To hear Andy Card tell it, Bush still doesn’t have a plan

May 2, 2005

After last week’s press conference, talk of the president finally having something of a “plan” for Social Security started to solidify. This, at least at first, sounded like a change.

We’ve been playing this annoying game for months. Most it comes down to semantics and strategy, but for nearly all of the current fight over the future of Social Security, the White House has maintained the fiction that the president has no plan. In fact, Bush personally insisted as much in March, and the White House told Congress a couple of months ago that the president may never offer a detailed proposal to lawmakers.

That changed last week, when the president outlined fairly specific policy prescriptions, including massive benefit cuts to middle-class families. Finally, some of us said, we’re getting into the details of the Bush plan. Or so we thought.

White House Chief of Staff Andy Card said yesterday that the Pozen model, touted by the president on national television just a few days ago, isn’t the president’s plan. When told that the nonpartisan chief Social Security actuary analyzed the proposal laid out by the president and found sweeping cuts to everyone who makes more than $25,000 annually, Card said:

“Now, the plan that you put on the table is really not necessarily the president’s plan; it’s directionally consistent with the president’s plan. And we’d like to see Congress start to work taking a look at the plan proposed by Mr. Pozen, for example, where the statistics that you just cited come from, and see if they might make for a better system.” (emphasis added)

I don’t think Card was trying to distance the White House from the Pozen policy so much as distance the president from the idea of having a concrete plan for Social Security. The Pozen plan is “directionally consistent” with what the president wants, but it’s not the same thing. What is the White House plan? No one knows. It doesn’t appear to exist.

Every time someone insists congressional Dems need to come up with a plan, the response should be fairly obvious: Bush first.

You weren’t listening to the president during his press conference. He said that he has “a duty as the President to define problems facing our nation and to call upon people to act.”

He’s done that. Now it’s time for the legislative process to start. Legislative, you know, that’s Congress. Not the president. Especially Democrats in Congress.

Next you’ll be asking him to negotiate with himself.

  • This administration doesn’t do policy; they simply follow their right-wing ideology and serve as errand boys to business lobbyists. Their Social Security proposal isn’t credible or thought-through because nothing they do is credible or thought-through. We should stop pretending that there is anything substantive to anything they say, or that they have the slightest interest in governing. It is a pure kleptocracy with a massive marketing arm to sell whatver they need to in order to steal more.

    We will be a generation paying for this crew’s mendacity.

  • Horse pucky, Rational Voter. The jerk of a “President” had Cheney hold secret meetings that they then put in written form and sent it to Congress as the “energy bill” that he’s been bleating about for four years. Also in 2001, the White House drafted the tax cut bills and sent detailed proposals to the Hill. There are many examples of this by Bush. That practice is typical for Presidents, and Bush hasn’t played shy before.

    Here, though, when he now has his hand stuck to the third rail and can’t let go, he says it’s not his job!! What a coward and hypocrit! He goes around like Chicken Little screaming “the [Social Security] sky is falling” — again using terror/fear tactics to cow the American people to follow his direction — but because the polls show he is out on a limb with nothing to stop him from getting the branch cut out from under him, and NOW he gets coy.

    Probably time for another terror alert, because Bush’s tactic of tying EVERYTHING to 9-11 just isn’t working on things like the good old days. I don’t believe, for one damn second, that it is merely coincidence that we’ve not had a “terror alert” from the government since election day last November. NOT A FUCKING ONE!! I fully expect them to start up again as the 2006 mid-terms draw near. The playbook never changes; just the calendar dictates which plays to call for these thugs.

  • I most defineately agree with George. The terror alerts will once again start up around the 2006 elections.
    Is rational voter another one of Bushes paid advertisers? Bush does have a plan for social security. His plan is to destroy it. Bush and his bosses have no need for social security as they have been stealing the public’s money for years and years.
    Do we want SS fixed? Then raise the wage cap and get rid of Bushes tax cut’s to corporations and his buddies.

  • Saw this over at DeLong’s (the link showed up only after I left my comment). I saw this too over at Angrybear. I forgot to mention WHY Card said this. Card was going on and on how under the present plan, retirees would get a 26% cut – never mentioning 26% less than the scheduled increase over time. So Russert fired off that under the Pozen plan, folks would get a 40% cut. Whoops – time to play denial. Yes, Card works for a pack of liars and got caught. So he lied.

  • I don’t believe, for one damn second, that it is merely coincidence that we’ve not had a “terror alertâ€? from the government since election day last November. NOT A FUCKING ONE!!

    No coincidence whatsoever. It’s because of our masterful plan, and I quote, “to defeat the terrorists abroad so we don’t have to face them here at home.” See, that’s why there were over 600 incidents of terrorist attacks last year — “when you engage the terrorists abroad, it causes activity and action.”

    You guys just don’t understand the nuanced strategic approach the Bush administration has.

    Also, John Bolton does think the UN is important.

  • Hahahaha, good one.

    Sure, let’s confuse terror ALERTS with actual terror attacks, shall we?

    You nedd to explain to me how this great, masterful plan manges to halt the “terrorists” you imply they sucessfully intercept, and the subsequent lack of alerts.

    See, that is mutually exclusive: if there are terrorists, there should be alerts.

    So, the first poster is proven correct: the “alerts” were false redherrings, cynically used for political gain.

    Nice try, though.

    [I don’t believe, for one damn second, that it is merely coincidence that we’ve not had a “terror alert� from the government since election day last November. NOT A FUCKING ONE!!

    No coincidence whatsoever. It’s because of our masterful plan, and I quote, “to defeat the terrorists abroad so we don’t have to face them here at home.� See, that’s why there were over 600 incidents of terrorist attacks last year — “when you engage the terrorists abroad, it causes activity and action.�

    You guys just don’t understand the nuanced strategic approach the Bush administration has.

    Also, John Bolton does think the UN is important.]

    • Comments are closed.