Social Security and tax reform together.

Rep. Bill Thomas of California, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has been working with fellow Republicans on his committee to combine the two massive reforms. Thomas keeps secret the details of his plan, but colleagues say it is a workable concept. The conventional wisdom has been that Social Security and tax reform are such complicated and difficult questions that they must be approached separately.

Hey Chairman Thomas: how many votes did you get this November? I bet it wasn't 61 million. Maybe you should let the White House take the lead on their signature issue rather than concocting secret plans with no chance of passing, even without you making a fool out of yourself on Meet the Press.

Democrats are going to have a field day with this, as well they should.

Republicans from the White House on down need to excoriate Thomas, publically.