The other night I was up preparing my usual midnight snack -- toasted plain bagel with cream cheese -- when I made the most delightful discovery. As I awaited the split bagel to leap from the toaster, I munched on my Bugles and noticed the greatest tag line in the history of junk food: "Other snacks are pointless."
Obviously, that led me to think, "So things aren't looking that great for Fearless Leader and his attempt to destroy, err, save, Social Security."
First off you've got all these free-thinking clowns within his own party and the conservative movement who aren't falling in line. A March 29 article in the Washington Post presents numerous right-wing intellectuals expressing serious skepticism. Tyler Cowen, a free-market economist at George Mason University, said, "I think there was a kind of notional support among right-wing or free-market intellectuals. But now they're getting nervous. Even if they're not speaking out, they just figure it will die on the vine."
In another Washington Post article, Rep. Jim Leach, an Iowa Republican said after the president's visit, "Today, the public has not found his personal account approach compelling."
Ooh and then there's House Speaker Dennis Hastert who admitted on Friday that Bush's call for the Social Security bill to be passed this year was unlikely and it would probably have to wait till 2006.
Jeez, what's their problem?
Bush says "Jump!" You say "How high?"
And what's with the number bots? The rates that the administration is using say that the economy will expand less than 2 percent a year. According to Bloomberg, "Thirty-nine of 58 economists and strategists surveyed by Bloomberg News say that if the economy slows that much, Bush's stock outlook is too optimistic."
Come on, the administration got the WMD intelligence it wanted to start bombing Iraq, why won't the economists roll over and give them the missiles they need to obliterate Social Security?
The old folks aren't buying it, according to The Associated Press. A recent survey found that the more AARP members found out about his plan, the less they liked it. Even with the 29 percent who were on board, upon learning of possible side effects, half jumped ship.
The whippersnappers are following suit. According to the Kansas City Star, a recent Pew poll found "support for Bush's plan among Americans age 18 to 29 sharply dropped from 66 percent in February to 49 percent in late March."
So the economists are saying the numbers look funny. The old people -- aka the part of the electorate that votes - are screaming so loud we young'uns are actually listening.
And the GOP isn't united. This is probably part of that Republican Party civil war that conservative columnist Bruce Bartlett told Run Suskind about back before the election. According to the New York Times, he also said of Bush, "He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence."
Bartlett wasn't talking about Social Security evisceration, err, privatization, but he might as well have been. That's just what it is -- irrational faith in stock market salvation: screw the numbers.
"Other snacks are pointless." Also pointless: worrying about the administration's junk food economics. I'll just have a bagel and go back to bed.
Write to David at
swimminginbrokenglass@gmail.com
Visit http://www.bsu.edu/web/dmswindle
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