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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (5279)	3/5/2004 10:21:47 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 173976

Maybe I read it on this site, one of Bush's former teachers wrote that Bush claimed "poor people are just lazy". Bush is the son of privilege and has been handed everything, including the presidency and by default this country, on a silver platter. He's managed to ruin everything he touches.

To: Skywatcher who wrote (5279)	3/5/2004 10:44:59 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 173976

Greenspan's Con Job (he's bent on raiding social security) by William Greider It is not exactly that he lies, but Alan Greenspan certainly ranks among the most duplicitous figures to serve in modern American government. Using his exalted status as economic wizard, the Federal Reserve chairman regularly corrupts the political dialogue by sowing outrageously false impressions among gullible members of Congress and adoring financial reporters. These distortions are not harmless; they become solemn writ for lawmakers and opinionmongers. Greenspan is especially destructive when he opines on public matters outside his supposed expertise as a central banker. His thinking is still anchored by Ayn Rand's brittle social philosophy: Let the strong prevail, let the weak pay for their weakness. The Fed chairman's recent remarks on Social Security and the federal budget deficits offer a particularly chilling example. In a House budget hearing, he elided the two subjects in a way that produced predictable scare headlines and chin-wagging editorials. The deficits must be dealt with promptly, he warned, because the baby boomers are about to retire. Then Social Security will be in trouble. And so government must cut benefits now, before it's too late. "I am just basically saying that we are overcommitted at this stage," he explained. "You don't have the resources to do it all." That sounds like manly wisdom. Greenspan was widely praised for courage. He should more properly be pilloried for gross mendacity. He is proposing a con job on ordinary working Americans--a bait-and-switch game on a grand scale--in which the payroll taxes they paid into Social Security over many years will now be diverted to other purposes, including the generous tax reductions G.W. Bush has enacted for the very wealthy and the corporations. It doesn't sound so noble when you put it that way. Greenspan knows these facts but also knows his big lie will probably endure as conventional wisdom. Typically, the media shorthanded his comments to create a larger fallacy--that Social Security is part of the deficit problem, therefore future retirees deserve to take the hit. Here is the truth: Social Security is not in deficit, not now and not for at least the next forty years. The trust fund will have a surplus next year of $1.8 trillion. In 2011 when, Greenspan warns, the baby boomers will start retiring in large numbers, the surplus will be $3.2 trillion. These stored savings, plus future payroll-tax revenue, are sufficient to pay all retirees the current level of benefits through 2042, according to the fund's very conservative actuaries. The problem is, the government borrowed this money and has spent it on other projects. But the trust fund, despite what right-wingers like to claim, is not an accounting gimmick. The government is legally obligated to pay back the money (as surely as it is obliged to repay Treasury bonds). The borrowed trillions, in fiduciary terms, belong to the "beneficial owners"--every worker who has paid higher payroll taxes for the past twenty years. Greenspan is familiar with the accounting because he was chairman of the bipartisan commission that supposedly "fixed" the Social Security problem back in 1983 by imposing a huge increase in FICA payroll taxes--extra revenue that produced the still-growing surpluses. This historic tax shift (I think of it as the "crime of '83") was most convenient to the Reagan Administration because Reaganomics had just created huge budget deficits by cutting income taxes for the monied interests and pumping up the military budget. The burgeoning surpluses from the Social Security payroll tax would help offset the economic impact of the deficits. Hardly anyone noticed at the time, since Democrats cooperated in the "solution." Now Bush Jr. has done the same thing. And Greenspan is proposing another "fix": Double-cross the workers who paid the extra trillions; don't disturb the new monster tax cuts delivered to the rich. Any con artist would appreciate the bait-and-switch as a nifty piece of work. But the epic swindle may yet fail. Politicians, even the right-wing variety, hesitate to close the deal for fear the "marks"--workers, young and old--might figure it out. Meanwhile, there's one simple and just solution for any long-term fiscal problems Social Security might face: Eliminate the income cap of $87,000 on FICA taxes so that every highly paid worker, even Bill Gates, would pay the full freight. Since wealthy earners have benefited disproportionately from tax reduction, this would be their personal contribution to restoring fiscal order. Why doesn't someone ask the Fed chairman about that? If Democrats were more attentive to their constituencies, they would be aggressively promoting this reasonable alternative to Greenspan's sordid double talk, attacking him for duplicity and filing resolutions of impeachment. Did the Federal Reserve chairman knowingly deceive Congress and the public? What did the chairman know and when did he know it? Let the hearings begin. www.thenation.com

To: Skywatcher who wrote (5279)	3/5/2004 11:11:49 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 173976

ON GUARD -- OR AWOL? Memphian Bob Mintz and flying mate Paul Bishop looked forward to greeting George W. Bush at Dannelly ANG base in 1972 – but never saw him. JACKSON BAKER \| 2/16/2004 Two members of the Air National Guard unit that President George W. Bush allegedly served with as a young Guard flyer in 1972 had been told to expect him late in that year and were on the lookout for him. He never showed, however; of that both Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop are certain. The question of Bush’s presence in 1972 at Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery, Alabama – or the lack of it – has become an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign. And that issue, which picked up steam last week, continues to rage. Recalls Memphian Mintz, now 62: “I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl around with.” But, says Mintz, that “somebody” -- better known to the world now as the president of the United States -- never showed up at Dannelly in 1972. Nor in 1973, nor at any time that Mintz, a FedEx pilot now and an Eastern Airlines pilot then, when he was a reserve first lieutenant at Dannelly, can remember. “And I was looking for him,” repeated Mintz, who said that he assumed that Bush “changed his mind and went somewhere else” to do his substitute drill. It was not “somewhere else,” however, but the 187th Air National Guard Tactical squadron at Dannelly to which the young Texas flyer had requested transfer from his regular Texas unit – the reason being Bush’s wish to work in Alabama on the ultimately unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of family friend Winton "Red" Blount. It is the 187th, Mintz’s unit, which was cited, during the 2000 presidential campaign, as the place where Bush completed his military obligation. And it is the 187th that the White House continues to contend that Bush belonged to – as recently as last week, when presidential spokesman Scott McClellan released payroll records and, later, evidence suggesting that Bush’s dental records might be on file at Dannelly. Late last weekend, the White House even made available what it said was the entirety of Bush’s service record. Even so, the mystery of the young lieutenant’s whereabouts in late 1972 remains. “THERE’S NO WAY WE WOULDN’T HAVE NOTICED a strange rooster in the henhouse, especially since we were looking for him,” insists Mintz, who has begun poring over such documents relating to the matter as are now making their way around the Internet. One of these is a piece of correspondence addressed to the 187th’s commanding officer, then Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, concerning Bush’s redeployment. Mintz remembers a good deal of base scuttlebutt at the time about the letter, which clearly identifies Bush as the transferring party. “It couldn’t be anybody else. No one ever did that again, as far as I know.” In any case, he is certain that nobody else in that time frame, 1972-73, requested such a transfer into Dannelly. Mintz, who at one time was a registered Republican and in recent years has cast votes in presidential elections for independent Ross Perot and Democrat Al Gore, confesses to “a negative reaction” to what he sees as out-and-out dissembling on President Bush’s part. “You don’t do that as an officer, you don’t do that as a pilot, you don’t do it as an important person, and you don’t do it as a citizen. This guy’s got a lot of nerve.” The rest of this revelatory article: memphisflyer.com