Bush is likely to put forward a plan for changing Social Security

[Fleshdancer]

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,567666,00.html?cnn=yes

With Saddam Hussein in captivity and the economy in recovery, you could forgive President Bush for playing it safe in his bid for reelection. Yet when he addresses the nation Jan. 20 for his State of the Union address, he's likely to take some risks. The biggest: highlighting a controversial plan to change Social Security by introducing private accounts.

It would normally be lunacy for a Republican to even utter the words "Social Security" in an election year. Democrats have been winning for decades by accusing Republicans of wanting to sabotage the program. But a top White House aide says that the President "believes in the promise of private retirement accounts" as a way to fix the ailing system and will advocate them as part of his 2004 wish list.

Why take the gamble? According to a current Bush advisor, Bush Sr. "didn't do a good job of articulating an agenda of where he wanted to take the country; many thought he was looking backward and not forward." Bush Jr. is determined "not to just run on the past but to run on a vision for the future."

[POed_Ex_Repub]

1. Okay... I don't get it...

Is he TRYING to lose now? :shrug:

[wtmusic]

2. All part of the grander scheme to dismantle SS

He'll bail on a State of the Union announcement though. It's an easy target, and Rove is too smart to provide one.

[necso]

3. Sounding Board?

This may be testing the waters to see what the reaction is. Or a way of identifying "residential" support for an idea that won't be brought up now.

With the repugs more or less triumphant on all fronts, then again they may see little downside.

After all they just passed a program that is the basis for dismantling Medicare/Medical as we know it.

Private retirement accounts are a nice sounding front for cutting funding for Social Security. Once funding is cut, the inevitable result will be to cut benefits based on income (as opposed to "earnings") and "wealth". Once SS turns into a "welfare" program, the broad support it now enjoys will disappear.

This is the ultimate red meat for extremists, and I would not be surprised if it pops up in some form. Nothing like playing to your base. In any event this program will be pushed strongly in a second term --- along with a lot of other extremist crap.