This one comes froma key Rove deputy, Peter Wehner. Although it is full of all sorts of NewSpeak ('ownership society' "unsustainable' 'dependency on government' 'responsibility to individuals') it comes clean in one frank passage: "For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win -- and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country."
For the GOP this is not an issue about sustainability or reform, it is about 'winning' the battle they lost under FDR. It is a cardinal point of ideology for them, as willingly acknowledged here: "Let me add one other important point: we consider our Social Security reform not simply an economic challenge, but a moral goal and a moral good." Unfortunately for the rest of us, the hard-core GOoPers version of 'moral goods' are zero-sum -- for them to win we must lose.
The GOP could just adopt Prince Charles' statement as their motto: now is the time to halt people from trying to 'rise about their station.'
different voices
10 years ago