The Hartford Courant today has a
lengthy article on the upcoming Social Security forum
to be held next Saturday, April 16th at Connecticut College. Simmons is not happy..
After months and months of waiting, we still haven't had a forum on the matter of Social Security, even after pro-privatization Shays and Johnson held forums in their districts in the last few weeks.
The Connecticut College Democrats are hosting a statewide event for College Democrats, and asked Congressman Larson to participate in a concluding forum on Social Security that will be open to the public. Simmons was irked and approached Larson on the floor yesterday..... (continued)
The situation is so sensitive that Simmons approached Larson for a private conversation about it on the House floor Wednesday. He wanted to know why Larson was participating - and why he hadn't let him know about it.
..
When Simmons asked him about the appearance, Larson said he viewed the matter as part of a Democratic convention, not an attempt to discredit Simmons. The East Hartford congressman described the five- to 10-minute talk as "cordial."
Simmons is still opposed to hosting a forum on the subject, so it's no surprise young constituents finally decided to host one themselves! Despite all the fallout, don't expect to see Simmons hosting a forum like hundreds of his other colleagues have already done:
Simmons believes such forums are not productive, Mitchell said.
"You can't just have one town meeting and say, 'Everybody come.' It's a huge district," Mitchell said, adding that interest groups frequently bus people in and dominate town meetings.
Another cop-out from Simmons' office. Simmons has held town hall meetings in the past, including a pair on terrorism in January 2002 (one of which in Larson's district), a forum on medicare changes in November, 2003, a Lyme disease forum in 2002, an Indian Gaming forum in 2002, and many others.
Why is he treating Social Security differently? It's because his position is not consistent. Let's review:
2000 - Campaigns against privatization2001 - Signs "The Demint" letter supporting privatization.2002 - Campaigns again against privatization2004 - Says he's against it during the 2004 campaign2005 - Says "no way" on privatization, says he'll be dead by 2042.Feb. 1, 2005 - Supports the President on privatizing social security for young workersFeb. 2, 2005 - Supports private accounts only if they're not used in place of existing benefits
<!--break-->