From last night’s Special Report with Brit Hume:

—On Taxes—

MORT KONDRACKE: You are not going to get this problem solved unless you make a deal. And the deal is that the Republicans would win and the Democrats would give up on the point of shaving back benefits — promised benefits to future retirees, Medicare benefits, Social Security benefits and stuff like that, and the Republicans would agree to more revenue from some source. And the source that everybody is discussing, as Nina said, lifting the ceiling on payroll taxes now at $94,000 a year on Social Security.
FRED BARNES: No, that’s not a good deal. That’s a terrible deal. Why? I don’t know Republicans who want to cut benefits and they certainly don’t want to raise taxes. The single most important element is private accounts. That would allow people to invest some of their Social Security taxes, earn money, and then — and it helps in the long run because it means they will get smaller benefits eventually.
[T]the White House has put everything on the table. They’re open to anything. How about Democrats? The ball’s on their court. Is that — are they open to that? They should be.
NINA EASTON: I think Bush is backed into this corner . . . he’s playing with fire with conservatives to raise this issue of raising taxes. And — or to even let it be on the table, A, and then B, you’ve Democrats who aren’t going to agree to a real private savings account where you carve out a piece of Social Security, as opposed to adding on to Social Security.
BARNES: Then they shouldn’t be allowed to raise taxes. Look, I talked to people in the House today — House Republicans, they’re not going to go along with any deal like this.
You have a huge surplus in Social Security now. Why raise taxes now, money that will just be spent by Congress and you’ll just have make it up later, anyway. So, it’s stupid, it’s bad policy, and it is for President Bush — this is the worst possible politics . . . this is his only real tie left to conservatives and to most Republicans, for that matter. He’d be crazy to go along with anything.