At the Reichert townhall meeting in Bellevue last night, I’m told that one of the biggest laugh lines (at least in the crowd’s opinion) came when Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols insisted that there would be no transition costs under President Bush’s phase-out plan.
TPM Reader MN reported in that …
While things settled down for most of the hour and half after the initial flurry, what got the crowd aroused again was Rob Nichols statement that there would be “no transition cost” to implementing the Bush “architecture” for Social Security. When Nichols said the 10-year projection of $750 billion was not new costs, but simply like prepaying a mortgage, an audience member asked loudly what about after that, but Nichols said they hadn’t projected beyond that. A large segment of the audience did not seem to believe that and Nichols later backpedaled somewhat by saying that the “financing” issue was separate from the “cost” issue. Ah, semantics, the last refuge of scoundrels!
We heard pretty much the same from TPM Reader MB …
The Treasury Department representative, Rob Nichols, claimed that there would be no transition costs involved in creating “personal accounts”. When the crowd reacted loudly, he repeated the claim, saying “this is precisely factual, [no transition costs].” That just provoked laughter.
TPM Reader JM could barely believe what he was hearing …
It was a bit shocking to hear Rob Nichols, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Treasury Department, actually say out loud that U.S. government bonds in the trust fund are just worthless IOUs, causing an uproar from the audience. (This guy works for the Treasury Department!?) He also was emphatic that there would be exactly zero transition costs for establishing private accounts. “After all, it is simply like pre-paying your mortgage.” He said this prepayment would require only $700 billion for the first 10 years, and to shouts of what about the second 10 years, claimed that they hadn’t run the numbers. The audience wasn’t buying it judging from the catcalls. Finally, Sally Canfield, assistant to Denny Hastert, tried to throw out the line about how each year we delay costs another $690 billion, until brought to a screeching halt by a cry of “Liar” from someone in the crowd.
But this isn’t just the Rob Nichols’ line.
According to Reuters, at the Bamboozlepalooza event today in Bozeman, Secretary Snow said the same thing …
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Wednesday he was confused by resistance to the Bush administration’s plans to overhaul the Social Security system, while protesters blasted the proposed private retirement accounts during his stop in Montana.
Snow, in remarks to the Chamber of Commerce in Bozeman, said he believed personal accounts for young workers would be cost-free for the existing Social Security system and would not affect benefits to retirees or near-retirees.
Do they have any actual journalists out there following Snow to ask him the what the hell he’s talking about<$NoAd$>?
Late Update: Some more details on Snow’s job here.
