LAT: Social Security Plan Hits Shoals: Bush style collides with politics

[DeepModem Mom]

Social Security Plan Hits Shoals
Bush's unyielding style collides with politics, leaving the GOP with fading hope for a bill.

By Janet Hook, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — After six months of presidential speeches, town meetings and maneuvering over White House plans to overhaul Social Security, Republicans are coming to grips with an unpleasant reality: The central pillars of President Bush's proposal have crumbled on Capitol Hill.

It has become increasingly clear that if Congress passes Social Security legislation this year — and that is a big "if" — it will be a shadow of Bush's ambitious plan to shore up the retirement program's finances and to allow younger workers to divert payroll taxes into individual investment accounts.

Republicans are loath to write an obituary for the president's initiative yet; some hope to salvage a Social Security bill that, however far from his original plan, Bush can embrace as a triumph.

Still, allies and analysts are puzzling over how the president and his vaunted political machine could find themselves in such a weak position on this bedrock issue, in which Bush has invested more time and political capital than in any other domestic issue of his presidency.

Bush's struggle is a testimony, in part, to how complex and politically risky it is to propose any change in Social Security. But some analysts say it is also a product of a mismatch between the president's leadership style and the challenge he faces. The uncompromising, provocative style that has made Bush a commanding leader in foreign policy is more problematic when he takes on a tough domestic issue that cries out for flexibility and bipartisan cooperation....


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-social27jun27,0,39093.story?coll=la-home-business

[htuttle]

1. In other words

Bush's message isn't getting across because he's an asshole.

[FreeStateDemocrat]

14. Don't you mean that the message that he is an asshole is getting across?

[Mountainman]

2. people don't believe he gives a shit about them and it's the truth.

When reality and bush lies clash, reality will win out if it means people have to risk something.

[Doctor_J]

3. IOW,

having for four years successfully put lipstick on various pigs he wanted to sell us, Smirk finally met his match with this boondoggle.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. LOL!

[rocktivity]

5. What the Bush style collides with is REALITY.

Still, allies and analysts are puzzling over how the president and his vaunted political machine could find themselves in such a weak position on this bedrock issue, in which Bush has invested more time and political capital than in any other domestic issue of his presidency.
Really? Well, I'm not a professional analyst of either the economic or political kind. But the Bush Social Security plan doesn't puzzle me--it's a fiscally irresponsible and totally unnecessary rich-get-richer scheme. What should have Bush's "allies and analysts" puzzled is why he believed that Americans would embrace increasing the national debt and decreasing benefits when SS could be plunged into permanent solvency by raising the salary cap and/or rolling back the tax cuts.

:headbang:
rocknation

[silvermachine]

15. Beat me to it!

I was going to say precisely the same thing.

[Kolesar]

6. He cannot wrap himself in the flag and wave the bloody shirt for SS

I also disagree that this is his biggest domestic issue. His budget-busting $10 Trillion tax cuts were the real story.

[Lost4words]

7. Everything this junta touches goes to pure shit, leave everything alone

until there are semi responsible people in charge whose main concern is to improve things not just to rape the poor in favor of the rich and the corporations.

FUGWB and the slime you rode in on.

[mbperrin]

8. That's right! Pass NOTHING this year (we've got a half century)

or these bastards will claim it as victory!

[ChrisK]

9. Bush's "style" hits home

The same folks that supported his "with us or against us" mantra are seeing what its like for the world outside of America...and they don't like it. What he is doing is using the same heavy-handed tactics with Social Security that he has used on the rest of the world and finally some are waking up to the fact that it's not working..be it in this country or aboard.

He is praised by the sheeple as a "take no shit, give um hell" kind of guy buy when the same people that supported him here at home are told to "suck it up" they seems to be a bit "hurt" and they don't like it..big surprise there.

I personally don't even think he is the one that wants the change to Social Security...I think he is just a follower like the sheeple he preaches too..the greedy forcing the dumb to lead the lost...very sad.

[rodeodance]

10. even if smaller version passes. the WH will call it SuCCESS-and the

sheepies will believe. it will not matter to BushCo or his followed what is in the bill--only that a ss bill gets passed. that is the goal now.

[mom cat]

11. "his vaunted political machine "is a sham based on rigged votes.

"Still, allies and analysts are puzzling over how the president and his vaunted political machine could find themselves in such a weak position on this bedrock issue, in which Bush has invested more time and political capital than in any other domestic issue of his presidency."
Political capital based on stolen votes and rigged elections is proving to be like quicksand. Karmic payback can be a real bitch.

[rocktivity]

12. People can be SUCH ingrates

...In a New York Times/CBS poll this month, two-thirds of those surveyed were uneasy about the president's ability to make sound decisions on Social Security. And 45% said that the more they heard about Bush's plan, the less they liked it.

I am disappointed with the public," Graham said. "They recognize it's a problem, but there's no pressure on any of us to solve it."

What the public recognizes is that the PLAN is the problem, and that you're RESISTING pressure to change it because that would hurt poor widdle Georgie's feelings!

A key part of Bush's strategy was to defuse opposition among the elderly by promising people 55 and older that any changes would not affect them. But Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, one of the few Democrats who has been open to personal accounts, said many retirees remained unconvinced.

In other words, divide and conquer: People over 55 don't HAVE to care either way, and people under 55 won't have to worry about their future earnings being wasted on those pesky over-55 types. But are the over-55s grateful to Georgie that he's not screwing THEM? Noooooo! For some inexplicable reason, they're too busy being concerned that the burden will fall on their children and grandchildren! You'll be DEAD by then, folks--it's THEIR problem, not yours! Go figure...

:shrug:
rocknation

[antonialee839]

13. Of course junior is in complete shock over this.

How can this be happening? Everyone he talks to fully supports his plan for Social Security.