Bush's Social Security Sleight of Hand ... (PHASE OUT of Social Security)

[RedEarth]

Bush's Social Security Sleight of Hand

By Allan Sloan

Wednesday, February 8, 2006; Page D02

If you read enough numbers, you never know what you'll find. Take President Bush and private Social Security accounts.

Last year, even though Bush talked endlessly about the supposed joys of private accounts, he never proposed a specific plan to Congress and never put privatization costs in the budget. But this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday.


His plan would let people set up private accounts starting in 2010 and would divert more than $700 billion of Social Security tax revenues to pay for them over the first seven years. If this comes as a surprise to you, have no fear. You're not alone. Bush didn't pitch private Social Security accounts in his State of the Union message last week.
...............

But anyone who thought that Bush would wait for bipartisanship to deal with Social Security was wrong. Instead, he stuck his own privatization proposals into his proposed budget.

"The Democrats were laughing all the way to the funeral of Social Security modernization," White House spokesman Trent Duffy told me in an interview Tuesday, but "the president still cares deeply about this. " Duffy asserted that Bush would have been remiss not to include in the budget the cost of something that he feels so strongly about, and he seemed surprised at my surprise that Social Security privatization had been written into the budget without any advance fanfare.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020701865.html?referrer=emailarticle


and from Josh Marshall.......

February 08, 2006 -- 01:18 PM EST // link)
It's actually pretty amazing. President Bush took pretty much his entire Social Security phase-out plan from last year and put it into next year's budget without telling anyone.

Newsweek's Allan Sloan took a closer look and found it all there.

Now it just so happens we still have the Conscience Caucus list online -- remember, that's the list of the Republicans who wouldn't publicly commit to phase-out last year.

Are they coming out against Phase Out Round Two?

Let's find out. Give them a call. Ask them where they stand and let us know what you hear.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007637.php

[Atman]

1. That's not slight of hand...that's outright DECEPTION

As in FRAUD. It's what W does best.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. That would explain that purely evil look he got on his face when

the Democrats got up and cheered his remarks about not being able to get Social Security reform done in 2005. He knew he was going to slip it into his budget and figured that the last laugh would be on the Democrats.

[earth mom]

3. We must stop this now!

:grr:

Here's another thread on this topic:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x359485#359858

[Kingofalldems]

4. This is just what Pinochet did in Chile

He shoved SS privatization down the throat of Chile. This admin. bears an amazing resemblance to Pinochet in the 70's. Plenty of info on this available on the net.