Not Better, Just Different
Salon's Tim Grieve notes that Bush "fessed up" that his Social Security plan doesn't exactly solve anything:
Bush rattled off much of his usual misleading sales pitch about his plan -- workers will definitely come out ahead with personal accounts, retirees will get to pass on the money to their survivors, and any number of other promises that range from not-exactly-true to completely false.But there was a moment there when Bush seemed to realize -- where he actually seemed willing to admit -- that there's a disconnect between his claims about Social Security's insolvency and the need for private investment accounts. A couple of weekends ago at a forum in Tampa, Bush tried to argue -- incomprehensively -- that private investment accounts would somehow shore up the system's fiscal health. But in New Hampshire Wednesday, Bush admitted that the private investments accounts will not, in fact, fix the Social Security "crisis."
"Certainly," Bush said, "the personal account doesn't fix the system. There needs to be better reforms, more meaningful reforms than that."It may seem like a small thing. But Bush has been selling his privatization plan in the same way he sold the war in Iraq, by linking up two things that actually have nothing to do with each other. Then it was 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. Now it's Social Security's financial health and his privatization plan. Having now admitted so clearly that privatization won't fix Social Security, Bush has just made it harder for himself to push a linkage that never existed in the first place.
Bipartisan pressure is many-splendored thing. The other day I heard Bush note the importance of "getting all the options out on the table." Sounds like he's acknowledging that his proposal is one of several options. This is a good development. Also, hats off to Greenspan for voicing concern about the markets' reaction to the effect of the privatization plan's start-up costs on the deficit.
Lena at February 17, 2005 7:51 AM
I think what this is really about is Bush's attempt to scrub the U.S. of any vestige of FDR's New Deal. That president was/is anathema to conservatives. Never mind that S S is all that many old, poor folks have...
Rojak at February 17, 2005 5:26 PM
Well, that's what they say about Kyoto, too: It won't help to any meaningful degree (literally), but it's a start.
Cridland at February 18, 2005 10:15 AM
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