Social Security causes GOP rift

• President George W. Bush's effort to get Congress moving on Social Security by proposing cuts in benefits for high- and middle-income retirees has exposed cracks in the House Republican leadership.
• Majority Leader Tom DeLay and many conservatives unhappy with the Senate's cautious approach want a House bill on Social Security ready as soon as possible, while Speaker Dennis Hastert prefers to wait and let the Senate act first, according to Republican aides.
• Republicans hold majorities in both the House and Senate.
• The rift was exposed shortly after Bush's news conference Thursday night, when he tried to kick-start legislative deliberations.
• Bush announced low-wage workers would continue to see their retirement benefits linked to wage growth, keeping them apace with a gradually rising standard of living as well as price increases.
• Benefits for the remaining 70 percent of future retirees would keep pace with price inflation but not with living standard improvements over their working lives.
• Fifty-eight percent of 1,006 adults surveyed April 29-May 1 said they disapprove of his work on Social Security, up from 57 percent in early April and 48 percent in early February, the poll showed.
• Bush has proposed letting younger workers shift a third of the funds they pay into Social Security into private investment accounts, an idea congressional Democrats oppose.
• "With gas prices on the rise, the focus of the public is back on the economy and jobs," pollster David Winston told GOP leaders.
• Democratic leaders in both houses said they won't participate in writing a bill until Bush jettisons the idea of letting younger workers divert some of their Social Security taxes into individual retirement accounts.
• That has drawn the ire of some conservative activists.