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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (261967)	4/19/2008 9:52:02 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If changing Social Security is as easy as you say it is, why wasn't the Bush administration successful in its attempt to loot it and privatize it? Well the main reason is that it never made such an attempt. Beyond that either actually looting, or actually privatizing, or making any other form of change (including the one that Bush made a half hearted attempt at) would be politically difficult. If however the idea for a change was massively popular, the change could be relatively easy and quick. The point is not that changes are politically easy, but that they would not violate any contract, or constitutional principle. Other changes in spending (say eliminating farm price supports, or for that matter zero funding the US Marine Corp) would also be very difficult to make politically. That doesn't mean that it is not part of congress's power to make such changes, or that if it did, it would be defaulting on a debt or violating a contract. why weren't they able to turn the entire amount (at least for new monies) into the equivalent of an IRA which is exactly what they wanted to do? I can't read their minds to see if that's what they wanted to do, but they (the Bush administration) never actually tried or proposed to do any such thing.