Bush admits defeat with Social Security

WASHINGTON — President Bush yesterday acknowledged for the first time that his plan to restructure Social Security, once his top second-term domestic priority, is moribund because he has been unable to build public support for it.

Citing the expensive and more urgent task of rebuilding New Orleans and other hurricane-damaged regions of the Gulf states, Bush said he retained "plenty, plenty" of political capital to push his agenda through Congress.

But in enumerating his short-term priorities at a news conference in the White House Rose Garden, the president mentioned only the war on terror and the hurricane reconstruction.

"There seems to be a diminished appetite in the short term" for dealing with Social Security, Bush said.

Earlier this year, in the face of united Democratic opposition to his Social Security agenda, Bush campaigned tirelessly throughout the United States, trying to build support for his proposal to allow younger workers to create personal retirement accounts with a portion of their Social Security payroll deductions. But the effort never took off.

Whether Congress will act on Social Security next year remains an open question. Some lawmakers, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., have expressed doubt that Congress would be able to summon the political wherewithal in an election year to take on such a hot-button issue. Bush said as much yesterday, noting that such action called for "political courage."

The president told reporters that he would continue to "remind" the public and lawmakers that Social Security's viability was "a long-term issue that we must solve" because the problem was "not going to go away."

During his remarks, at his first solo news conference since May 31, Bush also called on Congress to pay for hurricane reconstruction in a "fiscally responsible" way. Experts have estimated that the job could cost $200 billion or more, a tab that has prompted some fiscal conservatives to question Bush's bona fides as one of them.

Asked about his record of fostering big government with the war on terror and the Hurricane Katrina cleanup, Bush insisted: "I'm still a conservative, proudly so."

He urged Congress to "pay for as much of the hurricane relief as possible by cutting spending" and offered to work with lawmakers to make "real cuts" elsewhere in the budget to pay the bill. He has ruled out any tax increases.

On Iraq, Bush said that "more and more Iraqis are able to take the fight to the enemy."

Among Bush's comments on other issues:

Energy supplies: "We need more refining capacity. ... We haven't built a new refinery since the 1970s. And so I look forward to working with Congress to pass a reasonable law that will allow current refineries to expand and to encourage the construction of new refineries."

Patriot Act: "The Patriot Act is getting results. ... Parts of it are set to expire. Congress needs to recognize that terrorist threats won't expire."

Federal Reserve: "It's important that whomever I pick [as a successor to Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan] is viewed as an independent person from politics. It's this independence of the Fed that gives people, not only here in America but the world, confidence. ... Right now, I, frankly, hadn't seen any — personally hadn't seen any names yet because part of the process is to surface some names internally, but also part of the process is to reach outside the White House and solicit opinions."

Material from The Associated Press

is included in this report.