The New York Times Headline:
Bush to Shift His Social Security Focus to Solutions
My Headline: Bush to Continue His Focus on Dismantling Social Security
CRAWFORD, Tex., April 9 - After spending months seeking to convince the nation that Social Security faces serious problems that demand immediate action, President Bush will pivot to a new message next month, working in coordination with Congressional leaders to begin setting out the menu of potentially painful solutions, White House officials said.
Karl Rove on Phase 1 of the 60 day Bamboozle Tour.
"Phase 1 is heighten the sense that this is a big issue worthy of immediate consideration by Congress," said Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff for policy and Mr. Bush's political strategist. "We have some ways to go in the calendar on that, but the movement on that has been very good."
Like in Phase 1, Phase 2 President Bush is still not going to send this plan to congress but rather continue this Social Security Bamboozle Tour.
Mr. Bush intends to spend the rest of April hammering home his argument that Social Security's problems are imminent and so big that the nation has to act quickly, the theme of a 60-day offensive in which the president, his cabinet and many of his top aides have blanketed the country with personal appearances and interviews.
The strategy after that, administration officials said, is to begin laying out at least in general terms the ways in which Social Security could be put on a sound financial footing. The officials did not say what steps Mr. Bush might support, but they said any proposals would be decided in conjunction with Congressional leaders, suggesting that Mr. Bush does not intend to wade alone into that debate, with all the peril it entails.
[Bold emphasis mine]
Very courageous of you President Bush, not going at it alone!
President Bush is showing the same bravery he show during Vietnam and the rest of his life, sending others to fight this battles for him. I guess the White House thinks the popular wartime President mandate of Mr. Bush is over.
The assumption at the White House is that the initial legislative maneuvering will play out in the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is the committee's chairman, has said he will hold more hearings on the issue starting at the end of this month, with a goal of having the committee write legislation in July.
Administration officials said they have not given up on winning the support of one or more Democrats on the committee - their main target is Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota - but that they would not object to a party-line vote to get legislation out of the committee.
It is not clear, though, that Mr. Grassley even has enough Republican votes to pass something along the lines of what the White House would like. One Republican on the committee, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, has expressed strong reservations about Mr. Bush's approach, and another, Senator Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, raised doubts about whether Mr. Bush's timetable of getting a bill to his desk this year was realistic.
The next Phase of Bamboozle Tour: President Bush's coalition of the willing on Social Security!
But, some might not be that willing to dismantle Social Security.
"The tree is in blossom, but the fruit isn't ripe," Mr. Smith said in an interview.
Ms. Snowe said she continued to oppose diverting payroll tax revenues to private accounts.
"I do think it undermines the defined, guaranteed benefit," she said in an interview, "and there's no substitute for that."
But she also echoed Mr. Smith, saying, "On an issue of this importance, it takes a larger effort and a more concentrated deliberative process than has been given to this point."
The White House and its Republican allies are also facing a Democratic Party that so far has remained united in opposition to Mr. Bush's approach and undeterred by warnings from the administration that Democrats will pay a steep political price if they are seen to block steps necessary to preserve Social Security.
For now, Democrats say, they are content to force Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans to say what benefit cuts they would support and how they would pay for the transition to investment accounts.
The New York Time article does not mention any details of President Bush solutions for Social Security. I really do not see any change in focus, the headline is misleading. Again, the Liberal media at is best.