WASHINGTON - President Bush's plans to revamp and privatize Social
Security are ill-timed and will be difficult to support in light of the
country's burgeoning deficit and costly war in Iraq, U.S. Sen. Lincoln
Chafee said today.
In an interview with the Associated Press, the maverick moderate
Republican from Rhode Island acknowledged that his upcoming re-election
campaign in 2006 may require him to cooperate more with his GOP
leadership and the Bush administration.
But that has not dimmed his fist-pounding disgust with the way the White
House is handling foreign policy in the Middle East, or tempered his
discomfort with Bush's plan to borrow money to pay for the Social
Security reforms.
"You tend to be supportive as you come into the (election) cycle," said
Chafee, who flirted briefly with joining the Democratic Party right
after Bush gained re-election last month. "If I need their help
occasionally, I'm going to have to help them. But I'm not going to
sacrifice my principles either."
He said he is reluctant to even talk about Bush's plan to allow workers
to create private retirement accounts because he worries about rising
interest rates and the weakening dollar.
"It's the wrong time and I regret that we're looking at this in the
context of huge deficits," said Chafee, who was appointed to fill the
Senate seat of his father, the late Sen. John Chafee, in 1999, and who
won the post in the 2000 election.
Torn between his unease with the GOP's conservative shift and his
loyalty to the party he was born into, the pro-environment, pro-abortion
rights Republican alternated between sharp critiques of administration
policies and carefully chosen words of caution.
Slamming his fists on the table, Chafee said he has been so disappointed
and angry with the White House's resistance to the Sept. 11 report on
the terrorist attacks and the slow progress on the intelligence bill,
that he'd almost like to vote against the measure as a protest. But,
since he favors the overhaul of the nation's intelligence agencies, he
will vote for it, he said.
Reflecting on his recent trip to Iraq - including a swing through
Baghdad - he said Bush must be honest with the American people about how
bleak and violent the situation is there. And he said the costly,
difficult war could overwhelm Bush's second term, much like Vietnam did
in its time, making it difficult to get other things done.
The Bush administration, he said, must also reach out more to countries
in that region, including Iran and Syria, to work toward peace. But he
said Bush's choice of Condoleezza Rice to succeed Secretary of State
Colin Powell does not bode well for Middle East diplomacy because it
suggest "a more hawkish view on foreign affairs."
Reflecting on his own politics, Chafee said it may be more difficult
this year for moderate Republicans to pull the party's legislative
agenda back to the middle - particularly as he and fellow centrist Sen.
Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, prepare for re-election bids.
"The party is being pulled rightward or southward," said Chafee, who
voted against Bush's tax cuts. "I see the gravitational pull nationally,
that is different from the values I have."
He said he never really wanted to leave the GOP. And he has been
reassured by both party leaders and conservative groups that they will
not go after him in a 2006 primary.
But at the same time, he said he will not give up his role as an
independent voice in the caucus.
"My convictions are dear to me and I think my state likes me to be
independent," Chafee said. "I like standing up in my caucus and taking
an alternative position, and I think they like somebody else to, whether
it's on the deficit or the war or on environmental issues, to give a
different point of view."
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