Norquist unveils GOP strategy to kill Social Security

When most people think of the GOP's recent downward trend in the polls, issues such as Iraq, gas prices, corruption, Katrina and health care come to mind.  But the first crack in the GOP's reign on Capitol Hill came last year during the fight over Social Security.  After months of debate and an outright rejection of Bush's proposal by senior citizens, the Republican effort to dismantle FDR's Social Security system went cold last summer.  Ever since then, no Republican has talked about it, fearing a backlash from senior voters -- which has consistently shown to be the demographic most likely to show up at the polls on election day.

But all of a sudden, there is a slight murmur of chatter among the top levels of the Washington GOP establishment.  Famous GOP strategist Grover Norquist is saying that if the Republicans hold the Senate, or even pick up five more seats, they will go after Franklin Roosevelt's Social Security program and dismantle it for good.

Marie Cocco of the Washington Post Writers Group has the low-down on the GOP Social Security attack plan:

Plans to resuscitate President Bush's stone-cold proposal to turnSocial Security from a guaranteed insurance program into a patchwork ofprivate savings accounts already are in the works. All it will take,says Grover Norquist, conservative strategist extraordinaire, is theelection of another five conservative Republican senators -- enough tosurmount procedural roadblocks by Democrats or those tremulousRepublican moderates who would try to preserve the nation's mostsuccessful and best-loved government program.

     ``I believe that when there are 60 Republican senators we willmove Social Security from the present Ponzi scheme to a fully funded,individually held system,'' Norquist told journalists brought togetherby The American Prospect magazine.

Obviously, as you probably know, Norquist is referring to President Bush's Social Security plan, which would privatize the system.  It would do away with giving guaranteed benefits to retirees and add more than $2 trillion worth of transition costs to the National Debt.

Now you know what is bound to happen if the Democrats do poorly this November.

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More blogs writing about this issue: Angry Bear, Streak's Blog, Life is Crap, TPM Cafe, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, A Taxing Matter, Change for Missouri, FCDC, Zag Pol Blog.

Comments

[Mike K]

Oh God! Why do people vote Republican? It is not in their best interest at all.