So let me get this social security thing straight.

[dude1394]

For years the dems have been screaming about tax cuts for the rich and promising to roll back those tax cuts..

Last night dubya proposes reducing future benefits for the so called "rich" and increasing benefits for the poor and the response of the dems is:

* "cutting the shit out of your Social Security benefits."—Atrios

* "cut pretty much everyone's benefits a lot. The sweetener? Poor people's benefits won't be cut as much!"—Josh Marshall

[quote]


And the dems

"It's like throwing a drowning man a lead weight instead of a life preserver," Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster, said of Mr. Bush's decision to introduce benefit cuts into the equation. "He's got a plan that neither the public nor his own party can support. Only good can come from Democrats' defending the right of the middle class to continue getting their benefits in full."

Okay....I'm starting to get it. The dems really are the change-nothing, do-nothing party.

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: dude1394
For years the dems have been screaming about tax cuts for the rich and promising to roll back those tax cuts..

Last night dubya proposes reducing future benefits for the so called "rich" and increasing benefits for the poor"

He did no such thing.

Last night President Bush endorsed a proposal that that would result in substantial cuts in benefits for middle-income families and deeper cuts for higher-income families. While the proposal was described as reducing benefits for the most affluent Americans, it would result in large benefit reductions for middle-class workers, as well.

All workers with incomes above $20,000 today would be subject to benefit reductions, and the benefit cuts would escalate sharply in size as income climbed above $20,000. A worker making $35,000 today would be subject to benefit reductions more than half as large as the benefit cuts imposed on people at the highest income levels. A worker making $60,000 today would be subject to benefit reductions more than 85 percent as large as someone making several million dollars a year.

The benefit reductions for average earners would be the largest in Social Security’s history. The 1983 Social Security reform, for example, lowered benefits for average workers by 17 percent, with the reduction phased in over 46 years. The President’s plan would lower benefits for average workers by 28 percent over a period of 70 years, and by considerably more than that for middle-class workers with incomes somewhat above the average, such as those who make $60,000 today.

Social Security survivor benefits would be cut by the same magnitude. How disability benefits would be affected is unclear, although the President implied they would not be reduced.

The President’s proposed change in the Social Security benefit structure is essentially a plan known as “progressive price indexing” that has been designed by investment executive Robert Pozen. Analysis by the Social Security Administration’s actuaries shows that Mr. Pozen’s plan would reduce benefits for average earners retiring in 2075 by 28 percent, relative to the current benefit structure, and that this reduction would apply equally to retirees, survivors, and people with disabilities.[1] The actuaries also have reported that the benefit reductions under the Pozen plan would close about 70 percent of the 75-year Social Security shortfall.

The White House issued a fact sheet stating that its proposals, too, would close 70 percent of Social Security’s financing problems. To do that, the President’s plan either must cut disability and survivor benefits substantially — after all, one-sixth of the savings in the Pozen plan come just from reductions in disability benefits — or cut retirement benefits for middle-class workers even more deeply than the figures cited above (which are the actuaries’ estimates of the benefit reductions under the Pozen plan). If the President’s plan shields disability benefits from cuts, as the President indicated last night — and does not cut retiree and survivor benefits more sharply than the Pozen plan — then it will close 57 percent of Social Security’s 75-year shortfall, not 70 percent. (The 57 percent figure also reflects the small cost of the poverty-level minimum benefit the President proposed last night.)

Okay....I'm starting to get it. The dems really are the change-nothing, do-nothing party.

If you wish to tell yourself that fine. If I proposed legislation that would raise the income tax rate to 100% and you objected, would that make you a reactionary wheel in a change-nothing, do-nothing party? The charge is a non-starter.

Keep trying though.

[dude1394]

centrist

Bush has finally come up the first details of Social Security reform, and they include benefit "cuts" for the rich, and a sliding progressive scale-back for those in the middle. The poor would go on with the current schedules.

Naturally enough, Democrats are outraged.

Bush would "gut benefits for middle-class families," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said in a joint statement.

First, an obvious point. Benefits for those on the upper end would not actually be cut, the rate of growth in those benefits would be slowed down. Benefits for the wealthier among us in constant-dollar inflation-adjusted terms would not be reduced one dime from current levels. Benefits for the middle class would not be cut but would increase faster than inflation and thus would still rise in real terms. Benefits for the lower-income would rise as currently scheduled, and maybe even be enhanced.

This is the same shrill screeching we hear all the time about programs being "gutted" when they're actually getting more money than the year before, just not as much as they were previously scheduled for, or as much as they wanted.

Second, why is reducing federal expenditures (in a time of record deficits) on the rich and middle class a bad thing, but raising taxes on them a good thing?

As the mathematics of the Pozner proposal shows, much of the problem with future SS financing involves the steady growth of benefits at rates above inflation, and the effect of the proportion of those increased benefits going to the better-off. By establishing a baseline safety-net "floor" of benefits (as I've argued for here) and reining in the top-end expansions for those with more resources, a good chunk of the problem goes away. This is the mathematical "flip side" of the Democrat argument that the SS problem can be "solved" with "minor" tax increases.

UPDATE: House GOP Plans Social Security Draft

[dude1394]

ruffini

Bush's Benefit Increase

Yes, you heard it right. Increase.

But that probably isn't what you read in the morning papers. How does mainstream media react when it sees a conservative President pursuing a progressive, permanent fix for Social Security? Repeat the Big Lie:

"I believe the reformed system should protect those who depend on Social Security the most," he said in a nationally televised news conference. "So I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off." This is the first time Bush has backed a specific plan to reduce future benefits for tens of millions of Americans.

"Reduce future benefits for tens of millions of Americans." But those "future benefits" don't exist and under current law, can't be paid. Unlike a discretionary budget, where Congress has the ability to spend pretty much whatever it wants, Social Security cannot fund future benefits outside the Trust Fund, and by 2041, that Trust Fund will be able to pay 74% of "promised" benefits – a guaranteed benefit cut that is enshrined in current law.

Any reporter or politician who does not recognize these reduced benefits as the baseline for analyzing any and all changes to Social Security is simply being dishonest.

Even by Democrat standards, this Big Lie doesn't hold water. It used to be a cut when spending increases were held below inflation. But now it's a cut when Social Security benefits grow in real terms, and benefits for the poor grow even faster.

Welcome to the bizarre world of the Harry Reid's office and the Washington Post newsroom.

For a party that claims to support tax cuts only for the middle class, opposing Progressive Social Security is just strange. Democrats have ruled out personal accounts. By ruling out Progressive Social Security, they're endorsing the only options left: tax increases, or a train wreck that would forever undermine the Social Security system.

And if Democrats don't like how fast the benefits would grow with Progressive Social Security, here's their answer: personal accounts. It's the only proposal on the table that would actually increase benefits above the pie-in-the-sky "guaranteed" benefit the Democrats talk about.

This Big Lie from the left-leaning, conflict-obsessed MSM is spurring the rerelease of the Bush Social Security Calculator, an unabashedly reality-based tool that tells you how much Social Security can actually pay you, and how much your benefits would go up under Bush's personal accounts. Watch for that this weekend.

[Epitome22]

None of that blog post has any addresses to the issues raised in the meme I showed from the Center on Budget and Policy priorities, which one article cited by said blogger, actually supports. You could at the very least, regurgitate a meme from one of the several conservative oriented Fiscal policy tanks instead of a random blog post. At least cite something from an Econo blog.

[Epitome22]

The webmaster for the Bush-Cheney campaign? Yah, there's a reliable source. Maybe you should print an article by Bush Sr. and Bush's mom about what they think of the Social security proposal, they are about as credible.

You seem to have an otherworldly talent of citing people and information that is not only completely unspecialized, but ridiculously partisan.

[dude1394]

That's the problem with your party... It's the no party, can't party, stop the world party, live in the 40's, 50's, 60's party. Your party knows that social security is heading for a trainwreck, but give a crap...Nah, just keep saying no,no,no we won't go..

If it ain't raising taxes and taking more money from the taxpayers, your party just ain't interested. If it's giving taxpayers back their money and allow a miserable 4% of their own money to be owned by them versus having the democrats use it scare people into getting vote, your party again just ain't interested.

No wonder your party continues to be voted out of office, again and again and again. As your own party chairman says, it will be a miracle if your party takes back the senate. The country will be a lot better for it.

[dude1394]

startribune

We''ve been told for years that fixing Social Security's long-term solvency problems would require painful choices.

President Bush just made one.

In his news conference Thursday, Bush embraced a new way of calculating Social Security benefits that would eliminate most of the system's projected deficit, but would also cut benefits for more than two-thirds of future retirees.

The younger you are, and the higher your wages, the bigger your cut would be. In a rare, worst-case scenario, the cut could be as much as 49 percent. For a more typical 30-something making average wages, the cut would be more like 12 percent.

The concept Bush proposed is called "progressive indexing." It was developed by Robert Pozen, a Massachusetts investment executive who sat on Bush's 2001 Social Security commission. Here are some basic questions and answers about the proposal and how it might affect you.

How does it work?

First you have to understand how Social Security benefits are calculated now. The Social Security Administration takes the average of your highest 35 years of earnings, and adjusts that figure upward to reflect the growth of average wages during your working lifetime. That figure, called your average indexed monthly earnings, is the key to your initial benefit.

The Pozen proposal would -- if you're among the top 70 percent of wage earners -- adjust your earnings according to the growth in prices, instead of wages.

What difference does that make?

Historically, wages have grown about 1 percentage point a year faster than prices. If that continues, the switch to the price inflator would produce a substantially lower retirement benefit than the wage inflator.

How much lower?

That depends on several factors. In the absolute worst-case scenario, a worker who will turn 65 in 2075 and whose wages will be at or above the Social Security wage cap (currently $90,000 and rising) throughout their working lives would get a benefit cut of 49 percent compared with the benefit they would get from the current formula. That's according to an analysis of Pozen's proposal by the chief Social Security actuary.

But this applies only in the distant future in a rare case of a very well-paid person who isn't even born yet.

And in comparing the future benefit under Pozen's plan to the current benefit formula, you need to keep this in mind: There's a price to be paid to maintain today's higher benefit formula. Workers would have to pay higher payroll taxes to keep the program solvent beyond 2041.

At the other end of the spectrum, if you are 55 or older, or if you are in the bottom 30 percent of wage earners, the change would have no effect on your benefits. In terms of today's wages, the bottom 30 percent are those with annual incomes of $20,000 or less.

What if I'm in between the top and the bottom?

You would get something in between your currently scheduled benefit and the 49 percent cut in the worst-case scenario. Exactly where you would fall on that scale depends on two main factors: your current age and your average wage over your working lifetime.

For example, the 30-something mentioned above is a hypothetical 35 year-old, currently earning the U.S. average income of $36,500. Assuming he continues to earn the average wage, he would get a 12 percent benefit cut. A current 45-year-old in the same income bracket would only get a 6 percent cut. A 25-year-old would get a 16 percent cut.

How does my age come into it?

If you are in the middle of your working life, the old formula will apply to the years you have already worked; the new formula would apply to future years. The more years that are subjected to the new formula, the more it would reduce your benefit.

Didn't Bush say at his news conference that future generations would get benefits equal to or greater than what today's retirees get?

Yes, he said that. It's true that in unadjusted dollars, future benefits under the new formula would be higher than current benefits. But as a percentage of a worker's wages, future benefits would be less for the top 70 percent. More...

[dude1394]

Here's the way dem's want to "solve" it. Someone named Jim Moran, D from VA. I can see him now...He put's his fingers in ears and goes "na.na.na.na"...

Raw Story: So you’re saying there isn’t a problem with Social Security.

Moran: In 1983 it was fixed, and the Congressional Budget Office says we’re good up until 2052…Social Security is the only solvent fund we have in the government today really, its got 1.7 trillion dollars of surplus today. We’re going to have a surplus of two to three hundred billion for every year until the next 30 years.

[dude1394]

From the NYTImes no less...

tierney

------
Bush as Robin Hood
By JOHN TIERNEY

Democrats have good reason to be aghast at President Bush's new proposal for Social Security. Someone has finally called their bluff.

They tried yesterday to portray him as just another cruel, rich Republican for suggesting any cuts in future benefits, but that's not what the prime-time audience saw on Thursday night. By proposing to shore up the system while protecting low-income workers, Mr. Bush raised a supremely awkward question for Democrats: which party really cares about the poor?

For decades Democrats have pointed to Social Security as a triumph of communal generosity, proof that Americans (or at least non-Republican Americans) will work together to make sure that no widow is reduced to eating cat food. The program has been wonderful for liberals' self-esteem. What it has actually done for the poor is another matter.

It's true, as Democrats love to point out, that the poverty rate among the elderly has declined from 35 percent a half-century ago to 10 percent today. But when you consider how much money is being taken out of Americans' paychecks - most workers now pay more to Social Security than to the I.R.S. - you're entitled to wonder why there are any poor widows remaining.

As a poverty-fighting program, Social Security is woefully inefficient because most of the money goes to people who aren't poor. It would take just 20 percent of what Social Security dispenses to move every elderly American out of poverty, according to June O'Neill, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Social Security has an image as a progressive program because low-income workers get back bigger monthly checks, relative to their salaries, than high-income workers do. They're also more likely to get disability benefits.

But they lose out in other ways. They tend to start working and paying taxes at a relatively young age because they don't go to college, but then end up collecting benefits for fewer years because their life expectancy is shorter. They're more likely to be unmarried, making them ineligible for benefits earned by a spouse.

"The amount of income-related redistribution in Social Security is a lot less than people think," said Jeffrey Liebman, a Harvard economist and a former official in the Clinton administration. "If you get the details right, you can design a personal-account retirement system in which groups with high risks of poverty in old age come out at least as well as with the current system."

So why are his fellow Democrats so dead set against it? Their usual answer has been that any move to privatization would doom the poor along with the whole Social Security program. If you let the middle and upper classes opt out and finance their own retirement, the argument has gone, there will be no political support for even the modest subsidies that Social Security now provides to low-income workers - just look at what Republicans did to welfare and public housing programs.

But the elderly poor are different from the younger poor. For one thing, they're more likely to vote, a fact not lost on even the most hardhearted Republican. They also arouse much more public sympathy. Kicking 25-year-olds off welfare was popular because it was thought to be good for them. Nobody claims that forcing that widow to eat cat food will build character.

That's why even the most ardent free-marketeers are not trying to eliminate the safety net for the elderly. The libertarians at the Cato Institute are trying to strengthen it with a proposal that has been introduced by Republicans in Congress. If your individual account left you with a paltry pension, their plan would guarantee you a subsidy to lift you above the poverty line - and well above what many retirees are now getting from Social Security.

Democrats like to portray Mr. Bush as King George or Marie Antoinette. But on Thursday night, when he promised to improve benefits for the poor while limiting them for everyone else, he sounded more like Robin Hood, especially when he rhapsodized about poor people getting a chance to build up assets that they could pass along to their children.

It was the kind of talk you might expect to hear from a Democrat, except that Democrats don't talk about much these days except the glories of the New Deal. They know that Social Security doesn't even have the money to sustain a program that leaves millions of elderly people in poverty. But it's their system, and they're sticking to it.

[Mavdog]

George Bush bit the bullet and accepted the concept of benefit indexing as part of the SS solution. he has stolen the progressive position from the democrat party. they shouldn't try to take an opposing stance as it makes them look silly.

his ability to get this enacted isn't certain.

I agree with Bush on his approach, the devil is in the details.

[FishForLunch]

I just want to set aside a part of my Social Security money for my Family. If not just call it a Tax and welfare program for the Elderly.

[dude1394]

I just want to get a heck of a lot more return for a 12% year on year investement than the putrid returns that social security provides. What a rip-off. If I die at 65 the guvment says...allrighty then thanks a bunch old boy. Heck quit having my employer match it and just let ME put in 6% year on year.

Not to mention that the current ponzi scheme just begs for the guvment to raid it. I want my "retirement" to be MY BLANKING RETIREMENT money and not at the whim of someone in washington who whenever they damn well fell can change how much I receiver, when I receive it, how much more I pay, etc.

How anyone can like this system is beyond me. It reeks of corruption and as it's been raided for years you can see that it is just that, corrupt and bascally bankrupt.

[MFFL41]

dude123 you make excellent points.

First it's social security where democrats (especially clinton) said it needed to be changed and fixed

Second it's the war when before bush went after sadaam, clinton, gore, byrd, and more dems said sadaam was a threat and WMD were a porlbem, etc.

(I will have to find their quotes, but it's staggering.)

The Democrat party is just a opposition party, nothing more. They will flip flop, just to oppose the republicans. I'm glad the reps have ideas, at the very least.

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: dude1394
That's the problem with your party... It's the no party, can't party, stop the world party, live in the 40's, 50's, 60's party. Your party knows that social security is heading for a trainwreck, but give a crap...Nah, just keep saying no,no,no we won't go..

Considering the fact that most opposition to Social security is idealogical (you yourself referred to it as a ponzi scheme) forgive me if I'm skeptical of your concern.

If it ain't raising taxes and taking more money from the taxpayers, your party just ain't interested. If it's giving taxpayers back their money and allow a miserable 4% of their own money to be owned by them versus having the democrats use it scare people into getting vote, your party again just ain't interested.

The Democrats are the 'tax raising party' only to those who worship Tax cuts above all else, and shun any commitment to opportunity, equality and responsibility in pursuit of selfishness.

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: dude1394


How anyone can like this system is beyond me. It reeks of corruption and as it's been raided for years you can see that it is just that, corrupt and bascally bankrupt.

Yes, raided and bankrupt by a Republican administration.

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: MFFL41
dude123 you make excellent points.

First it's social security where democrats (especially clinton) said it needed to be changed and fixed

Second it's the war when before bush went after sadaam, clinton, gore, byrd, and more dems said sadaam was a threat and WMD were a porlbem, etc.

(I will have to find their quotes, but it's staggering.)

The Democrat party is just a opposition party, nothing more. They will flip flop, just to oppose the republicans. I'm glad the reps have ideas, at the very least.

Democrats aren't adverse to fixing Social Security, they're adverse to eliminating social security. Democrats aren't even adverse to Private accounts, they are just adverse to funding private accounts by redirecting SS revenue.

[dude1394]

I referred to it as a ponzi scheme because that's what it is....do facts not have any currency with you?

Pon·zi scheme Audio pronunciation of "ponzi scheme" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pnz)
n.

An investment swindle in which high profits are promised from fictitious sources and early investors are paid off with funds raised from later ones.

------

The democrats are NOT the tax-raising party? Are the democrats not the party that favors more governement to "help" us? How again is giving people back their own money, or in this case their own personal security that they can pass on being selfish? Only the democrats could actually argue AGAINST a proposition that would make the social security "ponzi scheme" more progressive. This would be the same "party" that hasn't come out with a competing budget or damn near any proposals that I can remember on almost anything since 2000.

They are too busy trying to live in the 40s, 50s, 60s. The world is passing that party by, the quicker it does the quicker we will all be better off. Their base is shrinking, their socialism isn't appealing to working hispanics, their labor unions are dwindling, people are starting to wake up to the damange their trial-lawyer constituency is doing to the country, they have no moral compass and they can't be trusted with national security. Just what good are they?

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: dude1394
I referred to it as a ponzi scheme because that's what it is....do facts not have any currency with you?

At least as much as tired rhetoric has with you. Social Security is not a ponzi scheme.


A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying returns to investors out of the money raised from subsequent investors, rather than from profits generated by any real business. A Ponzi scheme offers high short-term returns in order to entice new investors, whose money is needed to fund payouts to earlier investors, and to lure its victims into ever-bigger risks.


Retirement programs and supplemental programs like Social Security run by national governments, though they involve the taxes paid in by workers being redistributed to pensioners, nevertheless differ in a number of basic features that are usually found in Ponzi schemes, but are not fundamental to them:


Retirement systems, like Social Security, are openly declared for what they are. In a genuine Ponzi scheme, the perpetrators falsely claim that there is some business that generates the promised revenues. In Social Security, people know where the money comes from, and actuaries supply written predictions of future cash in-flows and out-flows.

Retirement systems promise a stipend to the country's retired persons, not the quick and exhorbitant profits to current investors that Ponzi schemes invariably offer.

Retirement systems rely on the taxing power of the state to ensure continuous funding. In practice, this taxing power has been used primarily for dedicated revenues (taxes), although in theory general tax revenues could be used to supplement worker payments into the systems. (Historically in the U.S., Social Security has almost always been in surplus, so this has never been an issue.) If the political process were used to raise required contributions via retirement taxes, or to reduce benefits (including raising the retirement age), either across the board or just for the better-off, there would certainly be opposition from those who would pay more or get less, but politicians have only those two choices (plus borrowing) if revenues are inadequate.

In the long run, retirement systems pay out an approximately equal amount to what was paid in, per contributer, plus interest. (In the short run, pension surpluses can be used to cover a government's current general-revenue shortfall, as has been happening in the United States since Social Security contribution rates were increased in 1983.

Retirement systems are in many ways insurance rather than investment systems. A person who dies before retirement gets no money back (regardless of what he/she paid in). Someone who lives to a very old age continues to get payments regardless of the amount of money he/she has paid in. And someone disabled, even at a relatively young age (well before he/she can make significant payments into the system, or have significant private investments), still receives payments until the end of his/her life.
Unlike in a Ponzi scheme, government receipts (taxes) and payouts (entitlements) can be calculated quite accurately in the short term (five to ten years), and predicted (with a range of assumptions) for periods beyond that timeframe. A sudden collapse is therefore unlikely.


The U.S. Social Security Administration provides the following analysis of this "Ponzi scheme" charge as applied to a pay-as-you-go system like Social Security:

"There is a superficial analogy between pyramid or Ponzi schemes and pay-as-you-go insurance programs in that in both money from later participants goes to pay the benefits of earlier participants. But that is where the similarity ends. A pay-as-you-go system can be visualized as a simple pipeline, with money from current contributors coming in the front end and money to current beneficiaries paid out the back end. So we could image that at any given time there might be, say, 40 million people receiving benefits at the back end of the pipeline; and as long as we had 40 million people paying taxes in the front end of the pipe, the program could be sustained forever. It does not require a doubling of participants every time a payment is made to a current beneficiary. (There does not have to be precisely the same number of workers and beneficiaries at a given time--there just needs to be a stable relationship between the two.) As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever. There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system and so it is not a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.
...
If the demographics of the population were stable, then a pay-as-you-go system would not have demographically-driven financing ups and downs and no thoughtful person would be tempted to compare it to a Ponzi arrangement. However, since population demographics tend to rise and fall, the balance in pay-as-you-go systems tends to rise and fall as well. During periods when more new participants are entering the system than are receiving benefits there tends to be a surplus in funding (as in the early years of Social Security). During periods when beneficiaries are growing faster than new entrants (as will happen when the baby boomers retire), there tends to be a deficit. This vulnerability to demographic ups and downs is one of the problems with pay-as-you-go financing. But this problem has nothing to do with Ponzi schemes, or any other fraudulent form of financing, it is simply the nature of pay-as-you-go systems."


So no, it's not a Ponzi scheme. Nice try though.

------

The democrats are NOT the tax-raising party? Are the democrats not the party that favors more governement to "help" us?

Not that that has anyhting to do directly with raising taxes, but no the Democratic party is no the party that favors 'more government to help us?" The Democratic party is non idealogical and is more willing to consider and employ the role of government, as opposed to the more idealogically anti-government republicans, but they do not expressly favor 'more government' for it's own sake. As for 'help'ing us The Democratic party thinks that government should be on the side of the people (So do Republicans but their idea of government on the side of the people is slightly different) The Democratic party knows that government can't solve people's problems but it can supplement life and provide assistance when needed I.E. 'A hand up, not a hand out'

How again is giving people back their own money, or in this case their own personal security that they can pass on being selfish?

The government isn't prohibiting you from passing anything on to your family. People have been doing it for years since SS was administrated. Social Security is a supplement, not a fullfledged retirement account. That's what IRAs are for.

Only the democrats could actually argue AGAINST a proposition that would make the social security "ponzi scheme" more progressive. This would be the same "party" that hasn't come out with a competing budget or damn near any proposals that I can remember on almost anything since 2000.

I wouldn't put much stock in the fact that you can't remember. You aren't exactly the brightest, most observant or intellectually honest contributor in this forum.

They are too busy trying to live in the 40s, 50s, 60s.

Horsepucky. They are no more trying to live in the 40's, 50's and 60's than Republicans are trying to live in the 10's, 20's and 30's.

The world is passing that party by, the quicker it does the quicker we will all be better off. Their base is shrinking, their socialism isn't appealing to working hispanics, their labor unions are dwindling, people are starting to wake up to the damange their trial-lawyer constituency is doing to the country, they have no moral compass and they can't be trusted with national security. Just what good are they?

Well, as long as they are around, there's always the possibility that you could be paid for filling political forums with tired cliches and empty rhetoric.

[dude1394]

I wouldn't put much stock in the fact that you can't remember. You aren't exactly the brightest, most observant or intellectually honest contributor in this forum.

heh.. .Yea I also have stood hands on hips, looking sternly at employees.

[FishForLunch]

New Social Security proposal exposes left-wing hypocrisy
May 3rd, 2005

At his press conference last Thursday, President Bush added a new “progressive indexing” proposal to his Social Security reform plan that not only largely resolves the program’s imminent insolvency without raising payroll taxes, but also exposes an almost unconscionable hypocrisy in the Democrats’ position on this issue.

At odds for months in this debate has been how future payments to recipients are calculated. Currently, increases are tied to annual wage gains of the workforce. However, it has been argued that if they were indexed to the growth of inflation, or “prices” -- which have typically been much lower than changes in wages -- insolvency would be largely averted.

Unfortunately as this debate has ensued, the Democrats have depicted such a change as being a cut to the benefits of future retirees. As a result, this one issue has become its own “third-rail” as the left has been successful in casting it as thoroughly verboten.

Enter President Bush last Thursday, who in a stroke of sheer genius proposed preserving this form of wage-indexing for only the poorest of Americans, while allowing for a less generous calculation for the more financially successful members of the population.

The brilliance of this strategy is multifold. First, by retaining the more favorable wage-indexing for the poorest 30% of Americans, Mr. Bush has masterfully appealed to the heart of the Democratic Party. In the most recent election, this was by far the largest voting bloc for Senator Kerry who won this demographic by a margin of 63% to Mr. Bush’s 36%.

Consequently, the most left-leaning segment of future retirees should -- assuming the press accurately depicts this proposal -- be less opposed to Social Security reform, for it no longer has any conceivable negative impact on them.

However, potentially more important, this plan would significantly reduce the value of Social Security to the 70% of Americans who are going to see their guaranteed benefits reduced, and would likely make them more interested in the creation of private accounts to make up this shortfall.

Obviously, this is what has Democrats shaking in their boots concerning this new proposal, with prominent left-wing figures making statements so absurd that anyone within earshot must look as aghast as the Aflac duck after Yogi Berra says, “And they give you cash…which is just as good as money!”

Why? Because the Democrats in their desire to preserve the status quo have now been forced to defend the financial rights of the wealthiest Americans as being equally important as those of the poor.

Let’s understand that full price-indexing -- the least generous of the future benefit calculations -- will only apply to citizens making in excess of $113,000 per year. This represents the top seven percent of wage earners.

Therefore, to counter this new proposal, the Democrats have to portray the preservation of wage-indexed Social Security benefits for the wealthiest Americans -- people they regularly depict as being rich enough to absorb a greater tax burden than they currently are -- as being just as important as maintaining such benefits for the poor.

In effect, it’s okay to take money out of this group’s pockets in the form of taxes so that the poor can pay less, but it would somehow be inappropriate to reduce their Social Security benefits so that the poor can continue to receive what has been promised to them.

(Re-enter confused looking Aflac duck!)

What makes this even more ludicrous is that this upper echelon of wage earners has the greatest access to other retirement vehicles such as IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, SEPs, Keoghs, etc. As a result, this is the group that can most afford future benefit cuts, and to suggest otherwise thoroughly undermines the Democratic Party’s long-standing position that the rich have the financial wherewithal to shoulder the highest tax burden in our land.

Which leaves the Democratic Party with only one tenable position to solve the looming Social Security insolvency problem -- raise payroll taxes. Period. They can’t support anything else, for every other option reduces the socialist element of the program.

Whether it’s changing indexing, or raising the age at which one can begin receiving distributions, future benefits are cut forcing retirement planners to utilize other investment options that inherently reduce their reliance on this government program. And, obviously, so would the implementation of private accounts.

As a result, the president with this move has backed the Democrats into an extremely uncomfortable corner that is going to be very difficult for them to navigate out of, for now 70% of the country is going to be given a very distinct choice as to which horse he/she wants to back in this race: Do you want to keep your current wage-indexed benefits and pay more in payroll taxes today and until you retire, or do you want to receive less in guaranteed distributions years from now, but not have your taxes increased immediately?

Which option will the majority of Americans support? Well, Walter Mondale found out twenty years ago that campaigning on a platform to raise taxes is not typically a winning strategy.