Scare tactics

Treasury Secretary John Snow has come out to say that the White House essentially hasn't done enough to scare the voters into thinking there will be a Social Security crisis:

Touting President Bush's proposal to substantially overhaul Social Security by creating private investment accounts, Treasury Secretary John Snow on Friday vowed to "take the case to the American people."

"We won't get good success ... in the Congress until the issue is well understood abroad in the land," said Snow, talking to reporters after a White House meeting on a separate initiative to simplify the U.S. tax code.

Snow said there would be town hall meetings, presidential speeches -- including the topic being a major piece of Bush's inaugural and State of the Union addresses -- and travel by administration officials. Bush's plan has encountered opposition from Democrats, the AARP and even some in his own party.

But as we already know, their side has admitted privatization fails to solve the problem on it's own.

Perhaps another obstacle getting in the way of Bush's role as salesman is his poor approval ratings, evidenced by the latest Associated Press poll:

A new Associated Press poll shows President Bush starting his second term with a job approval rating as low as that of any second-term president in the latest 50 years.

The poll finds 49 percent of respondents approve
of the job Mr. Bush is doing, while an equal number disapprove.

Congress also enjoys only lukewarm support.

The poll finds about four in ten voters approve of the job Congress is doing, while more than 50 percent disapprove.

All these numbers bode well for the Democrats in the off year elections, and if Republicans continue their assault on the middle and lower class, these numbers have nowhere to go but down.

*UPDATE* Another blow to the Republican Social Security plan:

Senator Max Baucus of Montana, a Democrat whose support was essential to the enactment of President Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and his Medicare legislation in 2003, said on Thursday that he would oppose the president's Social Security plan this year.

Mr. Baucus's position will make it difficult for the White House to obtain the Democratic votes necessary for the measure to get through the Senate.

"I seriously doubt I'm going to be the linchpin this time," Mr. Baucus, the senior Democrat on the Finance Committee, said in an interview.