Exclusive Interview With Bisnow on Business: Santorum Says Legal Reform at Top of 2005 Senate Agenda

Exclusive Interview With Bisnow on Business: Santorum Says Legal Reform at Top of 2005 Senate Agenda

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Sen. Rick Santorum, third ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate, says asbestos litigation reform is "desperately needed," and that class action reform "could be one of first things we do" in 2005, citing the latter as a high priority that appears to have attracted broad Senate support.

Santorum made these comments in an exclusive interview with Bisnow on Business, one of the Internet's leading interviewers of Washington policymakers, which also produces the PolicyWonk Weekly distributed each Monday by The Hill newspaper. The audio of Santorum's interview can be heard at http://www.bisnow.com/.

Santorum also told Bisnow on Business that the budget deficit will be a major issue, saying Congress will need to hold discretionary spending to "at or below inflation" and to deal with entitlement programs, including Social Security and "not ruling out" Medicare and Medicaid, so as to control "exploding costs we see in the out years." He said that at a White House meeting on Monday, the President pledged to "spend a lot of political capital" to change the way Social Security is financed from the "old world view of increasing taxes and cutting benefits" to some means of "pre-funding" liabilities as birth rates decline and the population ages. He said it is clear the President wants Social Security reform to be bipartisan and has "extended the olive branch" to Democrats to join him.

But, Santorum says, "Fundamental reform of the tax code will be hard to do anytime soon" because people are not in agreement on whether the key problem is the tax code's complexity, the harm its provisions create for U.S. competitiveness, inefficiency in collecting revenue, or not using the tax code enough to solve problems. He notes that the increased Republican majority to 55 is still not the 60 votes needed to block filibusters, and that he is hoping that Democrats will realize that their strategy of "blocking shifts in policy" has been politically counterproductive.

Bisnow on Business partners with The Hill newspaper to distribute the PolicyWonk Weekly, and with FoxNews1160 in Washington, D.C. to provide business reports. For more information, see http://www.bisnow.com/, hosted by TVWorldwide.


Source: Bisnow on Business

CONTACT: Mark Bisnow of Bisnow on Business, +1-202-966-1200

Web site: http://www.bisnow.com/


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