Does Bush Think Social Security is Undignified?

By DHinMI

George W. Bush never ceases to astound me with his blatant disregard for truth, reason and decency.  For instance, look at what he said yesterday about one of his propaganda events for social security:

President Bush said Wednesday that private investment accounts created from Social Security payroll taxes is an idea whose time has come as more Americans are comfortable with putting their retirement funds in the market.

Bush told the Latino Small Business Economic Conference that "people from all walks of life" are investing in 401k retirement accounts offered by their employers.

"I went down to the Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, (Tuesday) and it was a very diverse audience, a lot of assembly line workers," Bush said. "And I said, `How many of you all have got your own 401k?' I mean, the number of hands that went up was astounding."

Well, yeah, lots of people--especially non-union employees like the workers at rabidly anti-union Nissan, who are unlikely to have generous defined benefit pension plans--are relying on 401(k) personal retirement plans to supplement their Social Security retirement benefits.  That hardly means that they would want to rely only on personal retirement accounts. 

But here's what I found astounding:

Bush wants to let workers under age 55 divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts. He also announced last week that he wants to allow benefits to rise the most for lower-income retirees, but Democrats and some Republicans oppose the idea.

"Seems fair to me," Bush told a few hundred people gathered in a hotel ballroom two blocks from the White House. "Seems like a noble calling for the United States of America, to recognize a lot of people work really hard and don't make a lot of money, but when it comes time to retire, there ought to be dignity in retirement."

So, is George W. Bush saying that it's an indignity to rely on Social Security for retirement?  Does he not know the history of Social Security, that it was created so senior citizens and the disabled could live with dignity instead of struggling to survive in penury? 

I guess for George W. Bush indignity is not having a trust fund and daddy's rich patrons to bail you out of all your financial boondoggles.  To live in any other way, for the Bush family, is undignified.  What a great argument for his Social Security plan--"if you don't adopt my plan, you're against the natural aristocratic order."