Joe Scarborough has a Rovian theory why Bush, in his April 28 press conference, said “he would favor a system that tilted Social Security benefit payments in the future toward the lowest income retirees.”
Rove is “setting Democrats up for the kill in 2006,” claims the MSNBC host on his “Scarborough Country” blog. “Rove and Bush know their vision of reform was dead on arrival. Now it’s time to clean up the carcass.”
Bush proposes saving Social Security on the backs of the wealthy. He knows neither Republicans nor Democrats will touch it. It costs him nothing.
And next fall, when Democratic leaders like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi try to attack the President and his allies for their failed Social Security plan, class warfare will be off the table.
That’s because George Bush played that card at his press conference last week.
Scarborough quips, “It took me a few days to decode the White House strategy. The funny thing is it will take Harry Reid two years. Game, set, match once again to Karl Rove.”
SeniorJournal.com reports:
“Bush’s proposal would let benefits grow as already promised for the poorest Americans but cut promised benefits for those making more. The proposal marked the first time Bush has offered any specific recommendation to change the retirement system since he proposed allowing younger workers to divert some of their taxes into private retirement accounts,” said Knight Ridder News Service.
“Hoping to jump-start negotiations with lawmakers and win over skeptical Americans, Bush said he wanted to ensure that “future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today’s seniors get” but offered no details. A Bush aide said later that future benefits under this proposal would continue to grow but at a slower pace,” said the report by Reuters..
Democrats were quick to respond. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid tonight released the following statement on President Bush’s Social Security plan:
“Democrats have traveled across the country to hear from the American people on how we can strengthen Social Security for current and future generations. What we heard was overwhelmingly clear — Social Security has meant retirement and economic security for millions of American families.
“As the President completes his own 60-day tour, we had hoped that he would take the concerns of the American people to heart, and abandon his misleading plan to privatize Social Security. His privatization plan would slash guaranteed Social Security benefits and burden future generations with trillions of dollars of new debt largely borrowed by China and Japan.
“All the President did tonight was confirm that he will pay for his risky privatization scheme by cutting the benefits of middle-class seniors. President Bush cannot escape the fact that privatization will weaken Social Security at a time we should be strengthening it.
“Democrats stand ready to strengthen Social Security on a bipartisan basis so that all Americans receive the guaranteed benefits they have earned. We urge the President to begin considering proposals that strengthen Social Security in a way that does not gut benefits for middle-class families and does not place retirees at the mercy of the stock market.”
Text of Bush’s press conference.
Where’s Harry’s wit and bite when we need it. Rove is practicing “dart-baord democracy”, or better yet, “thow-it-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks”. All the democrats have to do is repeat that SS does need work, and we better hurry because we only have forty years to come up with a solution.
The administration obviously needs anal-cranial surgery to get their collective head out their ass. But that doesn’t excuse democrat’s “political-speak” response. Just put up a chart with headlines showing the rovian rhetoric from November through this month.
Well, you get the idea. The most powerful weapon we have is a mirror. Toons.
Rove is like a Pavlovian dog, he sees a social program that works and just has to destroy it. Rove is the quintessential Right Wingnut, who professes that God has deemed it our time. Our time to dismantle the greatest Social programing in the history of mankind. Those programs that insured to some degree that children in America would not go hungry, that disease would not rampage through our society, that everyone in America could achieve greatness through hard work and perseverance. What Rove and his ilk want to achieve is an ogliarchy, where a few maintain the wealth of our nation and dictate who, what, when, where and how to all the people of this great nation. My only hope is that Rove one day will face his maker and that he will be scolded like a mischievous school boy bully and sent to that other place reserved for those who lied cheated and stole from that creator.
Too late:
One percent of the U.S. population owns sixty percent of the stock and forty percent of the total wealth. [Endgame – Sourced].
Income inequality: In 1999:
the poorest fifth of the US population received 3.7% of the total income
second poorest fifth received 9.0
middle fifth received 15.0%
second richest fifth received 23.0%
richest fifth received 49.3%
the other sneaky thing that’s come out of the press conference is subtly characterizing soc sec as a program for the poor… it was never intended as such but if public perception can be maneuvered into seeing it as a welfare program instead of the retirement program it was meant to be, when the final solution of “starving the beast” is upon us, soc sec will be that much easier to kill…
Great observation. Yes, just another welfare program … that’ll make the upper classes like the current Social Security program even less, won’t it.
SS was started in response to elderly poverty and incomplete solutions that had been tried, with varying degrees of success, at the state level prior to 1935. It was meant to give people some economic security. FDR started such a program in NY while he was governor.
As Governor of New York, it was my pleasure to recommend passage of the Old-Age Pension Act which, I am told, is still generally regarded as the most liberal in the country. In approving the bill, I expressed my opinion that full solution of this problem is possible only on insurance principles. It takes so very much money to provide even a moderate pension for everybody, that when the funds are raised from taxation only a “means test” must necessarily be made a condition of the grant of pensions.