President Bush is trying to sell America on a plan that will cost several trillion dollars (the lower estimates are for ten years, before the big bills come due), cut future benefits by as much as 46% for today’s children and pull more money out of Social Security.
There is great public interest and notice. Many people are worried, in most cases with good reason. And yet the president says again and again that he won’t say just what he wants to do to Social Security.
When a reporter asked him about this at the conversation in the White House yesterday, he said this …
“The tendency in Washington is, âOK, Mr. President, you play your cards now and weâll decide if weâre going to play ours. Iâm not going to do that. Iâm keeping them close to the vest.”
Shouldn’t there be some pressure on this guy to just come clean? To say what he wants to do?
Sure, yes, there’s legislative politicking and making the first move and all that. But this goes a bit beyond that. The president is pushing this. This is all about him. Absent initiative from him, replacing Social Security with private accounts wouldn’t even be on the agenda. Though the policy has some ardent Republican supporters, the impetus all comes from him.
When you brush away all the legislative gobbledygook and beltway jockeying, you have a president who wants to put what is probably the most popular government program in American history under the knife and he won’t even say what he wants to do to it.
Shouldn’t his critics just be saying over and over: level with the public? Tell them what you want to do to Social Security.
