Blumenthal: The incredible shrinking president

[kskiska]

Backed into a corner on Social Security but still claiming a mandate, Bush seems ready for a barroom brawl.

By Sidney Blumenthal

On the 99th day of his second term, one day short of the fabled 100 days used to mark a president's progress since Franklin D. Roosevelt's whirlwind beginning of the New Deal, President Bush held a press conference to explain how far he had gotten in undoing the New Deal.

Bush had allotted 60 days for a nationwide tour to sell his plan for privatizing Social Security. Insisting that the system was in imminent danger of collapse, he had proposed a vague scheme for carving out private accounts. He did not acknowledge that the deficit, ballooned by his regressive tax cuts for the wealthy, might have anything to do with solvency. Of course, he did not advocate rescinding his top-rate giveaway; nor did he suggest raising the levy on the rich or the limit on income subject to Social Security taxation (currently $90,000), the solutions favored by large majorities of the public. Nor did he propose any detailed plan, though he tried to goad the Democrats into doing so, on his terms. But the more Bush campaigned on his proposal, the less support it received. By the end of his tour, 58 percent disapproved of it and only 35 percent approved, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Rather than admit defeat, Bush upped the ante. He unveiled a new idea at his press conference, "progressive indexing," that would slash benefits for the middle class and affluent, but purportedly not those for the poor. The poll numbers rolled in instantly -- 54 percent disapproved, 38 percent approved. Even Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, lately deposed as majority leader, dismissed Bush's plan as little more than "a welfare system." Indeed, that is its intent.

(snip)

As a political matter, the Bush plan for de facto abolition of Social Security is a desperate ploy to re-create the right-wing pseudo-populist appeal of the Nixon and Reagan eras. Social Security would become a program that unfairly taxes the middle class, which would receive short shrift on benefits as the taxes they paid go to the poor. The poor, of course, are disproportionately minorities, black and Hispanic, and Social Security would become tainted as a "minority" program.

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/05/05/bush_mandate/index.html

[FloridaPat]

1. I'm confused. They want to fix SS because benefits will only be 70%

of what's promised, so they want to cut benefits by 40-50%. Great deak huh?

[G2099]

2. FDR'S Social Security is Considered by the Right as Socialism

Franklin D. Roosevelt's the New Deal, are considered "socialism" that's why they want to destroy all "social" public service government programs supported by tax dollars that serve the poor or middle class. The "right" considers the destruction of government tax supported social programs as forms of "socialism." So to "protect" and "preserve" the "pure" American Capitalist system they want to destroy Social Security and "privatize" all government "social" programs. It's right wing capitalist privatization vs and against the left wing of collective tax money "social" programs that are considered forms of "socialism" by the conservative right wing. But these "social" programs is what has served our America capitalist system.

Right now we need a national collective health care system so our capitalist private corporations will not have to move out of the United States to reduce employee cost. A national collective health care system will take the burden off of private business and save American jobs. Human beings are social, collective being as well as individuals. We are not an extreme of just individuals. One we can not do something as individuals, like provide health care, we get together as collectives and solve our problems.

[Erika]

3. Bush is a corporate globalist first & foremost

He is 100% out of touch with the average American who wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and acceptance to New England private boarding schools.

Bush has NO idea or clue on the needs of American citizens or desire to learn. His family got their money from corporate globalism.