Wither the fear?

Hugh Hewitt, I assume with a straight face, claims that Democrats are going to peddle fear in order to win the Social Security debate:

What this tells you is that the Dems have decided that the best path out of the political wilderness is a full-scale assault on the fears of the American middle class and of course, American seniors in the context of the debate over social security reform. If Charles Rangel is actually willing to say on national radio that President Bush is proposing a 40% cut in benefits, then it is fair to conclude that the Dems will say anything to gain political advantage in this debate.

Need I remind him of this gem from a White House email (my bold):

Let me tell you first what our plans are in terms of sequencing and political strategy. We will focus on Social Security immediately in this new year. Our strategy will probably include speeches early this month to establish an important premise: the current system is heading for an iceberg. The notion that younger workers will receive anything like the benefits they have been promised is fiction, unless significant reforms are undertaken. We need to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course. That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the pre-condition to authentic reform.

Which smells more of desperate fear, the claim that there is no crisis, or that the system is headed for an iceberg that will doom us all?

As to Rangel's claim of a cut in benefits, I wonder where he could get that idea (my bold)?

In informal briefings on Capitol Hill, White House aides have told lawmakers and aides that Bush will propose the change in the benefits formula, an approach recommended by his 2001 Commission to Strengthen Social Security , according to congressional aides and lobbyists.

Currently, initial benefits are set by a complex formula that calculates workers' average annual earnings in their 35 highest-paid years and adjusts those earnings up from those years to reflect standards of living near that worker's retirement age. That adjustment is based on wage growth over that time span. Under the commission plan, the adjustment would be based instead on the rise of consumer prices.

The change would save trillions of dollars in scheduled expenditures and solve Social Security's long-term deficit, but at a cost. According to the Social Security Administration's chief actuary, a middle-class worker retiring in 2022 would see guaranteed benefits cut by 9.9 percent. By 2042, average monthly benefits for middle- and high-income workers would fall by more than a quarter. A retiree in 2075 would receive 54 percent of the benefit now promised.

*UPDATE* Marshall points out we should be more afraid of two of Bush's first term proposals than anything.