Posted on 03/05/2006 9:57:34 AM PST by jmc1969
Publisher Steve Forbes is using an Iowa campaign trip to criticize President George W. Bush's handling of Social Security and the Iraq war.
During a Des Moines stop Saturday for Secretary of Agriculture candidate Mark Leonard, Forbes said Bush has been his own worst enemy in his decline in the polls.
Forbes said Bush failed to get the Social Security changes he wanted because his plan was too vague and people feared what might happen to their older relatives.
In handling the Iraq war, Forbes said Bush again failed to give the public specific information on what was happening there.
(Excerpt) Read more at kcci.com ...
I am a Forbes fan but it is easy to take pot shots after the fact and with no real world restrictions.
Come one, Come all. Everyone jump on the bandwagon.
Can't argue with that. Extremely lame planning and even worse execution. Bush had a huge opportunity, but instead took his post-election "capital" and flushed it down the toilet. We should be using the Chilean model for pensions. What we have is nearly a century obsolete.
IF you could combine the in your face glibness of Bill Clinton with Bush's policies and convictions, you'd have a formidable leader on all fronts. Sad that the politicians who talk a lot are fools, the ones who do a good job are not great orators.
Yeah, but you can't argue that he certainly hasn't helped himself in the polls, particularly with the way this latest ports issue was released. W's efficacy in "handling" the media is completely the converse of Reagan's.
What a complete and utter fool. This twit goes out and runs his mouth and gets instant news coverage. THE President or a member of the administration give speeches daily, but WHO KNOWS.
Speaking of which, did you KNOW that THE President was just in India, Afghanistan and Pakistan???
What bothers me the most, is that when skewing Bush they focus on issues that should matter the least. We are winning in Iraq. If folks would focus on that it would be a big help. Bush can be blamed in some regards for not getting that message out, but when dunderheads like Forbes make comments like this, it doesn't serve to do that. It only muddies the waters further.
When it comes to Iraq, the MSM, the Democarts and even some Republicans just don't get it. We're winning. The terrorists are not. Quit blaming Bush for not gettting that message out, if you can't even do it.
Steve, we are winning in Iraq. Could you please act as if you realized it.
All these "couldn't get electd for anythings" all know better, I see. Must be nice to be so superior. (sarc)
A clip from this years SOTU:
Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security -- (applause)**by demonRATS** -- yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away. (Applause.) And every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse.
A basic knowledge of dempgraphics is not too much to ask of a citizen. I think the president has a tendency to trust the public to "get it", and they don't. I don't blame the president for failing in social security reform, I blame the citizens who were short sighted, uninformed, and used badly by the dimmocrats.
That'll correct itself. Greedy babyboomers prepared to throw their children and their childrens' children under the bus just so that they can squeeze their "inputs" back out.
I'm not talking about people that may really need it, but I had a boss early in my career that was loaded from a variety of sources and we got into this conversation, and he was hell bent on getting back out what he put in. At some point that has to stop. IMO the best solution, fair or not, is to have some sort of cutoff for people with their own provisions for retirement and a sliding scale after that, to a point where the program is simply abolished.
I'm happy to throw anything I have coming under the bus in favor of getting this resolved. But the "coming to retirement" of the BB's will force a solution. It's simply not feasible for all of them to "collect their inputs" or fair share w/o devastating economic impacts.
Nonsense. I am a political consultant. Introducing a new program or reform is like introducing a new soft drink. Unfortunately Team Bush sold "New Coke". They totally flubbed it. Didn't plan it well, explained it horribly, and were totally unprepared for the routine objections and counter-arguments. Moreover they were too insulated and ignored the advice of seasoned GOP media pros like myself and colleagues on how to win.
Thanks...explains a lot.
LOL! It is a little difficult to help yourself in the polls when the pollsters are shysters.
On the bottom of the PDF version of the poll (page 18) it says how many Democrats versus Republicans were contacted.
"Total Republicans" contacted: 272 unweighted and 289 weighted.
"Total Democrats" contacted: 409 unweighted and 381 weighted.
"Total Independents" contacted: 337 unweighted and 348 weighted.
Not to mention the millions of dollars AARP spent in their fear mongering campaign with the elderly.
Frankly, IMO he's utterly neutered in this way.
The pollsters contact 272 "Total Republicans"
--- and --- 746 Total Others to force a predetermined outcome,
and you think he could help himself? How, by walking on water?
OK. The difference between us is that you think he and his administration/media people are doing as good a job as they can and I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum.
I'm not gonna argue with you over the differences between "poll biases" and the efforts of another party altogether, related, yet entirely different.
I understand your posture however.
When the debate focused on the possibility of raising taxes to pay for the partial privatization, the President did NOT rule out raising taxes. He stated that he ONLY ruled out raising tax RATES, and not lifting the income ceiling for SS taxes--as proposed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (who suggested the possibility of raising the income ceiling to $200K!). Even the House budget committee leadership was discussing how high to raise the income ceiling as the price for privatization.
When the President did not take THAT particular tax increase off the table--his prosposal was toast. At that point I went from a supporter to someone strongly opposed to any change. If higher taxes are the price that we had to pay for partial privatization--THAT PRICE IS TOO HIGH!! I'll stick with IRA's, 401k's, personal savings rather than pay higher taxes for a minimal government retirement. Failure to remove ALL taxes from the table made the President's plan not that much different than John Kerry's plan to raise taxes on higher income people--and that was the last straw for even those who strongly support the concept of privatization.
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