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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (5263)	11/8/2002 3:57:03 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 15516

If the Boomers wish to retire by age 67 instead of age 107, they'd best get off their big fat butts and rally for the party that will preserve SS. Bush is talking about dumping it into the stock market toilet bowl again. Bush deficits redux: The president's blind spot for economic security News-Journal editorial In September 2001, the federal government ended its fiscal year with a $127 billion surplus, a record. Earlier in the year the Congressional Budget Office was forecasting surpluses of $5.6 trillion from 2002 to 2011, enough to half the national debt, take on a prescription drug plan for the elderly and protect the future of Medicare. All possible even after subtracting the $2.5 trillion of the surplus resulting from the Social Security system, which, as Democrats and Republicans agreed at the time, was to be protected at all costs. The economy was looking shaky in early 2001, but the foundation of the federal budget had seldom looked stronger. The White House and Congress were at a crossroad. Some argued in purely conservative terms paying down the national debt; weathering the weaker economy before thinking about a modest tax cut, which Americans weren't clamoring for anyway; extending the insurance policy on Social Security past the century's mid-point, and so on toward prudence. Some argued for gambling cut taxes drastically and immediately, and hope for a stronger economy to make up the lost difference. In a twist of ideologies, Democrats were the conservative ones, Republicans the champions of gambling. Where Democrats had once been the "tax-and-spend liberals," Republicans were now the liberal high rollers, dicing away the nation's hard-won prosperity. The Bush tax cut, projected to cost more than $2 trillion over 10 years, was enacted. The economy stayed weak. Tax receipts dropped more dramatically in 2002 than at any point in 56 years (since the repeal of World War II surtaxes). And those auspicious projections of trillion-dollar surpluses shrunk back, relatively speaking, to pennies. At the end of September, the federal government recorded a $159 billion budget deficit a $286 billion year-to-year turnaround from black to red ink never seen before in the nation's history, not even during the Reagan era's skyrocketing deficits. If, on election day, the Bush administration was to have been judged on its shepherding of the national economy in its first two years on the job, it would have rated "the most dismal record of any president in history," as Anthony Lewis, the former New York Times columnist, wrote. The president can't take the blame for inheriting a bad economy anymore than his predecessor can take all the credit for the 1990s' prosperity. But when the bile clears from judgments of the Clinton presidency, the 1993 tax hike Clinton enacted despite howls from Republicans that it would wreck the economy will be seen as a key point in righting the budget recklessness of the 12 preceding years, and in restoring confidence in the nation's economic prospects. The longest peacetime economic expansion followed. When Bush took over, the economy was clearly weakening and he had a choice: Stay the course, or wager the nation's confidence on a dubious tax cut. He wagered. The events following Sept. 11 didn't help, nor did the enactment of the largest budget increase in military spending since the early Reagan years. The Bush administration is projecting surpluses again soon, and even a return to those trillion-dollar surplus projections down the line. But the administration's budget math has never been honest. It wasn't honest when it presented its 10-year tax cut tally sheet to the public as it inflated its immediate benefits and downplayed its future costs; and it's not being honest about the economic growth that will be needed in the next 10 years or its imaginary projection of prudent government spending in order to right the wrong of the tax cut. Rattling sabers at Iraq and playing sheriff in the "war on terror" will be a diversion only so long. The foundation of the economy is not what it was in the 1990s or even two years ago. Substitute economic security for homeland security, and the Bush presidency, so far, is an invitation to mayhem.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (5263)	11/8/2002 6:11:02 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Bush has spent money faster than any other President in modern times. Boomers who think about retirement must realize that it is unlikely that they will be able to retire when they are 65. Boomers should complain to their Congressmen about potential cuts in their benefits unless they want to work until they are 107! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "We now know why the Bush Social Security Commission met in secret: because it plans to cut Social Security benefits and raise the retirement age. "The Commission proved that the only way to achieve privatization is by cutting guaranteed benefits - benefits that senior citizens, survivors and people with disabilities will count on. Sadly, those people who depend on Social Security most, minorities and women, have the most to lose under privatization. "One has to look no further than the thousands of workers at Enron who lost their entire retirement savings. Privatization could leave families with nothing for retirement. Americans know that losses in the market this year have now added more years before they can retire. Now the Republicans advance three ways to cut benefits and lengthen the retirement. See: Message 16789731