Bush to Shift His Social Security Focus to Solutions

[Rose Siding]

After spending months seeking to convince the nation that Social Security faces serious problems that demand immediate action, President Bush will pivot to a new message next month, working in coordination with Congressional leaders to begin setting out the menu of potentially painful solutions, White House officials said.

Despite polls showing growing resistance to the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's approach to overhauling Social Security, his call for investment accounts, administration officials said they were succeeding in their first goal, which is establishing that Congress needs to act now to deal with the financial strains that the aging population will put on the system in coming decades.

"Phase 1 is heighten the sense that this is a big issue worthy of immediate consideration by Congress," said Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff for policy and Mr. Bush's political strategist. "We have some ways to go in the calendar on that, but the movement on that has been very good."

Mr. Bush continues to face remarkably united Democratic opposition to any plan that involves investment accounts financed by part of the Social Security payroll tax, as well as fissures within his own party. On Friday, Mr. Bush told reporters aboard Air Force One that members of Congress who stood in the way of a solution to the retirement system's long-term problems would pay a political price.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/national/nationalspecial/10social.html

[priller]

1. Will that mythical "plan" finally be unveiled?

n/t

[kliljedahl]

13. Bet it's as good

as his plan for Iraq. You think he can come up with anything besides slogans?


http://www.kliljedahl.net

[RAF]

2. I thought "private accounts" were his solution?

Oh, that's right, his first lame attempt failed. Time to repackage this trojan horse and force it down the American workers throat.

[lancdem]

3. I love this line

"On Friday, Mr. Bush told reporters aboard Air Force One that members of Congress who stood in the way of a solution to the retirement system's long-term problems would pay a political price."

Bring it on, baby.

[durablend]

8. Awwww..sounds like the crybaby is whining again

Me thinks he needs to be dragged behind the woodshed and given a paddling

(though I think he'd probably like it)

[kliljedahl]

12. Only if Condi does it

Pickles isn't into that "kinky" stuff


http://www.kliljedahl.net

[asjr]

11. He loves playing the role of dictator. His solution

is complete indifference to the citizens of this country.

[indepat]

4. The solution is to make good the full faith and credit of the US by

redeeming those $2 trillion in government bonds as needed to pay promised benefits, even if it means rolling back the tax cuts.

[leesa]

5. You mean the twit is actually going to come up with a plan? This ought

to be good.

[teryang]

6. They sabotaged medicare with the drug plan now SS

Medicare was much closer to a liquidity problem. So they deliberately made it worse. Privatization will make SS shortfall date much, much earlier. In other words they are deliberately creating a crisis. The goal is destruction of the New Deal. The right regards any sort of retirement benefit as an "unfunded obligation." That means when they pilfer the funds, they do not want to replace them.

bush's trifecta, the little guy pays in, the rich take out. The little guy gets nothing back.

[w4rma]

7. Still no plan from Bush. Just more empty rhetoric to try to get folks

on board with his destruction of social security.

[fasttense]

9. I got a solution for him

pay me the Social Security his father and Ragean promised me. Don't up the age for full benefits, don't rig the cost of living adjustment to a slower growing number. Give me what you owe me you bunch of lying thieves.:rant:

[teryang]

10. Plunge protection team running out of gimmicks

The so called American Jobs Creation Act reduced taxes on offshore American corporate tax havens so they could repatriate billions cached offshore to avoid American taxes. Approximately a hundred billion is expected to come home to prop up exhausted financial markets.

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/reality/2005/0403.html

Privatization of Social Security is another fix designed to save the hollowed out dollar and its marketeers. Increase the take, reduce the obligations.

The Bushes are thieves on a massive scale. They are expert at this sort of thing. Remember the S&L crisis?

Beyond social security there will be nothing left to steal. Then they will just start breaking into bank accounts and liquidating them, then breaking into homes. Oh, wait a minute that's what they did to Iraq.

[Festivito]

14. ..not a "crisis" but a big immediate issue. What's a crisis?

A big issue of immediate concern???

And, they'll pay a political price to pay... Gee, a threat, almost veiled. How exciting, no, how different, no, how, .. Bush-like.

[deacon2]

15. Still hawking the Norquist Manifesto

"We must starve the beast until we can drown it in the bathtub." When will the god damn DNC find the balls to start using this outrageous quote in adverts and expose these bastards and their real intentions? Here, I'll write on for them:

card: "The GOP has a plan for America"
clip: panic on Wall Street 1929
card: "Some say they're simply nostalgic for an earlier time in our Nation's history"
clip: breadlines, dustbowl
card: "Things were simpler then"
clip: transients fry bologna on wire hangers over a steel drum fire
card: "People lived by their wits, pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps"
clip: a gap-toothed child shoes his worn out shoe soles, wiggles his toes
card: "Some might say they simply don't care"
clip: Bush addressing the "haves and have mores" as "my base"
clip: Norquist walking with Bush and Rove into the White House
VO - meet Grover Norquist, the man with the Republican plan
card: "We must starve the beast until we can drown it in the bathtub." Grove Norquist
VO - that's some plan, America. But the Democrats have a plan, too. It's called Social Security.
clip: Roosevelt signing the New Deal
VO - and it's been securing the future of Americans for 70 wonderful years now. Yes, it's important to have a plan. But it helps if it's one that actually works... for all Americans.
card: The Democratic Party - working for ALL Americans.

[dmr]

18. I like your thinking, Deacon

Excellent job! Let's send it to them.

:)

[adigal]

16. The more he talks, the more citizens flee

He should just shut his mouth and go to Crawford to clear some more brush. Then, possibly, maybe, his approval rating would stop going down.

Every time Chimpie opens his mouth, his approval ratings fall.

[rodeodance]

17. every hour the Dems should have been saying that banking industy

would benefit just as the pharmaceutical industry benefited with his Medicare "refor'!!!!

[Thor_MN]

19. Kool-aid is a solution of coloring, sugar, and artificial flavor in water

Is he finally going to explain what the hell he has been spending taxpayer on for weeks. "My plan will save Social Security!!!" "Uh, excuse me, How?" "Well it's got like, what it has is, you have to have personal accounts, it's YOUR money!!!" "And that's your plan, sir?" "Well, when I tell you my plan, you will see, it's YOUR money!!!"

F'ing moron doesn't have a plan, they thought they would be able to ram this down our throats, prop up Wall Street and make a ton of money off it. Wars won't cut it any more, they can't "grow" them, so they have to find some other way to satisfy their greed.