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April 29, 2005
Redefining Wealth

Anyone catch Bush's press conference last night? I didn't, because, you know, I can't bear to look at the man, but I caught some updates on the late news, Nightline, and all over the Internets today.

The big (non-) news was about his Social Security gutting plan, as Bush gave some brand new deceptions a whirl.

Some highlights:

Bush's first new spin was a plan "where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off," which many news outlets have reported today as his offering to "only cut benefits for the wealthy." The problem is that his definition of wealthy may be a bit different than yours. Do you make more than $20,000 a year? You're stinkin' rich! Your benefits will be cut - oh boy will they be cut - because clearly your pimpin' ass can easily afford it.

The cleverness here is making it sound like low-income workers benefits will grow under his plan. In fact, people who make under $20,000 will simply be the only people not to have their benefits cut. See how that works? Well crafted.

As Think Progress points out, when Bush was selling us his tax cut program, he defined low income as anything below $100,000 a year.

Why, I just don't know how to feel now? Am I rich or poor? I guess I'm poor enough to get screwed by the tax cuts, but rich enough to get screwed by the Social Security cuts. I imagine most of you are right there with me.

Onward..

Responding to the widespread antipathy to his private/personal investment accounts (for some reason, people don't trust the stock market), Bush offered to give people the option to invest their money in Treasury bonds, which, he said, "are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government."

Gee, seems like only a couple of weeks ago that Bush was trotting out a filing cabinet as a prop and declaring, "There is no trust fund, just IOUs that I saw firsthand, that future generations will pay."

And what are the IOUs he's talking about? Why, they're U.S. Treasury bonds, of course!

I'm confused again! Are Treasury bonds crap or what? Oh, Mr. President, you've got me so befuddled...

UPDATE :: For those of you with glaze-over-proof eyes and a taste for numbers and graphs, here's a detailed analysis of "Progressive Price Indexing", as Bush's new plan is called, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Comments

Previous Comments

It's a clear measure of the Fundamentalist's desperation that they charged up W's batteries and walked him out on stage where he *gasp* actually took some questions from real-live reporters.
Scratch that: *maybe* they were real reporters, *maybe* they were live, *maybe* just a bunch of pseudonymous,right-wing-prostitute-turned-reporters...
In any event, it's a mighty rare occasion where W faces reporters of any kind, and in the 20 minutes or so I was able to tolerate watching, some questions got asked and, by way of answers, W gleeped and glurped a disjointed montage of sentence fragments.
A desperate measure indeed - the Fundamentalist's Social Security giveaway plan is going nowhere and they know it - many Fundamentalist members of the Senate are still - wet finger in the air - uncommitted to W's privatization plan, so there's no way it can go to a vote at this time. Yet another extensive media manipulation campaign in an effort to repackage the same old shit under a new brand name is sure to follow, though I doubt they'll succeed. Seems like most Americans have pretty much made up their mind on this one.
But I wish the Fundamentalists well and godspeed and all that as they overplay their "mandate" and try to press every conceivable political advantage, for all they're doing is turning up the heat on an already simmering pot of resentment and thus accelerating their own removal from power.

Okay, let's not even consider what he said last night (because it's all bullshit anyway), can you believe a president of the United States can look that un-natural and (okay, I'll just say it) fucking stupid? Just plain unbelievable!

Really, we're winning the war on terrorism? Go fuck yourself! Almost 50 MORE PEOPLE DIED TODAY IN IRAQ!!

By the way, 3 out of the 50 are US military personnel!

Alleviating taxing the Rich (because they struggle sooo hard with their millions), Freeing Big Oil from pollution Regulation, Liberating People from Social Security safety nets, Releasing the beauty of a Poison Alaskan Tundra, and Freeing people from their free American Rights - Is there any turd this man can't put clown makeup on?

Every time Bush comes on TV I start off with the best of intentions -- this time I'm going to listen to the whole thing. But then my bullsh*t meter pins and I have to turn him off before my head explodes.

Good post -- I just stopped by to say hello, I like your blog a lot and link to it on mine.

Jane