Morning Report 4/29/05
Bush Invades the U.S.!

George W. Bush told the masses last night at his press conference exactly what his strategy on Social Security was—rather, his strategy on selling his plan to dismantle Social Security by privatizing it so his pals on Wall Street can profit. He may just get away with it.

After almost four months of pounding the lie into the populace, through a series of "town hall" meetings, that Social Security is "broken," Bush revealed that his plan is to cut benefits. Here's the line in his press conference that gets me:

See, once the American people realize there's a problem, then they're going to start asking members of Congress from both parties, why aren't you doing something to fix it?

Yes, that's exactly what the regime has done: stir up fear by lying about how the Social Security program is broke and broken. Once that sinks in, you tell people that benefits will be cut.

As I pointed out on January 19 in "Going for Brokers," this is just another drumbeat for war. But this time the war is against us, not Iraq. Take a look at what the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has been saying. I wrote back then:

As Bob Greenstein of the CBPP points out, the predicted Social Security shortfall for the next several decades could be made up almost entirely if we simply did not make permanent the Bush regime's tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.

But those truths are drowned out by the enormous propaganda campaign of the past four months. Re-read what Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post wrote on December 31:

President Bush's allies are raising millions of dollars for an election-style campaign to promote private Social Security accounts, as Democrats and Republicans prepare for what they predict will be the most expensive and extensive public policy debate since the 1993 fight over the Clinton administration's failed health care plan.

Nearly four months later, we can finally say that there now is a Social Security "crisis": the administration's well-financed assault against it.

The millions of dollars have come from the wealthiest Americans. Who do you think contributes the bulk of any political-campaign money? I wrote last September:

Keep a couple of things in mind: As NYU professor Ed Wolff has pointed out, the richest 1 percent of American households own 38 percent of all wealth. And as the Center for Responsive Politics notes, fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of the U.S. population gave 83 percent of all campaign contributions over $200 for the 2002 midterm congressional elections.

When are people going to wake up to the fact that the current administration is not conservative but in fact revolutionary and radical? Maybe when you're spending your retirement years begging for jobs at Wal-Mart while they're relaxing in the Hamptons.