| Author | Message | ||
     Bobkat Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 7464 Registered: 5-2001 |
Bush pushed the private accounts, which are quite popular with many people. This will do nothing to help solve the funding issues. He didn't address this and is leaving the tough calls to Congress. Great politics, but not what I would call leadership. The Democrats are so cowed they are afraid to advocate relatively small SS tax increases to make up the shortfall. I guess this is why they call SS the third rail of American politics.  This could be a defining moment for Senator Graham of South Carolina who is floating an alternative plan which addresses the funding issues. Along with his white hot condemnation of the prisoner abuse scandal this could push him to the front of the pack as far as the GOP nomination in 2008 is concerned. | ||
| wharfrat Citizen Username: Wharfrat Post Number: 1548 Registered: 6-2001 |
Sbenny- You are being misled on the SS issue. Start here (excerpts) and then continue by going here. http://www.pkarchive.org/ Excerpts from Paul Krugman-
| ||
| Bobkat Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 7465 Registered: 5-2001 |
Another interesting tidbit in the President's speech is that when private accounts are fully fased in and people are allowed to invest 4% themselves is will the 4% be limited to the cut off point for social security taxes, currently right around $90,000? Or will the well off beable to tax shield 4% of their total income? The only requirement for annuitizing private accounts is one to require an annuity to supply the poverty line wage. Intersting way to give the "real" base another tax cut. | ||
| Carl Thompson Citizen Username: Topcat Post Number: 104 Registered: 4-2003  |
I watched the hoops on ESPN instead of watching the prez. Two top-25 matchups: Louisville vs. Cincinnati and Duke vs. Wake Forest. Both games were close and exciting, although the first was a little sloppy. I hope the conferences and the networks continue to offer this alternative to the state of the union in future years. | ||
| Phenixrising Citizen Username: Phenixrising Post Number: 395 Registered: 9-2004 |
Yeh, I watched VH1 "Black In the 80's". Brought back some feel good memories. Thank God for cable! | ||
| LibraryLady(ncjanow) Supporter Username: Librarylady Post Number: 2157 Registered: 5-2001  |
History Channel had an interesting special of Hydraulics.Fascinating and a lot less upsetting than the SOTU. | ||
| Robert Livingston Citizen Username: Rob_livingston Post Number: 803 Registered: 7-2004 |
Old episodes of Bosom Buddies. Fcuk the president's bullsh*t. | ||
| Ily Citizen Username: Ily Post Number: 146 Registered: 7-2004  |
Krugman has lots of fans: http://cpusa.org/article/articleview/618/1/27/  | ||
| Soda Supporter Username: Soda Post Number: 2467 Registered: 5-2001  |
I got loaded. -s. BTW: Here Are the SOTU Drinking Game Rules, straight from the website of that Giantess of Print PolPorn, WONKETTE!: "Drinking rules for the State of the Union tonight.(As always, if you haven't started drinking already, you're never gonna win. Also, please join us in drinking the Purple Finger, which is 1 part cassis, 1 part grenadine, and 1 part vodka. Freedom never tasted so sickly sweet—but you're warned, the hangover is a bitch.) · Every time "Iraqi vote" referenced: 1 tiny sip. (Pace yourself on that one, seriously.) · "Mandate": touch yourself to gay porn mag Mandate. · John McCain spits on floor: chug-a-lug! · Mentions "WMD": smash bottle in face. · Says "Plowing through": titter like a girl. · Tricky one: "On Monday, we will reveal details..": 2 drinks. · Annual fave, "status quo": 1 smack on the head. · Whenever Cheney sneers like Mephistopholes: 1 drink. · Social Security reverse psychology: Bush says "insecurity": 3 drinks down the wrong tube, resulting in choking among the uninsured. · "Spreading freedom": slather on some freedom. · Names "Barbara Boxer": fall off couch in shock. · Mention of twins: hump couch. · Every time Condi is pictured while clearly doing Kegels: 1 shot of chai tea. · Bush unable to prevent himself from breaking into hysterical laughter: drain all nearest bottles. · Hillary faints, again: 1 oyster shooter. · Mentions "Iran": stop drinking and start ****ing packing." | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 682 Registered: 5-2004  |
Ily, So when some psycho nutcase extremist right-winger agrees with Bush, does that mean he should be painted with the same brush? | ||
| Paul Surovell Supporter Username: Paulsurovell Post Number: 226 Registered: 2-2003 |
Ily, You will open a Pandora's box if you persist in this childish "guilt-by-association" ploy. There are several extremely unsavory characters out there who are strong supporters of the Administration's privatization scam. | ||
| mwoodwalk Citizen Username: Mwoodwalk Post Number: 303 Registered: 9-2001 |
Krugman's not guilty by association. He's just a liar and pathological distortionist. (And spare me the anticipated "Bush is a liar" retorts--that's gotten old and the supposed evidence of that charge's accuracy is not worth rehashing for the zillionth time). | ||
| Paul Surovell Supporter Username: Paulsurovell Post Number: 227 Registered: 2-2003 |
Moodwalk, Put some evidence behind your allegations about Krugman. Let's see what you've got. And can you tell us why Bush has NEVER informed the public that by 2052 Social Security will be able to meet 81% of its obligations even if we make NO changes at all? And why has he not told the public of the 3 options I presented? Because he can't present the truth, because if he did the public would be in an uproar over the scam he's trying to pull on them. PLease show us what leads you to your opinion about Krugman. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3077 Registered: 8-2003 |
Bush hasn't presented those options because he has ruled out continued tax increases as a temporary fix for Social Security. Your recinding tax cuts point to the inherent defect of the program when you use general revenues to bail out a program that can't sustain itself. That leaves you with raising payroll taxes, which you'd have to do again and again to prop up the system. So run on tax hikes to keep the program with a 20% cut in benefits. Put it to a vote. | ||
| Mustt_mustt Citizen Username: Mustt_mustt Post Number: 255 Registered: 8-2003 |
An Assault on Social Security - The Right's Campaign of Lies Excerpted from Dave Lindorff's article in www.counterpunch.org Not mentioned by the president or right-wing critics of Social Security is the fact that by 2045, the last of the Baby Boom generation will have already shuffled off this mortal coil, taking their outsized claims for benefits with them. Given that there is no real crisis, the real unasked question is why the president, right-wing politicians and pundits, and corporate leaders and business organizations--and the media--are all calling for "reforms" to "save" the system. The real reason for this urgency is that they understand that the Baby Boom generation, which is approaching retirement, does pose a crisis--not for Social Security, but for them and their political agenda. Consider this: Just as there will be nearly twice as many elderly retirees collecting benefits when the wave of Americans born between 1945 and 1960 hits its retirement age peak (the first Boomers start retiring in 2011), there will also be twice as many elderly voters. And it gets better (or more terrifying, if you are a conservative politician or a corporate executive): while today's seniors came of age listening to Perry Como in the politically quiescent 1950s, tomorrow's retirees will be people who listened to Bob Dylan and the Beatles and cut their political teeth in the Civil Rights and Anti-War Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In a few years then, we can expect to see an unprecedentedly large senior lobby that knows how to organize politically, that knows how to do take it to the street, and that has demonstrated its ability to fight hard when its own interests are at stake (remember those struggles for the vote and against the draft and the Indochina War?). And once they near retirement, this powerful voting bloc will be seeing Social Security and Medicare as their number one political issue. If Social Security is already the "third rail" of electoral politics, not to be touched, in a few years, it will become the Molotov cocktail, exploding the political status quo. Corporate America knows this. The people in the boardrooms and the conservative think tanks aren't worried about 2042. They don't think that long-term. (If they did, they wouldn't be so cavalier about the destruction of the environment and about global warming.) They're worried about 2010, because this new senior revolution is just around the corner. They know that today, seniors and people over the age of 65, as powerful an electoral block as they are, represent only 17 percent of the voting age population of the country, while by 2025, when the bulk of Baby Boomers will be in the 65-80 age bracket, retirees will represent 25 percent of the voting-age population, an increase of 45 percent in their relative voting power. If those aged 55-64 are added in--a reasonable assumption, since people who reach 55 are starting to think about their retirement and tend to vote more in line with the interests of actual retirees--the elderly and near elderly will by then represent fully 40 percent of the electorate. That's a 40 percent increase over the 28.5 percent of the electorate this broader group represented in 2000. Moreover, while the Right talks ominously of a generational conflict between older retirees collecting pensions and younger workers paying the taxes to cover them, in fact, those retirees are the parents of many of those workers (not everyone has children, but everyone has parents!). And how many people complain about the size of their parents' Social Security checks, or would really want to have to be personally responsible for taking care of their elderly parents' finances? There really is considerable support even among young workers, for a secure and generous retirement system, because people don't just vote their own interests; they vote their parents' and grandparents' interests, too. That's why there is an increasingly panicky aspect to the efforts to destroy Social Security before the Baby Boomer population realizes where its real political interests lie. Social Security's opponents know if the program is effectively killed off before it becomes a core Boomer issue, it will be much harder to re-establish it. | ||
| sbenois Citizen Username: Sbenois Post Number: 13095 Registered: 10-2001  |
There are several simple ways to guarantee 100% coverage for the next 100 years: (1) Rescind 1/4 of Bush's tax cut for the wealthy and transfer the moneys to a Social Security fund. Well Paul, first of all, I'm not going to ignore the nonsensical shot you've taken at the "Bush tax cut for the wealthy" because you know darned well that the wealthy in these parts saw nada due to the AMT (why didn't YOU disclose that???). Second of all, I'm glad that you've decided to use funds - tax funds from "the wealthy" to fund SS. I'm also glad that you've made this leap that the program should not be self funding (with a few exceptions having been made along the way for military personnel, the 72 crowd, etc.) - something I'm SURE you know violates the spirit of what FDR sought. So as far as I'm concerned, this "idea" is DOA. It's also as cynical a bit of class warfare as anything you're accusing the Republicans of. Nice try though (2) Rescind the tax cut only on those earning $500,000 or more. Paul, see point one. Also DOA (3) Remove the income cap on Social Security taxes, currently $88,000. Hmmmm. Interesting Paul. But are you also going to remove the associated inherent benefits caps ? Let me answer for you: you're not. So this insidious little plot is essentially a tax increase to the "rich". Therefore, see point 1 and then 2. | ||
| sbenois Citizen Username: Sbenois Post Number: 13096 Registered: 10-2001 |
Say here's an idea: let's make China a state. Then we'll have 1.3 billion new players. | ||
| Bobkat Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 7485 Registered: 5-2001 |
Actually the income cap is, I believe, non representative of the benefit levels. I don't think someone making $88k gets a benefit ten times someone making $9k, although I admit I didn't look this up. I think increasing the cap amount to $250,000 is part of Lindsay Graham's plan. Bush's little plan for private accounts will cost the rest of us $1.2 trillion over the next ten years, although it will go on the credit card and does nothing to reduce the upcoming SS shortfall, all to pry the one demographic, younger people, who still overwhelmingly vote Democratic. | ||
| sbenois Citizen Username: Sbenois Post Number: 13098 Registered: 10-2001 |
But the cap (at 90k this year) does limit how much you can contribute at a max - thus inherently capping what you can get out. Removing the cap would be fair only if no associated limit on the benefit side is imposed. The formula is very arcane. It uses a number of inputs, a point system, years of service, the years served, "the notch", yada, yada, yada. But in the end, the cap serves to limit what's paid in so there is a limit on what's paid out. | ||
| sbenois Citizen Username: Sbenois Post Number: 13099 Registered: 10-2001 |
And let me clear up one thing...I'm not necessarily for the Bush Plan. I AM simply for dealing with this issue once and for all. |
