The campaign commercials just write themselves.
WASHINGTON - If President Bush gets his way, the venerable $255 Social Security death benefit will fade into history. And 16- and 17-year-old high school dropouts will lose their monthly survivor payments.
Not, however, if Democrats get their way.
"The Republican Congress has given a whole new meaning to the term 'women and children first,'" Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee, said Tuesday.
"There they go again," said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who heads the party's Senate campaign effort. "They can't resist trying to cut Social Security, and to cut a survivor, a widow or widower's benefits, it just shows how warped the priorities are in this budget."
White House officials defended the proposals, included in the budget that Bush submitted to Congress on Tuesday and estimated to trim costs by $3.4 billion over the next decade.
(Cue sad music, fade to black and white picture of widow dressed in rags at a graveside decorated with an American flag)
(voiceover)"Congressman Tirebiter voted to eliminate compensation for this brave woman's sacrifice right before he left on a golf trip to Bermuda...."
(fade-in to men smoking cigars in the sunshine, laughing, swinging clubs, slapping each other on the back)
Easy pickins. That's why it will never happen. Not this year, anyway. Maybe next.