I’ll see your mumbo, and raise you a jumbo!

Rep. Jim McCrery is challenging the White House in the race to see who can use the most engineered language possible on Social Security:

One of the sharpest exchanges came when Representative Jim McCrery complained about the Democrats’ repeated use of the term “privatization” to describe the president’s plan.

“Democrats on the panel use it ad nauseam,” said Mr. McCrery, the visibly angry Louisiana Republican who heads the subcommittee on Social Security. “Nobody is talking about privatizing Social Security. Get over it.”

Mr. McCrery also objected to the Democrats’ characterization of “progressive indexation,” another component of the Bush plan, which would reduce the growth in benefits for all but the poorest retirees, based on a sliding income scale.

“It’s not means-testing,” Mr. McCrery said. “It’s further income-relating the benefit.”

Democrats on the panel began to laugh. Mr. McCrery shot back: “There’s two different things. I mean, you either know it or you don’t.”