The Philadelphia Inquirer is accusing Rick of "peddling snake oil" with his latest remarks and legislation dealing with Social Security privatization. From Sunday's editorial:
"I've been very concerned from the beginning that the administration led with the issue of Social Security immediately after the elections and took a two-to-three month break before" detailing its plan, Santorum told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper last week. "You've just defeated your opponent, and, you know, you take a 3-iron to the beehive. You go out there and whack the beehive, and you wonder why all these bees are buzzing around your head."
This, from the guy who is the GOP's message man in the Senate.
It wasn't the President's political strategy that derailed this plan, senator. It was the plan itself, which seeks to wreck the most effective social program of the last 100 years.
With all those bees in the senator's bonnet, he introduced his own Social Security bill on Thursday. It would provide a written guarantee to people born prior to 1950 that they will receive all promised Social Security benefits and cost-of-living increases. His bill is a two-fer, at least on paper. It attempts to soothe seniors who fear that Santorum is trying to take away their benefits, and it insinuates the concept that people born after 1950 do not enjoy the same guarantee (hence the need for private accounts).
Technically, this guarantee is no guarantee at all. Congress could rescind it at any time. This proposal is just one more attempt to give private accounts an ideological foot in the door, while the larger problem of Social Security's pending insolvency goes unsolved.
It's a transparent ploy; it's sad to see such stuff coming from someone who, before the President came along, had been a leader in the public debate over Social Security.
We'll take that as the Inquirer's answer to the
question we posed last week about Rick's new Social Security bill.
