Yep:

As the full dimensions of President Bush’s Social Security plan come into view, so too does a broader vision of reducing most Americans’ reliance on government programs that long have helped see them through economic difficulties.

Although Bush devoted most of his prime-time news conference Thursday to describing how he would expand Social Security protections, virtually all of his improvements would be aimed at the bottom one-third of American wage earners. The remaining two-thirds or so would see their future Social Security benefits curtailed, a reduction that they’d be encouraged to make up by saving and investing of their own.

The president often portrays his effort as simply trying to accommodate reality; funds to pay full Social Security benefits are expected to run out toward the middle of the century. But his approach also corresponds to a long-held conservative goal of reducing Washington’s influence in the lives of ordinary Americans and to the aim of Bush chief political strategist Karl Rove to realign the nation along Republican principles.

“What you’re going to see is an effort to scale back middle-class entitlements that many people do not need and to become more focused on the anti-poverty aspects of these programs,” said Michael Tanner, a senior official with the small-government Cato Institute in Washington.

“We’re going to tell non-poor Americans that they are going to have to save more on their own and not depend on a transfer from government,” he said.

Ah, but certain non-poor Americans will always be able to count on their subsidy checks from places like the Cato Institute…