Bush Proposes to Cut and Run on Social Security
Bush Proposes to Cut and Run on Social Security
Bush Says Social Security can be shored up without Benefit Cuts
Then says you have to "slow the rate at which benefits are growing"
Earth to Bush, Earth to Bush... "Slowing the Rate of Growth" of Social Security benefits IS a cut and you have Proposed Direct Benefit Cuts to Social Security at least Four times in the past two years
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061011-7.html
October 12, 2006 (Washington D.C.) - You know a politician has been in Washington for too long when they start using Orwellian double-speak to tell the American people they are not going to do something which harms them and is against their interests when saying plainly at the same time that they are. President Bush tried, but surely failed given his prior record, to do just that on Social Security during remarks he gave on the economy at the White House yesterday.
Mr. Bush, who at least four times in the past two years has proposed direct and substantial cuts to the guaranteed benefit provided by Social Security to seniors, survivors and the disabled, said that he plans to return to Social Security reform next year and that Social Security can be shored up for the long haul without cutting benefits. In the next breath, in complete contradiction of what had just passed through his lips, Bush said: "You've just got to slow the rate at which benefits are growing."
"This President has either been in Washington too long, or he is simply deluding himself, if he believes Americans aren't acutely aware of the role inflation plays in our economy and that ‘slowing the growth' in a promised benefit like Social Security is a benefit cut - plain and simple," said Americans United' Brad Woodhouse. "To top it off, benefit cuts represent the only idea President Bush has ever had with respect to the solvency of Social Security and it is laughable now that he would try to convince Americans that steep benefit cuts to Social Security are not the centerpiece of his effort, along with privatization, to put at risk America's social safety net as we know it. Just in the past two years alone President Bush, on at least four occasions, has called for changes in Social Security which would require steep benefit cuts or has proposed direct and steep benefit cuts themselves. Social Security was put in place to provide a benefit to seniors. By calling for benefit cuts Bush is simply raising the white flag on Social Security - the equivalent of cut and run on our nation's seniors when they need leaders who will stand and fight to protect Social Security for the long haul. "
President Bush started his assault on Social Security when he proposed to privatize the program in his 2005 State of the Union Address - which studies have shown would explode the national debt and require steep cuts in the guaranteed benefit for seniors, surviving children and spouses and the disabled. In April of last year, under pressure to offer a plan to shore up Social Security's solvency (which the President by then had admitted privatization would not accomplish), President Bush addressed the nation from the White House and proposed to slash Social Security's guaranteed benefit - an effort he dubbed "progressive indexing." And earlier this year when President Bush sent his proposed budget to Congress, in addition to proposing again that Social Security be privatized, he proposed direct benefit cuts for surviving spouses and children.
"This President and his backers in Congress, including the likes of Senator Santorum, Senator DeMint, Senator Talent, Senator Burns, Senator Thune and Representatives Shaw, Pryce, Boehner and McCrery have nothing to offer Social Security except the risk of privatization and slashing the guaranteed benefit," said Woodhouse. "If President Bush had a bipartisan bone in his body he would take privatization off the table and offer solutions to Social Security which go beyond the cut and run approach of benefit cuts."
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