Next Tuesday, Bush to visit Parkersburg, WV ?

[kentuck]

What is the significance? That is where the IOU's of the Social Security fund are housed. Since we know he's going to be there Tuesday, wouldn't it be a good political move for someone like Howard Dean, or another important Democrat - perhaps Robert Byrd - to visit Parkersburg before Bush gets there and "set the table" for him? Put him on the defensive? Just a thought...

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

[paineinthearse]

1. Great idea

Sent it on to a conact at DNC.

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Related article:

http://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/story/042202005_new02_bush.asp

Saturday, April 02, 2005 — Time: 1:02:26 AM EST


Bush set to tour Public Debt

By EVAN BEVINS


PARKERSBURG - The White House confirmed Friday what area residents have been whispering about all week. President Bush is scheduled to visit Parkersburg Tuesday, his third visit in the last year. White House spokesman Taylor Gross said Bush will arrive at the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport Tuesday morning, then tour the Bureau of Public Debt facility in downtown Parkersburg. After that he will go to West Virginia University at Parkersburg to discuss his plan for Social Security reform. Bush will be joined by Secretary of the Treasury John Snow. "The president looks forward to returning to Parkersburg on Tuesday," Gross said. "The president understands that West Virginians have a very strong interest in seeing our nation's Social Security strengthened."

Bush has been traveling the country campaign-style, touting his plan to address the Social Security system's future insolvency by allowing workers younger than 55 to divert as much as 4 percent of their Social Security taxes to private investment accounts, such as stocks, bonds or mutual funds, in exchange for a reduction in guaranteed future benefits. Gross said one reason the president will make his third trip to Parkersburg in the last 11 months is to tour and be briefed on the Bureau of Public Debt, which employs nearly 1,700 men and women in Wood County. "This is a center that, in a sense, houses the IOUs of Social Security," Gross said.

About $1.7 trillion in special-issue Treasury bonds that make up the Social Security trust fund are kept at the bureau. "The president seeks to highlight the fact that the IOUs housed at Parkersburg are a good example of why this system needs to be fixed," Gross said. Once he's finished at Public Debt, Bush will head to WVU-Parkersburg, where he will speak to a crowd of hundreds at the campus where Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards tried to rally support in a September campaign stop. The event is open to the public, Gross said, but seating is limited and a ticket is required. People can call [phone] for tickets.

The Parkersburg Police Department issued a traffic alert Friday, advising motorists "that serious traffic pattern changes and restrictions will be in place in Parkersburg on Tuesday." In addition to the presidential visit, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals will convene in Parkersburg City Council chambers on the second floor of the municipal building Tuesday for the seventh annual Legal Advancement for West Virginia Students Project. The program allows students to directly observe a session of the court by sitting in on the hearing of an appellate case. Parkersburg police Chief Robert Newell said the department had worked out plans to deal with the court program when they found out Bush was coming.

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