Bush's Social Security Plan Cuts Benefits

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Friday pitched his new proposal to fix Social Security's finances by cutting the benefit now promised to future retirees for all but the lowest-income recipients and warned Democratic opponents not to "play politics as usual" with it.

"I have a duty to put ideas on the table, and I'm putting them on the table," Bush said at an event in suburban Falls Church, Va. The outing was a follow-up to his prime-time news conference Thursday, in which Bush talked for the first time about his ideas for changes that would solve Social Security's long-term fiscal problems. He told his audience that "those who block meaningful reform are going to be held to account in the polls."

Under Bush's approach, future Social Security checks would increase more quickly for the lowest-income retirees than for everyone else. Though Bush promised that middle- and upper-income retirees would get benefits "equal to or greater than the benefits enjoyed by today's seniors," they would be smaller than what the system is now promising for the future.

"If you've worked all your life and paid into the Social Security system you will not retire into poverty," Bush said. "If Congress were to enact that, that would go a long way toward making the system solvent for the younger generation of Americans."

Bush's plan immediately drew ire from Democrats.

Bush would "gut benefits for middle-class families," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said in a joint statement.

But White House press secretary Scott McClellan said that calling Bush's proposal a cut is "irresponsible." He argued that Social Security's long-term fiscal problems mean that the benefits the system is guaranteeing today "are an empty promise" and that everyone's checks will eventually be smaller if no action is taken.

Bush's proposal could be accomplished with a "sliding-scale benefit formula," the White House said in a fact sheet. That change, it said, would solve 70 percent of Social Security's solvency problem.