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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (24630)	12/27/1998 12:43:00 PM
From: lazarre	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

You use too broad a brush when painting Democrats: <<On Social Security we need to help the needy. We do not need to help the rich. Democrats treat any idea that restricts benefits to anyone as an opportunity to demogouge the issue. An honest discussion - hell no never. Means testing is an absoute necessity to save this program.>>> There are more dems than just Kerry and the late Tsongas that share the same criteria for fairness that you and most Republicans do. Clinton happens to be among them. His leadership in the DLC that harkens back many years speaks volumes in that regard. The mantra that these issues were co-opted by the left are simply not true. BTW, most of the left wing press detest Clinton about as much as the right wing press. I agree that many dems. demogogue the issue as many repubs do the crime and defense issues. So what else is new? Shame on both, I say. L

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (24630)	12/27/1998 1:05:00 PM
From: Les H	Respond to of 67261

The original 401K's had it right. They were pre-tax in every way, including Social Security taxes. The IRA's should have been designed the same way. Most of the solutions proposed by the Democrats to the Social Security system don't favor the poor. (1) Raising the retirement age - hurts people who are in manufacturing or agricultural sectors, who are less able to work into their later years, and the working poor who need to supplement their working income for the higher health costs in later years (2) Raising the payroll tax - makes it more costly to hire those with less skills (3) Taxing benefits - taxes those who need or want to work to supplement their retirement income The difficulty of means testing benefits is there are a lot of people who shift assets to gain benefits.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (24630)	12/27/1998 1:35:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

On Social Security we need to help the needy. We do not need to help the rich. Democrats treat any idea that restricts benefits to anyone as an opportunity to demogouge the issue. An honest discussion - hell no never. Means testing is an absoute necessity to save this program. You have the right idea with respect to SS but I wonder how you feel about medicare and Hillary's healthcare program. I never see means testing brought up with respect to medicare which is the real budget buster. At the same time there is a huge number of americans paying for medicare that dont have health care themselves. In addition there are areas (such as Austin Tx) where it is almost impossible to get an individual healthcare program for yourself (you need to be a part of a group plan), and if you can find a company that will provide it, you in effect are subsidizing all the large groups such as Dell that have negotiated discount rates for their employees. Healthcare is one case where I dont see the free market really working and so the republican mantra of "leave it alone" isnt appropriate. I didnt really care for the all encompassing Hillary program but I still say it was better than nothing. BTW if you want a shock, call up your local Blue Cross and see how much healthcare is for a woman under 35 vs. a man (woman $400+/month, man around $100 - due to possible pregnancy). Gee does that sound fair to you?