Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Reuters: Bush "Struggling" on Social Security

Reuters chooses an interesting way to headline this story about the latest leg of the Social Insecurity Road Show.

Bush Takes Social Security Struggle to Iowa

"Struggle?" Generally, coverage of the Road Show focuses on Bush's determination to push privatization through. Despite the anemic support for the president's idea, coverage of these events does not often focus on the negatives. If the media begin to sell the stories with this kind of language, it could set a whole new tone for this debate.

Of course, after a bold start, Reuters fizzles with a mealy-mouthed characterization of how much opposition Bush faces, claiming that most of the public disapproval is due to the efforts of AARP.

A new AARP poll found that "most AARP members just don't like private investment accounts that drain funds from Social Security and the more they learn, the less they like them," according to the group's Web site.

The poll, conducted in early March, found that six in 10 of the members opposed the idea of diverting up to $1,300 of their Social Security taxes into a private account. "After learning more about the effects of private accounts, opposition rose to as high as 75 percent," the Web site said.
Uh, guys? How about the latest Pew Research poll that shows only 44 percent of the general population supports the Bush idea?

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