mommy mommy....I need help
Bushes make pitch to Fla. seniors
President trying to win over GOP on Social Security
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | March 19, 2005
PENSACOLA, Fla. -- His mother and brother at his side, President Bush yesterday traveled to the retiree haven of Florida to seek to assuage seniors' fears over the possibility of their Social Security benefits being cut.
Barbara Bush gamely played her role, appealing to the crowd as a fellow senior citizen. With the president and Governor Jeb Bush of Florida sharing the stage, she pronounced herself concerned about what Social Security will look like for her 17 grandchildren.
''We want to know: Is someone going to do something about it?" she said at Pensacola Junior College. ''That's the whole reason [I'm here] -- other than seeing my boys."
Yet Barbara Bush's appearance with the president also speaks to the political reality that is threatening to sink Bush's plan. Six weeks after he laid out his goals for Social Security in his State of the Union address, the president remains on the defensive.
He has barely started working with Congress to craft a bill, because he is still trying to convince people that Social Security faces funding challenges that require swift action. Democrats, meanwhile, are united in their opposition to private accounts and benefit cuts, and they are aligned with powerful labor unions and the AARP.
Yesterday Bush spent far more time assuring seniors that their benefits wouldn't be cut, one reason he included his mother in the events, than he did touting personal accounts, the centerpiece of his plan. He praised Social Security as ''one of our greatest institutions" and thanked President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for creating it.
At events in Pensacola and Orlando, Bush spoke in front of signs that read ''Keeping Our Promise to Seniors." Gone were the banners used by the White House at previous events: ''Strengthening Social Security for the 21st Century."