Truth - Al Franken [87]
But Bush was punching a pillow. As hard as he worked, the sweatier he got, the less progress he made. The polling didn’t improve. If anything, it slumped even further. George W. Bush was covered in feathers—and, though he tried to choke them back, bitter tears of disappointment.
Things were no better for nervous Republican congressmen who were traveling back to their districts for town hall meetings. If anything, they had it even worse, because unlike Bush, they didn’t have the luxury of prescreening their audiences. Everywhere they went, Republican congressmen were confronted by their worst nightmare: a furious and well-informed citizenry.
Which isn’t to say the Republican National Committee didn’t declare victory. In a March 24 news release headlined “What They’re Saying: Social Security Town Halls—More Americans Support Call to Strengthen Social Security,” the RNC offered “a glimpse of what is being said around the country,” featuring brief quotes from local news stories. To the untrained and/or unskeptical eye, the quotes provided compelling evidence that the gloomy polls masked a groundswell of public support. But our friends at the Center for American Progress, whose eyes are both trained and skeptical, saw a smelly rat. The quotes in the RNC release had been plucked from news articles and stripped of their actual meaning. It was a time-honored RNC technique, one that you might call a “nuisance.”
From Missouri, according to the RNC:
Clif Smith, A Retiree From Joplin: “I Believe [Social Security] Needs Improved [Sic].” (Jeff Wells, “SS: Privatize Or Leave Alone?” Joplin Globe, 3/24/05)
The full quote from the Joplin Globe :
“I believe it needs improved,” said Clif Smith, a retiree from Joplin, at the AARP gathering. “But nothing of the nature of what is being talked about in Washington.”
Smith said he opposes private accounts because he thinks they would drain money from the trust fund, but he said the fund itself should own stock.
From Wyoming, RNC-style:
“[Kimberly] Holloway Sees Advantages In Personal Accounts In That It Would Encourage More Savings And Financial Responsibility . . .” (Tom Morton, “What’s A Mother To Do?” Casper [WY] Star Tribune, 3/24/05)
The full quote from the Star Tribune :
Holloway sees advantages in personal accounts in that it would encourage more savings and financial responsibility, she said.
But she’s wary that this proposal feeds into the Bush administration’s trend to encourage self-centered thinking away from considering the welfare of the general society, she said.
“We all should care because you don’t know what (misfortune) will happen,” Holloway said. “Don’t fiddle with the social safety net.”
And now my favorite, from North Dakota. Here’s the RNC version:
Scott Savelkol, Recent Graduate From Dickinson State University: “Doing Nothing Is Not An Option.” (Dave Kolpack, “Social Security Overhaul Discussed At Hearing In Fargo,” The Associated Press, 3/23/05)
Okay, here’s the real quote:
Scott Savelkol, who recently graduated from Dickinson State University, said he also opposes to private accounts [sic]. He would prefer lawmakers lift a $90,000 cap on wages taxed for Social Security.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” Savelkol said.
Scott Savelkol was mostly right. Lifting the cap is a perfectly sensible idea. And private accounts, a terrible option. But as long as Bush was insisting that any Social Security bill would include private accounts, doing nothing was the only reasonable response. Because private accounts are actually worse than doing nothing.
But how can that possibly be? Bush, like all privatizers in government and the media, tells us over and over again that private accounts will give a higher rate of return than the Social Security system. Here’s the President from that town meeting near Rochester:
With your money in your payroll taxes—after all it’s your money—is earning about a 1.8 percent rate of return over time in the Social Security system. You can do better than that. You can do better