Can Bush privitize Social Security by presdential directive??

[Emillereid]

If this fellow is right Bush could begin to dismantle SS even without the votes -- heaven help us!

The ace up his sleeve



NEW YORK (CNN) -- This past weekend, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the influential chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, seemed to throw cold water on President Bush's hopes for major Social Security change. And recent polls have shown that the public is also cool to the idea of private accounts, arguably the central element of President Bush's Social Security plan.

But as the Social Security debate continues to unfold, do not underestimate President Bush's ability to still get his ideas enacted. Indeed, even without broad Congressional or public support, President Bush just may have an ace up his sleeve. How might he enact his private accounts idea without such support, you may ask? By executive order.

Indeed, the Constitution has long provided the president with a certain amount of unilateral power to make policy. And from George Washington to George W. Bush, that power has frequently been used when presidents have felt stymied by Congress or the courts. Among some of the notable presidential directives (a broader category of unilateral presidential power that includes executive orders, proclamations, pardons, national security directives and more) are: the Louisiana Purchase, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Japanese Internment Camps.

When President Clinton failed to get his health care plan passed in the mid-1990s, he experimented with portions of his program via executive order.

Similarly, if President Bush ultimately fails to persuade Congress (especially centrist Senators) to back his private account plan, he may sign an executive order for a smaller version of his plan, such as allowing federal employees to experiment with a heavily regulated form of private accounts. It clearly would not be his first choice.......

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/29/ace.up.sleeve/index.html

[shoelace414]

1. time to dissolve congress

[DBoon]

4. It took Mussolini a few years to dissolve parliment

I'm sure Bush is up to it as well

[riveroffools]

2. Yes he can according to what I have heard; but I do not hink he would. NT

[liberal N proud]

3. I would think that even the repukes in Congress would have to

say enough!
Even most of the repukes do not support this wild ass money grab because they know it is wrong and foolish with their constituents.
I would hope that knowledge and fear is enough for them to stand up the the monster at 1600 and say back of you little weasel.

[fob]

5. Actually I would expect for bush* to go ahead and do that and the repukes

to run AGAINST it in 2006! If bush* does do it look for certain repukes to "out-liberal" Dems defending the sanctity of SS.

Book it.