Back door 'reform': Bush gunning for Social Security in 2007 budget

[livvy]

EDITORIAL

February 11, 2006

Back door 'reform'

Bush gunning for Social Security in 2007 budget

The one good thing about the sneaky business President Bush buried in his new budget proposal is that it was dead on arrival Monday in a Congress facing mid-term elections.

Not that it should take re-election worries for a majority of lawmakers to distance themselves from the president's back-door assault on Social Security. His budget includes provisions that would kick-start private accounts in 2010, shifting $700 billion of the program's revenues to pay for them through the first seven years. Including the measure is Bush's way of telling his congressional base to nudge the issue out into the open because he's locked and loaded for the kill shot.

This president makes no secret of his disdain for federal social programs. And give him credit -- when he sets his crosshairs on a target, he doesn't quit until he's made the kill (unless of course it's Osama bin Laden). In his state of the union speech a few days ago, Bush chided Congress for not taking up his plan to privatize Social Security last year, a deceitful calculation. Most Americans listening to the speech wouldn't know that he never submitted legislation for Congress to consider. In a more conciliatory tone, which seemed to acknowledge the unpopularity of his so-called reform and his intention to drop it for now, Bush called for a bipartisan commission to consider the impact of baby-boom retirees on Social Security, Medicare and other federal programs.>snip

It's a clever but hostile scheme that pretends to (using the president's word) "save" Social Security. But the program is not in near danger of insolvency and won't be in the long term with sensible and relatively minor tweaks. It would be a more vulnerable target for dismantling -- social conservatives have despised it since its New Deal creation -- if Bush gets his way in using the private accounts as a means to recalculate benefits.>more

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN42021106.htm

[Erika]

1. Yeah, W can't get Bin Laden

So his next best target are U.S. citizens who have paid into SS all their lives for the sake of themselves and needy Americans.

This is a big "no-no" to the bushbots who have little problem in stealing our SS taxes and transferring them to W's war and rich favorites.

[bluerum]

2. He's been using the back door for six years now,

I am getting pretty sore.

:mad:

[livvy]

3. Really...I wish he'd use the back door out of the White House....

and just keep walkin' right back to that "ranch" of his in Texas.

[izzie]

4. Well he is sure he is right about stuff. Why would he give up?

You can never call this man a person with on open mind. He is the type they never want as am art major in college, as he has shut his mind to things years ago. He is like his base and they like him that way. He knows what he wants and he is right and as he said he is President. I think he thinks that makes his Czar but we seem to be stuck with it. The last Czar of Russia took him self and his whole family and country down. A closed minded man with power can be a real mess. A reason John Adams said we could not trust any of them.

[cornermouse]

5. I wonder why he hates us so much.

I wonder, does he hate himself too?

[NoFederales]

6. So have congressional leaders caught and denied this latest Social

Security misdeed? Who needs to be contacted?

NoFederales