GEORGE "DUBYA'S" REAL POSITION ON SOCIAL SECURITY

"There ought to be limits
to freedom..."

— George W. Bush,
commenting on the website
www.gwbush.com

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH: "If you don't think it's a gamble to put a man in the White House who believes we should have guns in church, who thinks the Taliban is a rock band, who was such a failure as a businessman that his company was nicknamed "El-Busto," who wants to turn our Social Security system into a Wall Street boiler room, who can't name a single thing he disagrees with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on, who smeared a bona fide hero named John McCain, and whose principle policy proposal is to give America's surplus to the idle rich in the form of a $1.3 trillion tax cut, you're either nuts or a Republican."

... Equal Time co-host Paul Begala, shooting the bull.

WHERE DOES GEORGE "DUBYA" REALLY STAND ON SOCIAL SECURITY?

Guess what? George W. has a secret plan to save Social Security. Politicians love secret plans. All the excitement of actually taking a stand without any of the messy details. Silly old specifics are for kids. And election years have a way of bringing out secret plans like mushroom spores after a spring rain in Iowa.

The reason those secret plans are so darn popular is because they are usually a response to a pent-up outcry. You know, issues that people are really really worried about. Kind of a "Hey. Hey. Hey.  We're serious this time. We want something done about this." And the secret plan is a "Hey, I hear ya and I got this great idea. But I don't want them to get a hold of it." The problem is often so complex that a campaign manager would rather have his candidate photographed naked under a goat at a Junkie Hookers for Satan convention than get involved in a point/counter-point discussion on the particulars of a plan in the middle of an election.

But the really big secret about secret plans is that most of the time they end up working. Because the people aren't kidding around anymore. And the candidate who becomes the officeholder realizes it. He had better do something, anything, to shut the whiny people up for crum's sake. So he gets his best people on it, and they all brainstorm some action so the people will shut the hell up, and the big business guys won't slip him evaporated slices of Antarctica when he comes begging for re-election money in one or three or five years. Something, as they say, that everybody can live with. Then he implements the secret plan. And it works, kinda.

Johnson's secret plan was to end poverty, and well, at least he managed to isolate it by color. Nixon had a secret plan to end the war, and it worked pretty well. Turns out his plan was to let the Vietnamese win. One can only guess that Ford's secret plan was to remain upright, in which he was successful 98 per cent of the time. Carter kept his secret plan secret, which was totally wrong. And Reagan and Clinton never needed secret plans. They had good hair.

We all have secret plans, and we respect them. Secret plans to get rich. Secret plans to get promoted. Secret plans to spend weekends in Napa with both of the twins Playboy keeps using as centerfolds.

Bush, however, has slipped by just releasing something his aides called "guiding principles" on his secret Social Security plan. They involve allowing people to invest their retirement money in the stock market. Big mistake. Now annoying people like me can ask questions. For instance:

What percentage of our Social Security payroll taxes will be available to double down on a pair of fives at Fitzgerald's Casino in Reno?

Which companies will be authorized to handle the negotiations, and will their connections to Neil Bush be hidden or overt?

How soon before we baby boomers are forced to live on dented cans of dog food?

How late into my nineties would I have to wait until drawing Social Security?

What happens to people who totally blow their stock market payroll tax investments on secondary Bolivian ferret belly futures? Do we get to buy them out and can them as dog food?

How much weight would I personally have to gain to make sure not to fall through the holes in the safety net?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2004  -  BUSH MISLEADING ON SOCIAL SECURITY BEGINS

Yesterday, President Bush implicitly acknowledged for the first time that his Administration could attempt to reduce Social Security benefits for workers - a reversal from one of his core campaign pledges in 2000. Specifically, the president was asked his opinion on Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's assertion that, in order to balance the budget, Social Security benefits should be cut.

Bush responded, "My position on Social Security benefits is this: those benefits should not be changed for people at or near retirement." However, the president specifically refused to say he opposed cutting future guaranteed benefits for younger and middle-aged workers. The president's refusal to discuss younger workers was a departure from his very clear position in 2000 in which he said he did not support cuts in future Social Security benefits for anyone - young or old. Less than two months before the 2000 election, then-Governor Bush said in Florida that people were saying, "'You know, if George W. becomes the president, he's going to take away your Social Security check.'"  To which Bush added, "Don't believe it. Here's my pledge to the people of Florida:

A promise made by our government will be a promise kept when I become the president of the United States." Certainly, President Bush has talked about his plan to privatize Social Security. However, he has obscured the fact that the plan could result in cuts to guaranteed benefits for younger workers. He has also declined to openly discuss the fact that, at a time of record deficits, his "own economic team estimates that a move to private accounts would add an additional $4.7 trillion to the debt". And, most importantly, Bush refused to fully disassociate himself with Greenspan's call to reduce benefits. Visit Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion. http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1880274&l=19446

FLORIDA'S STOCKMARKET EXPERIENCE

Do we want Seniors with no experience, "playing" the stock market?  Florida Gov. Jeb Bush warns against letting the state's pension funds ride on the stock market, which his brother George W. Bush is in favor of doing.

Jeb Bush wrote in the April 18 Tallahassee Democrat of his concern that state workers' retirement money was at risk because stock market losses had caused the Florida Retirement Fund to lose about $8 billion in a week -- $4 billion in one day.

The Florida governor argued for using pension surpluses to create a separate reserve not tied to the market in order to ``cushion future volatility,'' calling it the prudent way of assuring stability in the retirement program.

Gore spokesman Chris Lehane seized on the column as evidence of the folly of brother George W. Bush's latest proposal. Bush, the Texas governor and presumed GOP presidential nominee, wants to let Americans divert some of their Social Security payroll taxes and invest them in stocks.

Lehane said Jeb Bush's view of state investments parallels the Democratic vice president's argument that letting Social Security funds ride the stock market puts the program's guaranteed benefits at risk.

``Here is the Republican governor of a state with a lot of seniors raising concerns about the policy and he happens to be George W. Bush's brother,'' Lehane said.

A spokesman for Jeb Bush did not return a call for comment.

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