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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	6/30/2005 2:09:06 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Social Security Reform -- Alexander K. McClure PoliPundit.com The House of Representatives is about to move forward on a Social Security package that includes some form of personal accounts. I do not know whether these will be in the final bill, but it is important that the House pass something. If the House passes a bill and the Senate is stalled by Democratic inaction, then Republicans will be able to portray the Democrats in the Senate as inveterate obstructionists. polipundit.com nytimes.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	7/26/2005 4:47:30 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Democrats Offer (Non) Social Security Option By Captain Ed on National Politics Captain's Quarters The Washington Post says that the Democrats have prepared a counterproposal for Social Security reform intended on competing with that of the Republicans. However, after reading the report by Mike Allen, it sounds as if the Democrats want to reform Social Security by ignoring it altogether: <<< House Democrats intend to propose a retirement-savings plan today that will be their first leadership-backed alternative to Republican plans for a broad retirement-security package, which includes changes to Social Security. The Democratic plan, called AmeriSave, would increase incentives for middle-class workers to participate in 401(k) retirement accounts and individual retirement accounts. It would also create tax credits for small businesses that set up retirement accounts for their employees. ... The AmeriSave announcement is designed to partially preempt Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), who plans to focus on retirement security in September. Bush had proposed adding individual accounts to Social Security for younger workers, but the idea did not win public support. He has now started talking about his plan as "senior security." Thomas has long said that he wants to deal with Social Security as part of a comprehensive retirement package that would cover savings, pensions and Social Security. >>> Notice, though, that the plans have no component of reform for Social Security. They only adjust existing programs to allow for increased savings and give a few more tax incentives for small businesses to create their own retirement plans. While these goals may have their merits -- they appear to make sense to me at first blush -- neither have anything to do with the problems facing Social Security in the next generation. In fact, by emphasizing the importance of wholly-owned personal accounts and vested retirement plans, the Democrats underscore the President's efforts to grant some ownership of the funds that Social Security drains from workers and employers each week. Pension plans and 401Ks rely on private management of retirement funds and have the benefit of developing real equity, a major flaw in Social Security, and one which Bush's limited privatization cures. Why not put that same principle to use for Social Security funds, if it works with the rest of our money? The Democrats don't explain that. The Democrats have taken a lot of criticism for talking about the coming crisis in Social Security financing for a decade before Bush came to office, and then suddenly pretending it didn't exist. When Bush presented his plans to reform Social Security, they tried to convince people that reform was unnecessary, which no one believes, and then deliberately decided to offer no alternative, which no one appreciated. Now they attempt to offer "retirement security" by focusing on the money the government doesn't confiscate without addressing the funds that it does. Maybe this wan attempt will take some political heat off the party for its obstinate refusal to engage on Social Security. It shouldn't. It looks like yet another attempt to change the subject by ignoring the main problem. captainsquartersblog.com washingtonpost.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	8/15/2005 9:45:23 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Social Security Reform -- Alexander K. McClure PoliPundit.com According to Roll Call, some Republicans are more confident than ever that some meaningful Social Security reform can be enacted this fall. Next up: Tax reform polipundit.com rollcall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	5/2/2006 8:52:40 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Did We Say 'I Told You So' Yet? By Captain Ed on National Politics Captain's Quarters When the Bush administration started off its second term by focusing its domestic agenda on entitlement reform, primarily on Social Security, it warned that the fiscal stability of these entitlements was eroding at a faster rate than predicted and pointed out the need for reform now, rather than waiting for the coming collapse. Democrats pounded the administration for its "scare tactics" and insisted that the programs had plenty of stability. Now the administration has released new numbers indicating that the erosion has picked up a little speed: <<< The financial condition of Medicare and Social Security deteriorated in the last year, the Bush administration reported Monday, and it warned again that the programs were unsustainable in their current form. Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund, a widely watched gauge of the program's solvency, will run out of money in 2018, two years earlier than projected in last year's report, the trustees said. And the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2040, one year earlier than projected last year, the trustees said. At that point, in 2040, Social Security tax collections would be adequate to pay only 74 percent of scheduled benefits. Lawmakers said they would never allow the trust funds to run dry. But the insolvency dates are a vivid way of showing that the programs are unsustainable. To keep them solvent, Congress would need to trim benefits, raise taxes or take some combination of such steps. >>> The reaction from the Democrats followed the same principle as in 2005: refusing to acknowledge the problem. Harry Reid proclaimed the reports as proof of entitlement stability, saying that "despite White House scare tactics, Social Security remains sound for decades to come." Max Baucus blamed the Bush administration for raising costs through the use of managed-care plans. And as before, none came forward to propose a reform that would address the looming fiscal disaster. We can keep saying "I told you so" all the way until the system collapses under its own weight, following Europe to economic disaster, or we can continue to press for entitlement reform. The President took a courageous stand last year in demanding a national effort to address the Social Security problem. Some chastised him for taking that issue ahead of the much larger problem of Medicare, but it turned out that the Democrats were not prepared to work on even the lesser issue in any rational manner. Their party leadership still insists that no problem exists at all within either program. Porkbusting is a great idea, but at some point we have to address the far more destructive demographic time bomb in our federal budget. We need leaders with courage and foresight in order to ensure that these government services do not trap us in massive financial burdens within the next generation. So far, those qualities do not appear abundant, especially among the Democrats. captainsquartersblog.com nytimes.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	7/10/2006 5:06:06 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Stubbornly ignoring the facts on Social Security Betsy's Page Tom Elia points out how the Democrats hauled out the old chestnut about how Republicans want to destroy Social Security in their weekly address yesterday. When will they honestly acknowledge that there is a massive problem headed our way with Social Security and give their own ideas of what to do about it. They seem to prefer to stick their fingers in their ears shouting "nyah, nyah, I can't hear you" rather than to engage constructively to address this coming crisis. Until they show some maturity in their approach to the entitlement crunch that will destroy our budget in the not-so-distant future, they have abdicated any right to be a governing party. betsyspage.blogspot.com theneweditor.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	9/8/2006 4:31:14 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

DON'T FEAR THE 'GORILLA' By PETER FERRARA NEW YORK POST Opinion September 8, 2006 LIBERAL Democrats are following around Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) on the campaign trail this fall with an inflatable 11-foot gorilla. The idea is that Santorum supposedly doesn't want to talk about the "gorilla in the room" - "massive benefit cuts" that the lefties falsely allege would result from the personal Social Security accounts that Santorum has long supported. Democrats are running ads in Ohio making the same charge against Sen. Mike DeWine and Rep. Deborah Pryce. Expect to see the same attack against Republicans across in the country, with an escalation to 40-foot inflated gorillas. Yet these charges could not be more wrong. The only way to avoid future benefit cuts in Social Security is, in fact, through personal investment accounts, which would, indeed, pay workers higher benefits in the future than Social Security even promises, let alone what it can pay. The chief actuary of Social Security has now officially scored at least five different personal-account reform plans as achieving full solvency in Social Security, without any benefit cuts or tax increases. This results because the accounts, financed through taxes that workers already pay, would eventually take over so much responsibility for paying future retirement benefits that the reforms leave Social Security in financial balance. (No Bush partisan, the chief actuary is a career bureaucrat, the "numbers guardian" within the Social Security Administration). Indeed, these reform plans all include a federal guarantee that workers would get at least as much in benefits as Social Security promises under current law. The only other way to pay those promised benefits in the future is to raise the Social Security payroll tax by over 60 percent. But the plans all go beyond even this. All are designed so that eventually, with the accounts earning standard, long-term, market investment returns, workers would get higher benefits than Social Security promises for the future under current law. Workers would also directly own their retirement funds in the personal accounts, just like their own bank accounts. They'd be free as well to choose to leave some or all of their accumulated account funds to their families at death. In opposing these personal accounts, Bob Casey Jr. and Rep. Sherrod Brown - the Democrats running against Santorum and DeWine - are, in fact, supporting the "massive benefit cuts" and massive tax hikes that are the only alternative to personal accounts. Republicans would make a big mistake in hiding from the personal accounts. Because of the enormous benefits they provide for working people, they are in fact a populist, positive idea at the grassroots. Indeed, Democrats tried the same attack during the midterm elections in 2002. Top pollster John Zogby summed up that effort saying: "In every race where personal accounts for Social Security became a major issue, the candidate favoring personal accounts won and the candidate opposing them lost." Republicans aren't helped by the think-tank savants who last year insisted that personal-account reform should be combined with major cuts in Social Security benefits. One such self-styled reformer proclaimed at a Washington conference that even seniors already retired should face such cuts. These professional Beltway chest thumpers are the real, self-inflated, gorillas of the reform debate. If Republicans fight on personal accounts, showing the enormous benefits for working people, they can win again on this issue. Peter Ferrara is entitlement and budget policy director at the Institute for Policy Innovation. nypost.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	9/23/2006 8:03:00 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The Dishonesty In The Deficit By Captain Ed on National Politics Captain's Quarters Rep. Jim Cooper writes today about the misleading government figures used by all parties when discussing the federal deficit. In today's Examiner, Cooper wants to know if voters understand the difference between $8.5 trillion and $46 trillion: <<< Ask a congressman what the national debt is, and he will say $8.5 trillion. That’s a lot of money, but it completely ignores our two largest and most important government programs, Social Security and Medicare. If you include the promises made by those programs to workers who are already paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, the national debt jumps to $46 trillion. So which number is correct? Do we face a mountain, or a Mount Everest, of debt? If you believe that Congress was just kidding about your retirement or health care benefits, we owe $8.3 trillion. If you think America is serious, the total is $46 trillion. If you look closely at the annual letter you receive from the Social Security Administration, you will see that the benefits you’ve been buying with your payroll taxes are only “scheduled.” That’s a fancy word for maybe. The federal government can revoke them at will, according to the 1960 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Fleming v. Nestor. Wait a minute! Most people, including most politicians, think that America has at least a moral obligation to pay every nickel of those benefits. >>> This has been the dirty secret of the political class for decades. It's why all of the talk about "lockboxes" for Social Security made economists laugh out loud, and why conservatives have pointed to the rising debt load for entitlement spending with increasing alarm. The government decided long ago that it only had to report those liabilities for which it had no choice but to fund. Many Americans would have expected that their Social Security benefits would be included in that accounting, since they have paid into the fund all of their working lives. Medicare recipients paying premiums also might be forgiven for believing that Washington is obliged to provide funding for their programs -- but as Cooper pointed out, the Supreme Court took DC off the hook for that decades ago. The decision allowed Washington to continually expand nanny-state benefits with no accounting for its future obligations. The expansion of the reported deficit has been bad enough. That came from higher spending, every year more than the last, even with the Republicans in charge. Instead of exercising fiscal discipline and trimming the size of the bureaucracy, the GOP has pushed for its expansion in every category during the Bush administration. However, the announced deficit amounts to peanuts compared to the disaster of entitlement spending, which Cooper calls the Category 5 of political and economic storms, waiting to strike my generation and succeeding ones. Although the government claims it can cancel all benefits at any time and therefore has no obligation to spend the money, any government that reneges on entitlement payouts will get run out of DC on the nearest rail, and the only part of the economy that will thrive will be the commodities markets for tar and feathers. People expect some benefits to be paid, especially as they near retirement. Many of the generation now approaching that status structured their financial situations on the assumption that these government programs would provide at least some basic support, especially in health care. Why did they do that? Because their elected representatives have told them for decades that those benefits would never be taken away or reduced, and they never told us about the gigantic budget shortfall they built into the system. Anyone who proposed reform got painted as a Scrooge and a danger to seniors all over the nation. We are about to pay for the dishonesty of successive Congresses and administrations stretching all the way back to the Eisenhower era. Both parties share the blame for this massive deception. The Bush administration at least attempted to address the problem (after worsening it with the Medicare prescription-drug benefit) on the smaller-scale Social Security deficit, but Democrats continued to tell Americans that the problem didn't exist and that we shouldn't worry about what might happen in the future. Are we still going to buy that explanation? Or are we finally going to realize that the free lunch has never really existed and that we have to come to grips with the problem sooner rather than later? We need a Congress that will have the courage to start fixing the problem now rather than continuing to add to it, and one with the honesty to admit that we are facing a catastrophe. UPDATE: While Congress continues to promise pensions without providing concrete funding or even acknowledging the liabilities on their books, the federal government continues to prosecute other fund managers for basically emulating Congress' approach on entitlements. Is the Congressional approach copyrighted? Because it's hard to understand what San Diego city officials did that differs in any substantial way from what DC has done for decades. captainsquartersblog.com examiner.com fuguerre.wordpress.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	10/25/2006 6:44:53 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Bush Talks Social Security Reform - Dems Counter By Lying And Scaring Seniors By Bull Dog Pundit on Politics Ankle Biting Pundits My guess is that many Republicans are not happy about the timing of President Bush’s comment yesterday about wanting to tackle Social Security and revisiting personal retirement accounts. Let’s be honest here, the idea of private accounts didn’t exactly help his second term get off to a great start - largely because many spineless Republicans were scared to deal with the issue and instead acted like ostriches about the problem of Social Security going broke. But just because it didn’t go over well doesn’t mean there’s not a problem. And what’s the Dems reaction to this? More lies (a la the Michael J. Fox stem-cell ads). The DNC put out the following statement: <<< Just when you thought your Social Security was safe from privatization, George Bush is bringing back his plan to privatize Social Security and cut guaranteed benefits. >>> Here’s the big problem with that statement - it’s not true. As we pointed out over a year ago- THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “GUARANTEED BENEFIT” IN SOCIAL SECURITY. To wit: <<< Here’s the problem. Social Security benefits are not guaranteed. And they never have been. Congress can take them away at any time. Indeed, today’s younger workers will face drastic benefit cut if Congress does nothing to fix the system. Need proof? Just read the Supreme Court’s decision in the landmark case Flemming v. Nestor, which solidified government supremacy over your money: Quote: In this 1960 Supreme Court decision Nestor’s denial of benefits was upheld even though he had contributed to the program for 19 years and was already receiving benefits. Under a 1954 law, Social Security benefits were denied to persons deported for, among other things, having been a member of the Communist party. Accordingly, Mr. Nestor’s benefits were terminated. He appealed the termination arguing, among other claims, that promised Social Security benefits were a contract and that Congress could not renege on that contract. In its ruling, the Court rejected this argument and established the principle that entitlement to Social Security benefits is not contractual right >>> Hell, a few weeks ago even a Democrat Congressman wrote a piece in which he highlighted the fact that Social Security benefits are not guaranteed. And hey, if you don’t believe me, just read the annual statement you get from Social Security every year. Everyone’s notice has this language in it: <<< We can’t provide your actual benefit amount until you apply for benefits. And that amount may differ from the estimates stated below because… (2) Your estimated benefits are based on current law. The law governing benefit amounts may change.* * Your estimated benefits are based on current law. Congress has made changes to the law in the past and can do so at any time. The law governing benefit amounts may change because, by 2041, the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 74 percent of scheduled benefits. >>> The only way in which your benefits will be “guaranteed” is if you own them. Why do the Democrats, and the MSM continue to perpetuate the lie that Social Security benefits are “guaranteed”? That’s easy. Because they want to scare people. So instead of using someone like Michael J. Fox to lie about their views, I’m sure they’re going to get some senior citizen couple do an ad while eating Alpo because of George Bush’s plan to take away their (non-existent) “guaranteed benefit”. About the only thing “guaranteed” about Social Security is that in about a decade we’ll be paying out more than we take in, and that absent any changes montly payments will have to be cut by about 30%. What’s the Dems answer? I’ll bet you almost anything it involves raising taxes through the roof. anklebitingpundits.com dscc.org 64.233.187.104 anklebitingpundits.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	1/30/2009 3:34:07 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Political Cartoons of Michael Ramirez Editorial Cartoonist for Investor's Business Daily http://www.ibdeditorials.com/CartoonPopUp.aspx?id=317510635931656

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	5/18/2009 7:22:01 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Our Rocket Slide to Fiscal Hell Jerry Taylor The Corner My friend Bruce Bartlett writes in Forbes today about two federal reports issued his week regarding the financial state of Social Security and Medicare. It’s not good, people. The upshot — we will need to raise federal taxes by 81 percent to cover existing commitments to future recipients of those two programs, assuming that current health trends continue. Of course, we could just cut back on future disbursements by tens of trillions of dollars, but given that, with every election, the number of elderly voters increases, that’s not politically likely. Alarmed readers who want a more robust preview of the fiscal hell to come my want to examine this (on Medicare) and this (on Social Security) from colleague Jagadeesh Gokhale. Eight years of George Bush — many of those years with Republican Congresses — afforded an opportunity to do something about this. Alas, rather than address the problem (which would have required political capital), Bush and friends added even more unfunded liabilities to the ledger and made things far worse than they were when President Clinton left office. Given how hard it is to keep a good Ponzi scheme going, maybe Bernie Madoff should do community service rather than jail time and take over as secretary of the Treasury. corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11663)	10/1/2010 7:24:32 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

‘105 Democratic Lawmakers Reject Any Social Security Reform’ By Ramesh Ponnuru The Corner September 30, 2010 5:40 P.M. . . . at least unless “reform” consists entirely of tax increases. Says Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio): “We strongly believe that cuts to Social Security benefits must not be part of any recommendations or policymaking. We believe that Social Security should never be privatized and that the retirement age should never be raised.” Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist, Vermont) offers the familiar argument against means-testing: “It makes a good sound bite to say that, gee, does Warren Buffett need Social Security? The reality is that once you start drawing a line, you do away with the universality of the program, and do away with the sentiment that everybody is part of the program, everybody contributes, everybody benefits. Once you start doing that and you draw a line, (and) over a period of years . . . it becomes a welfare program that has no support at all.” So, in short, we have to have higher taxes in order to fool people into thinking that nobody is a net contributor into the program. Leaving aside the morality of this maneuver, how “reality-based” is it? Does Buffett really believe that he is a net beneficiary from Social Security? And do we really think that the public at large would not support a safety net for the elderly if the government ceased to give him benefits? .