They are shameless. Not only will the Bushies kill the promise of social security, they'll make that very agency a tool in its own undoing.
Social Security is to promote private accounts:
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 - Over the objections of many of its own employees, the Social Security Administration is gearing up for a major effort to publicize the financial problems of Social Security and to persuade the public that private accounts are needed as part of any solution.
The agency's plans are set forth in internal documents, including a "tactical plan" for communications and marketing of the idea that Social Security faces dire financial problems requiring immediate action.
They have the gall to claim this as part of their "educational" duties:
Social Security officials say the agency is carrying out its mission to educate the public, including more than 47 million beneficiaries, and to support the agenda of President Bush.
But from people who consider NCLB an educational reform, can this be a surprise? Nonetheless, some are upset:
But agency employees have complained to Social Security officials that they are being conscripted into a political battle over the future of the program. They question the accuracy of recent statements by the agency, and they say that money from the Social Security trust fund should not be used for such advocacy.
"Trust fund dollars should not be used to promote a political agenda," said Dana C. Duggins, a vice president of the Social Security Council of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 50,000 of the agency's 64,000 workers and has opposed private accounts.
Deborah C. Fredericksen of Minneapolis, who has worked for the Social Security Administration for 31 years, said, "Many employees believe that the president and this agency are using scare tactics to promote private accounts."
Duggins hits the nail on the head. This is disgusting -- public funds, pinched from the lockbox Al Gore was pilloried for trying to protect, are being used to dismantle the system. This has to be tied now not just to the administration's general heartlessness and duplicity, but specifically to Armstrong Williams and the Bushies willingness to use our money to distort the public debate.
Shame.
Worse, they see no reason to worry:
The Bush administration ran afoul of a ban on "covert propaganda" when it used tax money to promote the new Medicare drug benefit and to publicize the dangers of drug abuse by young people. The administration acknowledged paying a conservative commentator, Armstrong Williams, to promote its No Child Left Behind education policy. But on Social Security, unlike those issues, the government has not concealed its role.
And so another ugly pattern continues. This administration doesn't get caught and get slapped when it lies -- it gets caught and then gradually lets its sins slip into mainstream consciousness as just par for the course.
From them we have nothing but lies that are never unrooted from the public mind, scandals that don't scandalize, and in the end the specter of an authority whose crimes are well known but unprosecuted nontheless -- Boss Tweed, leering out of the pages of Harper's, asking, "What are you going to do about it?"