Bush's Social Security Proposal Widens Partisan Divide

[Mark E. Smith]

WASHINGTON (KRT) - President Bush's latest attempt to revive his campaign to revamp Social Security - and re-launch his floundering second presidential term - wasn't gaining any new converts on Capitol Hill Friday.

Instead, it only deepened the chasm between the parties, even as key Republicans announced they would try again to attract Democrats with sweeping new retirement legislation that combines Social Security, pensions and health care.

Bush's central idea of letting workers invest some of their payroll taxes into private retirement savings accounts remains the political ball-and-chain that's hobbling his top second-term legislative goal. Virtually all Democrats in Congress, and many Republicans, are dead-set against it.

And his new proposal, announced at his Thursday night news conference, to change the way future Social Security retirement benefits are calculated and reduce their rate of growth for all but the poor, opened a new battlefront with Democrats, who say it would hurt middle-income retirees.

The bottom line: Bush's Social Security proposal still looks dead in the water.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/11526623.htm


Yaaaaaaaghhhhh!!!!

[ClintonTyree]

1. Mr. "Uniter" does it again....

he could fuck up a one car funeral procession. This is going to go nowhere, just like his last half-assed, hair-brained scheme. And he STILL wants THAT dumb ass Privatized account shit included in any SS reform. The guy's a complete idiot. He hasn't got the brains that god gave gravel.

[AlinPA]

6. Beautifully said. Bush* is an idiot. n/t

[Quakerfriend]

2. love that pic of the chimp!

I think the sheeples have awoken to the the sound of emptiness- All of his proposals 'ring' hollow!


When are the killer bees going to start to swarm!

[Cha]

3. Who could believe this

turtle-lipped twit lives in our White House?

[Erika]

4. Bush said 30% of U.S. citizens will be at the poverty level

in his speech and that they will need help. He didn't even blink when he said it. That is shameful. We are rebuilding other nations and 30% of our own are at poverty level?

That 30% are worried about how to get through each day. The GOP does not understand that. They aren't interested in plans that requires funds to participate in. They, the 30%'rs, don't have the funds but they must pay SS in their employment.

Bush and the GOP have a total disconnect with the true needs of our people.

[mikehiggins]

5. And his new nonsense involves cutting benefits for the well-to-do

in favor of the poor.

This clown even manages to piss off his own constituency.

Absolutely amazing.

[Erika]

7. Is $36,000 considered well to do?

I have been told anyone making more than $36,000 will have their benefits reduced. Do you have different info than I do?

That is why the Dems have come out and said that largely the middle class will pay for his plan. The really wealthy won't feel anything.

Let me know.

[Iowa]

8. $36,000 WILL be wealthy...

by the time the republicans are finished with us.

Bush just speaks in generalities. He makes broad, sweeping statements that have no basis in fact. There is a mountain of detail left unstated and undetermined, but the underlying themes will always be these:

1. Slash SS benefits for everyone to zero (anything he says he wants to accomplish now is simply step one in a long-term plan designed to end the Social Security system).
2. Undermine public support for the program by any means available (lately that involves changing it into a welfare program).
3. Pay off wall street supporters via privatization.

It's all about pillaging government resources, destroying a strong central government (because a strong central govt. of the people restrains corporate excesses), and destroying the middle class in an effort to create desperate masses who will trample over one another to work for almost nothing. Ultimately, it's not really about Social Security at all - that's just one big piece of a very big puzzle. Strip away all the rhetoric and this is the core of everything the republicans stand for.

Stopping these monsters is one of the most important things any of us will ever do. The freedom and economic well-being of our kids and grandkids will depend upon our success.

[wicket]

9. I heard it was $20,000 actually

See here:

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=771

[Erika]

10. It's a confused mess.

Read your article. One thing is for sure, the Bush elitists won't be touched economically. The middle class will bear the cost.

[LiberalFighter]

11. Not enough for it to appear dead in the water

Need to keep adding more dead weight as possible.

Everything needs to be rebutted so that as a whole the idea IS absolutely idiotic.

[Erika]

12. I talked to my co-workers today

All said his plan was idiotic, conservative or liberal. George W Bush is totally disconnected from the average American. He is clueless.

[Disturbed]

14. W is an arrrogant piece of shit.

This man has not freakin' idea what it is to be poor. I do. I was poor several times and homeless. I though I hated Reagon but I guess I only disliked him intensley. I hate gw bush and his criminal Cult.

If there was an interactive God either he/she is a sadist or not paying any attention to this planet. All the horror and cruelty that has gone on here over thousands of years added up would equal any Hell that I can imagine.

Shit!!!! I just get real angry when I think about what is happening right now in the world and in Amerika.

[teryang]

13. The "new" plan is based on unproven assumptions

That wages rise faster than prices. That hasn't been true recently and according to many economic experts is very unlikely to be true in future.

Wealthier incomes go by price.

Lower incomes indexed for wages.

Middle class indexed by a combination of both. What a surprise.

I didn't hear any discussion of removal of the cap on income subject to social security witholding. Why not?