Say one thing, do another

Right from the beginning of his term, Bush's approach to governing has been to say one thing while doing exactly the opposite. One more example occurred today, when Bush told a hand picked, highly screened audience that he thought businesses should live up to their pension obligations.

KERNERSVILLE, N.C. -

President Bush called on American businesses on Monday to live up to their pension promises, saying too many companies are not putting away enough money to protect the retirement benefits of their workers.

"My message to corporate America is you need to fulfill your promises," Bush said. "When you say to a worker, `This is what they're going get when they retire,' you better put enough money in the account to make sure the worker gets that what you said."

As usual, what he says and what he does are two very different things. This document, written by the Democratic caucus of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, points out in great detail how the Bushies have systematically rejected every reasonable effort at pension reform brought forth by the Democrats. As the preamble puts it:

The worsening state of many private pensions, affecting millions of American employees and their families, has reached crisis state. Pension plans that fail become the responsibility of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The PBGC's current multi-billioin dollar underfunding is prompting visions of a repetition of the costly Savings and Loan (S&L) bailout of the 1980s, according to Emory University Professor George J. Benson, an expert on the regulatory failure that led to the earlier crisis.

Democratic leaders in Congress, as well as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the PBGC itself, have been calling for substantial pension reform in the wake of the Enron and other bankruptcies and the worsening financial condition of the PBGC. But the Bush Administration and Republican congressional leaders have failed to act as the crisis has worsened and the risks have become even greater. As the New York Times noted on August 8, 2004, “Congress would do better to tackle the [pension] problem now than wait until after a full-blown crisis.”

The document goes on to spell out a time line of all the proposals rejected by the Republicans. Meanwhile, nothing significant has been proposed by the Administration.

I say, "put up or shut up," otherwise knows as "s--t or get off the pot."