GOP Social Security Playbook:

[Obviousman]

http://www.dailykos.com/images/user/3/GOP_SocialSecurity_Playbook.pdf

This is from kos. Everyone should read this over and send a link to your elected (democratic) representatives. If there is any dirt in here it should get sent to Harry Reid's "War Room" and used like a 2x4 to club over the heads of the Republicans

[papau]

1. Some details on the plan

GOP to sell "ownership and control, rather than 'privatization,' so as to get folks to screw themselves out of benefits, and to get Dem Senators Bill Nelson (Fla.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Kent Conrad (N.D.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), and Mark Pryor (Ark.) to "swing" to screwing the aged to protect tax cuts for the rich.

Indeed the WSJ's Jackie Calmes'was on point that " Some Republicans privately doubt that all members of their congressional conference understand the sensitive issues involved, such as the estimated $2 trillion transition cost for private accounts, future benefit reductions and possible payroll-tax increases for upper-income workers."

With Frank Luntz advising the GOP on how to talk about Social Security changes without alienating voters, how can they lose! I expect to see a lot of Frank on MSNBC!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49938-20...

washingtonpost.com
Congressional Republicans Agree to Launch Social Security Campaign

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 31, 2005; Page A04


WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. -- Congressional Republicans, after three months of internal debate, this weekend launched a months-long campaign to try to convince constituents that rewriting the Social Security law would be cheaper and less risky than leaving it alone, as the White House opened a campaign to pressure several Senate Democrats to support the changes.

The Republicans left an annual retreat in the Allegheny Mountains with a 104-page playbook titled "Saving Social Security," a deliberate echo of the language President Bill Clinton used to argue that the retirement system's trust fund should be built up in anticipation of the baby boomers' retirement.

The congressional Republicans' confidential plan was developed with the advice of pollsters, marketing experts and communication consultants, and was provided to The Washington Post by a Republican official. The blueprint urges lawmakers to promote the "personalization" of Social Security, suggesting ownership and control, rather than "privatization," which "connotes the total corporate takeover of Social Security." Democratic strategists said they intend to continue fighting the Republican plan by branding it privatization, and assert that depiction is already set in people's minds.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) plans to say Monday in a "prebuttal" to President Bush's State of the Union address that her party will not "let a guaranteed benefit become a guaranteed gamble."

The Republican's book, with a golden nest egg on the cover, urges the GOP to "talk in simple language," "keep the numbers small," "avoid percentages; your audience will try to calculate them in their head" and "acknowledge risks," because listeners "know they can lose their investments."<snip>