Bush spends SSA money hyping SSA "bankruptcy"

[Dob]

Great deal, huh? I guess we know why he's not releasing any details.

"It's incredibly irresponsible...to be against a solution that hasn't even been written yet." - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, addressing opponents (specifically the AARP) of Bush's proposals for restructuring SS.

[Rspaight]

I'd say it's even *more* "incredibly irresponsible" to be *for* a solution that hasn't even been written yet.

Ryan

[Dob]

Mr. DeLay appears to be hiding behind the differences in meanings between "a solution" and "any solution."

He is suggesting that being against *any* solution is irresponsible since everyone (?) agrees that SS needs to be restructured. But that's not what the AARP is protesting (AFAIK); they are protesting the specific Bush proposed solution ("carve out" accounts).

I suppose the Republican thinking is that since Bush, Snow, and others have made a few token conciliatory statements ("everything is on the table"), the Bush proposal has become a work in progress (merely "a" solution) and criticizing it is being against *any* solution, or denying that a problem exists. However, everyone -- or at least everyone in Washington -- knows that Bush only wishes to appear as if he's willing to compromise, and that his carve out account proposal is something he absolutely won't back away from.

Mr. DeLay knows damn well that, as far as the Bushies are concerned, the solution has been written, and has been for some time.