Bush Social Security Plan Would Cut Future Benefits

from the WaPo:

President Bush called on Congress last night to curtail future Social Security benefits for all but low-income retirees in an urgent new effort to address the popular program's shaky finances.

With virtually every Democrat, as well as many Republicans, opposed to his plan for private investment accounts, Bush sought to shift the focus of the Social Security debate to a new proposal that would reduce benefits more as workers' incomes rise.

"I believe the reformed system should protect those who depend on Social Security the most," he said in a nationally televised news conference. "So I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off." This is the first time Bush has backed a specific plan to reduce future benefits for tens of millions of Americans.

This marks a dramatic shift in tactics in the Social Security debate. No, not the media telling the truth part, as amazing as that is. I mean the fiendishly clever attempt to use progressivity as a tool to destroy Social Security.

Shrub knows that means-testing Social Security in effect turns it into welfare. And Murkuns despise welfare. In other words, Social Security will retain broad support only so long as it is not seen as income redistribution. Convert it to welfare and you can bleed off support and, as per Grover Norquist's dream, drown it in the bathtub.

In a perfect world I would agree with what Bush is trying to do (the progressivity part, not the destroying Social Security part). But in a perfect world, Hunter Thompson would have let the falling-down drunk Bush drown in Thompson's bathtub.