Dems: "Nothing wrong--nothing to see here folks..move along on home..

(CBS) It's been a battle worthy of an election year, but President Bush has generated little public enthusiasm(ed: in CBS's view) for his bold plan to overhaul Social Security, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll.

While the president has spent considerable time and political capital promoting his plan in the first months of his second term, the public’s reaction has been tepid.

Similar skepticism is sweeping Capitol Hill as well, CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts reports. Republicans Wednesday swung back hard against attacks from retirement groups, including the AARP, which has been campaigning fervently to derail Mr. Bush's plan.

Despite the group's complaints, President Bush said, "Older American have nothing to worry about - nothing changes."

Tom DeLay and other Republicans ripped into the AARP, showing that one thing's clear on The Hill: The Social Security gloves are off.

Democrats vow to put up an all-out fight to halt or delay the president's legislation, but the most troubling sentiments came from Mr. Bush's own party. Sen. Charles Grassley, who Roberts reports would be a key author of the legislation, said if privatization doesn't catch a wave of public support within two weeks, the bill could be dead.

Mr. Bush did get a much needed boost when the Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress changes are needed - and quickly. The President has set a deadline of year's end - but leaders of his own party aren't sure they can get it done. (ed: how can they get anything done in a senate that can't even get judicial appointments through?)


"In terms of whether it'll be a week, a month, 6 months, or a year as to when we bring something to the floor, it's just too early," said Senate majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Although Americans agree with the president that the nation's retirement system is in trouble, just 16 percent share his view that it is facing a crisis. Support for his signature proposal to create private investment accounts under Social Security has fallen to a new low (43 percent), while a majority (51 percent) now calls it a bad idea. (ed: Guess the dem propaganda scare machine is working, eh?)

The Ice Palace opines:

First of all when reading this, I consider the source. (ain't it a caution what will happen to an organization's credibility when a few faked memos sneak their way into the picture?) That being said, the same doom and gloomers who once were running around the countryside saying that their beloved social security was in trouble, are now whistling, twiddling their thumbs behind their backs and saying that social security is just fine. To wit:

President Clinton:

"[I]f You Don’t Do Anything, One Of Two Things Will Happen. Either It Will Go Broke And You Won’t Ever Get It, Or If We Wait Too Long To Fix It, The Burden On Society … Of Taking Care Of Our Generation’s Social Security Obligations Will Lower Your Income And Lower Your Ability To Take Care Of Your Children To A Degree That Most Of Us Who Are You Parents Think Would Be Horribly Wrong And Unfair To You And Unfair To The Future Prospects Of The United States.” (President Bill Clinton, Remarks At Georgetown University On Social Security, Washington, DC, 2/9/98)

And:


Harry Reid:

...told "Fox News Sunday" in 1999 that "most of us have no problem with taking a small amount of the Social Security proceeds and putting it in the private sector."
When asked whether people should be allowed to make those investment decisions rather than the government, Mr. Reid said, "I think it's important that we look, and I'm totally in favor of [doing] this. And, in fact, there are a couple of programs now that we're taking a look at to see if it will work with Social Security."

And now the DNC chicken littles are running around as so many headless capons, screaming that the sky will indeed fall if partial privatization of social security will take place? But the question, dear readers, to be asked is: "Just whose sky will fall?" The answer is simple. If successful social security reform is enacted by a Republican president (and there is no doubt that privatization will outperform traditional s.s. by a wide margin), the DNC's collective gander is as cooked and eaten as a Thanksgiving dinner in an inner-city soup kitchen. Social security has been a political sacred cow and football that belonged solely to the DNC since the 1930s. The prospect of a "looming" crisis has always been near and dear to the heart of the DNC, much like a proverbial damsel in distress. The looming social security crisis was always there, like an old trusty shotgun, ready and willing to aim at wascally wepublicans and others who may be in their political crosshairs. Now along comes a REPUBLICAN who will finally actually RESCUE their fair damsel in their stead? Not if they can help it. For if social security is fixed, who will need the democrats?


The democrats have never been about fixing anything. They *need* crises. If crises are ameliorated, they have lost their 'raison d'etre' and another weapon they could otherwise use for scaring people into voting for them will be taken away. But taking the social security issue away from the democrats is not taking away just any old weapon.. It's taking away their MAIN weapon; their howitzer, and supplanting it with kryptonite. It will be much like throwing water on the wicked witch of the West... and the result will be the same

-Psycmeistr-