Bush On Social Security: I Promise To Keep Lying

Bush is barnstorming the country to try and raise a little support for his plan about rescuing Social Security -- even though Social Security doesn't need "rescuing" according to his own government and Bush refuses to endorse any particular plan.

Bush was "challenging skeptics to put their own ideas forward," according to the New York Times, which takes a lot of chuztpah when you haven't put your OWN idea forward yet. (Mainly because your own idea begins with creating trillions in debt and cutting benefits by 40%.)

Then, in classic Orwellian style, Bush just started lying and renamed one facet of his proposal, giving it the same name as a DIFFERENT proposal made by some Dems. No, he didn't change anything about his murky plan -- except the name.

"See, personal accounts is an add-on to that which the government is going to pay you," Bush said, according to the NYT. "It doesn't replace the Social Security system."

That's a lie. An add-on is what some Dems have stupidly suggested, that private accounts be created as an option alongside the current Social Security system. People should be encouraged to save for their retirement and make investments -- we don't need a massive new federal government program to accomplish that. Plus, most Dems think if you being private accounts alongside SS, that soon enough the Republicans would be chipping away at SS, snipping and snipping at it on the edges until they'd accomplished the same thing they want today: to dismantle SS and leave elderly Americans without a safety net.

But Bush's proposal is NOT an "add-on." Benefits are cut by 40% in the most "popular" Republican plans (popular on Wall Street and with those who think the elderly have it too cushy -- not popular with the vast majority of Americans). And the private accounts are part of your basic benefits package, they are not in addition to your benefits, they ARE your benefits. And if your investments go sour, you're out of luck. His spokesperson explained that Bush hadn't embraced the idea of "add-ons" as everyone else understood the term -- he'd just decided to call what he was doing by a different name.

So Bush just lies and calls apples oranges and up down and stupid smart.

The Dems continue to show a lot of discipline, with their own barnstorming getting a lot of attention. I really liked Senator Richard Durbin's description of Bush's "ownership society" -- "We're all in this alone."

Bush says: "Well, I'm going to keep telling people we've got a problem until it sinks in, because we've got one. You can't dodge whether we have a problem or not. Because, see, the next follow-on question to that is, if you've got a problem, what do you Republicans and Democrats and a few independents intend to do about it up there? Are you going to sit around and play politics? Or are you going to get at the table and do your duty as public servants?"

Again, remarkable since Bush REFUSES to offer up his own plan. With Bush, it's always "politricks," as Bob Marley would say.