MSNBC: "How Bush Is Lowering Expectations"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3626796/

As we wrote on Friday, Bush's once earnest campaign to add private accounts to Social Security has dissipated, and he's spending more time touting the energy bill, the highway bill, and CAFTA as his big domestic achievements. In a perfunctory written statement yesterday marking the program's anniversary, he said "we renew our commitment to save and strengthen Social Security for our children and grandchildren, and keep the promise of Social Security for future generations." Beyond the reference to solvency, there was no mention of his desired private accounts. Legislatively, the likely scenario is that a bill passes the House this fall, stalls in the busy and more resistant Senate, and isn't brought up again up during the midterm election year.

In September, the White House is expected to turn its attention away from Social Security and onto tax reform, an issue which may inspire greater GOP unity and thus improve odds for passage. Still, some of the same questions that have come up during Bush's Social Security campaign can be raised about that effort, including how to pay for the reforms (especially any effort to eliminate the alternative minimum tax), and how actively Americans want them. Most polls today show health care and other economic issues like wages and gas prices topping the public's priority list.

Blows to one or both halves of Bush's hoped-for legacy won't necessarily translate into election-year successes for Democrats. The party never unified persuasively behind an alternative Social Security proposal of their own. They are also still gingerly, though with increasing confidence in the face of Bush's poll standing, picking their way around the issue of Iraq as Republicans pounce on any criticism as evidence that Democrats are weak on defense. DNC chair Howard Dean declared yesterday that women "will be worse off in Iraq than they were when Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq;" the RNC responded that Dean's "wild assertion... is not only counterproductive to meaningful debate, it demeans the hard work of American servicemen and women...”

The President currently has no public events planned for this week. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports that anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq, has changed her approach in her effort to meet with President Bush: she is now inviting him to join her and the others gathered at her campsite for a moment of silence and prayer for the troops at 1:00 pm ET on Friday.

[Inland]

1. Bush returns home, like a salmon going upstream: shoveling tax breaks

to his supporters in exchange for political gain.

It's where he began, back in 1998, trying to find an issue where nobody could get to the right of him: a tax cut so huge, so irresponsible that even nutbag Steve Forbes, his anticipated rival, couldn't outdo it.

Of course, there isn't any more Forbes, and most of the tax cut is already in place, and the damage is now apparent, but Bush has been so wounded in any other area, the primal simian brain can only remember days of happiness and contentment and success association with his ramming the tax cut through congress.

He's on autopilot, trying to go home again by animal instinct. Before I used salmon and chimps as analogies, but I think it might actually be a whale beaching itself to die.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

3. Bruce Bartlett on Bush's "Tax Reform" plans:

Tax reform or impasse?

By Bruce Bartlett
August 3, 2005

President Bush says he wants to reform the tax system and has named a tax reform commission which is to issue a report in September. The report was originally due by July 31, but the White House asked for the delay so it would not interfere with Social Security reform, which needs a few more months before it can be declared legally dead.

We still don't know what the commission will recommend. The assumption has been it would endorse one or more comprehensive reform options, such as the flat tax or national retail sales tax. But there are indications the commission report may be more targeted and less comprehensive.

The AMT unquestionably is a very bad part of the tax system and should be abolished. But making this isolated recommendation suggests the commission's report will be less comprehensive than previously thought. After all, if the commission were to recommend, say, a flat tax system, there would be no need to make abolishing the AMT a separate recommendation. It would be ended automatically.

Therefore, I think we be more likely to get a laundry list of specific recommendations for improving the tax system than a master plan for complete overhaul. But any number of previous reports already have detailed the tax system's specific failings from the standpoint of fairness, efficiency and administrability. They are all gathering dust on library shelves.

http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20050802-093835-4780r.htm

[yojon]

2. Sounds like misinformation to me

"Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq, has changed her approach in her effort to meet with President Bush: she is now inviting him to join her and the others gathered at her campsite for a moment of silence and prayer for the troops at 1:00 pm ET on Friday."


After staying firmly on her message of
1. wanting straight answers about why
2. wanting to know why the twins arent going if it is such a noble cause
3. wanting assurance that Casey's name would not be used to justify

it is surprisiing that she would change...

[kentuck]

4. He's planting the seeds of his new misinformation campaign...

As soon as he comes back from vacation, his plan is to motivate young people to support his plan and divide the nation even more between the yong and the old. Just wait...

[KoKo]

5. We have to hope he's lost his "Big Mo" and won't get anything he wants.

With sinking poll numbers trying to push through tax reform might make him start to look ridiculous since folks would realize he had to give up on SS reform. :shrug: Though I wouldn't put it past him and the Repugs to still sneak something through on SS that most Americans won't know about until its been signed. He's desperate for a big win.

[gratuitous]

6. Bush lowers expectations (again)

And the media scramble to reset the bar ever lower so that the Dear Leader can achieve yet another "victory" and maintain his ever-growing popularity.