{"id":3244,"date":"2004-12-21T10:38:33","date_gmt":"2004-12-21T15:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3244.html"},"modified":"2004-12-21T10:38:33","modified_gmt":"2004-12-21T15:38:33","slug":"when-it-comes-to-social-security-bush-pretends-to-be-an-innocent-bystander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-it-comes-to-social-security-bush-pretends-to-be-an-innocent-bystander\/","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to Social Security, Bush pretends to be an innocent bystander"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the presidential campaign, Bush acted as if he hadn’t been president for the last four years. During yesterday’s press conference<\/a>, he acted as if he won’t be president for the next four.<\/p>\n

Every question regarding Social Security, for example, elicited responses in which Bush, who claims to have Social Security “reform” at the top of his domestic agenda, pretended he’s an innocent bystander in this process. To hear the president tell it, he has no views or opinions on the issue at all.<\/p>\n

“Now, the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself, John, and others here, as we run up to the issue to get me to negotiate with myself in public; to say, you know, what’s this mean, Mr. President, what’s that mean. I’m not going to do that. I don’t get to write the law. I will propose a solution at the appropriate time, but the law will be written in the halls of Congress.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When another question was raised about Bush’s broader views on possibly increasing the retirement age or cutting benefits, the president suggested he has absolutely no say in the process.<\/p>\n

“Well, again, I will repeat. Don’t bother to ask me.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, of course not; he’s only the president who’s demanding the changes to Social Security in the first place. What makes anyone think he’s the right person to ask?<\/p>\n

To hear Bush tell it, he has absolutely nothing to do with changing Social Security at all. If yesterday’s comments reflect reality in any way, Bush won’t unveil his own plan to the public, won’t send Congress a proposal for lawmakers to consider, and won’t comment on his specific priorities at all. It’s enough to make one wonder if the poor man has started drinking again.
\n
\nBush won’t lay out preferences, but he insists that private accounts are necessary. He won’t talk about implementation, but he insists that payroll taxes not go up. He won’t address the substance of the policy, but he insists that benefits won’t be cut for those “near retirement.”<\/p>\n

I don’t think the president is aware of it, but he’s already negotiating with himself in public.<\/p>\n

Bush also seems confused about the modern process of lawmaking. If the White House wants to take on a seismic policy shift on a program as large as Social Security, it’s normal for the president and his aides to craft a proposal and have it introduced by allies in the House and Senate. Yesterday, Bush insisted changes to Social Security will be “written in the halls of Congress” because he doesn’t “get to write the law.” Of course he does. The White House wrote the Medicare scheme before Congress approved it. The White House wrote the tax cut bills before Congress passed them. <\/p>\n

Especially with Republican majorities in both chambers, there’s an expectation<\/i> that the White House will unveil its own plan. Instead, Bush wants us to see him as little more than an interested observer, who’s watching Congress from afar (16 blocks away, down Pennsylvania Avenue). It’s as if Bush wants the press corps to believe he needs a refresher on the basics of the political process.<\/p>\n

Tim Noah makes a compelling case<\/a> that Bush’s responses to Social Security questions yesterday reflect a deep cynicism, asking Congress to take the blame for this entire fiasco.<\/p>\n

When Bush says someone is trying to get him to “negotiate with myself in public,” which he says a lot, it has always been my understanding that he means he doesn’t have to consider an argument with which he doesn’t agree. Now, though, I suspect that, at least in this case, he means something more. He’s saying that he doesn’t have to consider reality. It isn’t his job to do “this hard thing.” That’s somebody else’s job — in this instance, Congress: “I don’t get to write the law.”<\/p>\n

What “I” get to do, as president, is make promises that I know perfectly well can never be kept, and then to make Congress break those promises for me. I don’t have to change “the principles I believe in” because I know more responsible people in the government will violate them and take the blame. <\/p>\n

Those “principles,” then, are really nothing more than the narcissism of a spoiled child.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Excellent point. What Bush proved more than anything yesterday is an aversion to actual leadership. He’s a general who gives the troops a vague order to launch an attack … and get back to him later with a report on how things went after it’s over.<\/p>\n

Congress didn’t initiate the discussion over killing Social Security; Bush did. But now that it’s on the table, Bush can’t be bothered to even express an opinion over how the phase-out of the popular program should be done.<\/p>\n

Could this president with his “tough guy” persona really be that cowardly? Apparently so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the presidential campaign, Bush acted as if he hadn’t been president for the last four years. During yesterday’s press conference, he acted as if he won’t be president for the next four. Every question regarding Social Security, for example, elicited responses in which Bush, who claims to have Social Security “reform” at the top […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}