The Preznit really blew it this time :

Nearing the end of a 60-day nationwide campaign for his Social Security proposals, Bush told a prime time White House news conference he favored changes to tilt the current system to favor low-income retirees of the future.

“If you work hard and pay into Social Security your entire life, you will not retire into poverty,” he said.

Bush spoke as White House officials issued written material saying the type of change he had in mind could be accomplished with a “sliding scale benefit formula.” That would mean lower payments for future retirees of middle and upper incomes than they are currently guaranteed ? a fact Bush himself did not mention in his 60-minute session with reporters.

The best attack the Republicans have had against the Democrats lately¹ is that they “don’t have a plan”. Well, now that the President has changed course and publicly stated that the goal of his Social Security plan is to prevent people from “retir[ing] into poverty”, he’s steering the GOP into some very unfriendly waters.

When it comes to preventing poverty, it’s the Democrats that are the ones overflowing with ideas. Increased funding for child care programs, raising the minimum wage, adding greater progressivity to the tax code, stopping predatory lending practices, and prividing greater access to healthcare will all do more to help the poor than Bush’s scheme to reinvent Social Security into one that might help the poor at the expense of everyone else. When it comes to really helping people living in poverty, it’s the Republicans who have no ideas.

And should I even bother speculating how well the idea of cutting benefits for the middle class and rich to provide for the poor will go over with the Republican rank-and-file? I’ve already seen it described as “turning Social Security into Welfare”. How long until we hear those old chestnuts about “redistribution of wealth” or, even worse, talk about taxes as “theft”? The right-wing has spent decades pushing the notion that the poor should be on the recieving end of any condescending talk of “tough love” or “responsibilty”. Do they honestly expect mainstream conservatives to flip-flop on this?? I know conservatives wanna kill Social Security, but I doubt they wanna do it this bad.

^{1 : And that ain’t sayin’ much. As Josh Marshall recently noted, “Democrats do have a plan: it’s called Social Security”}