Snow Job

The Washington Post reported that Treasury Secretary John Snow has hit the Social Security phase-out promotion tour with President Bush.

The Post quoted AP writer Laura Meckler as saying in her article that Snow told her

... the administration is going to "hit this hard" and wants to "get the facts out."

The aim of the stepped-up campaign, he said, is to "engage with the American people on the fundamentals of Social Security."

What Snow isn't telling us is probably just as -- if not more important than -- what he is telling us, however. For her part, Meckler tells us right at the outset of her article that

Treasury Secretary John Snow acknowledged Wednesday that the Bush administration has not yet succeeded in selling its plan for Social Security to the American people, and said backers would continue to travel the country educating people about the program's problems.

At least we can be sure that, whatever he is telling us, we're going to continue to hear a lot more of it.

The big guy at Treasury will be in Tampa and Jacksonville tomorrow and Friday talking to the Chambers of Commerce there. His theme seems to be that:

1) Social Security needs to be changed, fundamentally, in order to keep the system sound and the changes need to be made now, permanently; plus

2) President Bush will not make any changes that affect people born before 1950.

As I already mentioned, economic growth is good for our country for the jobs it creates and the prosperity it spreads. But it is also, importantly, part of a winning strategy on deficit reduction – one of the top priorities of this budget – because economic growth increases Treasury receipts.

So, Secretary Snow heads off to Florida to preach Social Security salvation after praising his Administration's 2006 budget proposal as job friendly and deficit reducing.

There are so many facts and details illuminating the falsehoods of this man's statements, promises and proposals, that I will have to continue this post tomorrow and later, perhaps.

To Be Continued
Meanwhile, the meteorologists are calling for heavy snow tonight in the northeast.