Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Help me.
SS will go broke in about 2050 unless fixed soon. Bush has a proposal, you don't like it- okay- it seems like the sort of thing that really should be a joint Dem/Rep solution since it's long term, and will necessarially span several administrations. What is the Dem solution? Hillary was co-President for 8 years. Why didn't we hear about it then? What was his solution?
Let them eat cake?
I know I still need to get used to "We're in power-we'll always be in power- and the also-rans will bitch"- like on HS b-ball when Thurgreed was second string to me, and he kept saying I shoot too much when I came near during time outs. But really, like I finally told T. back then, you don't have a better shot, so shut up, please.
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Hank,
I appreciate the humor that scatology brings, but the holiday season seems to induce really weak shit from you. Must be the egg nog.
The problem is that Bush's proposal, such as it is, doesn't really
solve anything. It's a massive change that converts a welfare program into government controlled 401(k)s, but does little to fix the problem that you're so concerned about.
Bush is proposing a solution that, far as I can tell, even its advocates concede won't solve the problem by itself*. Like I
asked earlier, if you can point me in the direction of something that actually refutes the proposition that privitization *can't* create the boost necessary to make SocSec solvent by 2050 (or whenever), I'd like to hear it.
It's also a problem which, btw, can be addressed easily over the next 50 years by tinkering with the tax rate or with the level of benefits. That's a touchy problem, though, so I can understand at some level Bush's inclination to THINK BIG, and in a way that distracts us from actually addressing the problem.
While we're at it, we can also talk about the ONE TO TWO TRILLION DOLLARS required to make this adjustment to accommodate the ideological fantasies of conservatives if you'd like to, but since Bush has declared that we'll borrow every single dime of that amount, we'd better have that discussion quickly before the Administration takes the borrowing off-budget, and we never hear about it again but start wondering why the dollar's valuation has fallen off the edge of a fucking cliff.
The problem with your "Oh, yeah? Where's YOUR proposal" argument is that
(1) Bush hasn't actually proposed anything of substance yet, other than the orgasmic word "privitization." The pity is that, according to the man's press conference yesterday, Bush's White House actually doesn't
make legislative proposals -- instead, they come up with the Big Idea, and waits for someone in Congress to find a way to make it work in the Reality Based Community.
When he's able to find someone Republican in the hallways of Congress who can grab a #2 pencil and write down exactly how this is going to work, and how he intends to pay for it, then let's talk.
(2) There's not universal agreement that we've got a crisis today. Arguing that we do is part of the reason that we've got an administration churning out sunny-day estimates for tax cut purposes, but an SSA predicting an oncoming typhoon. If Bush really wants to tackle a crisis, we can talk about Medicare, which will dwarf any problems SocSec might pose. The challenge there, I suppose, is that it's harder to refashion Medicare benefits into a private account that can be played in the markets.
(3) When the GOP solution is one that ignores any financial pain whatsoever, relying on the opposition to provide one that is tethered to the constraints of reality is a bit disengenuous, don't you think?
Gattigap
* See, for example, the
GAO's own statement that "The creation of private accounts for Social Security will not deal with the solvency and sustainability of the Social Security fund." Once the Ownership Society's orgasm from Bush's proposal has receded, and we're into its multi-month refractory period, we'll have to face up to this unpleasant fact.
