A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Do you really think W. will step down in 2009 given the crisis we face? I think most Americans believe it better if we just stay the course until all the problems are solved.

W may look ok in a flight suit, but he doesn't stand a chance against an army of robots.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
W may look ok in a flight suit, but he doesn't stand a chance against an army of robots.

He's done OK against the DEMs thus far . . . .

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Not that he had any journalistic cred, but this is pretty egregious:

QUOTING FDR....FDR's grandson, James Roosevelt, was on Keith Olbermann's show last night to say that Fox News anchor Brit Hume should offer "a retraction, an apology, maybe even a resignation" over his deliberate misquoting of FDR's views on Social Security. I've mentioned this before, but since my original post provoked several questions I want to make crystal clear what Hume did. Here is FDR's exact quote. All I've done is add paragraphs for easy reference:

1. In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles:
   
2. First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions.
   
3. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations.
   
4. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age.
   
   It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.

In other words, #1 (a temporary program for people who were already retired at the time) would eventually be phased out and replaced entirely by #2, which is the permanent Social Security system we have today. (#3, which FDR didn't care much about in the first place, never even got enacted in the final bill that created Social Security.)

Now here's what Hume said:

• In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, "Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age," adding that government funding, "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."

By clever truncation of the quotation, he's trying to make it look like FDR thought #2 (Social Security) should eventually be replaced by #3 (private annuities). FDR neither said nor meant any such thing, and Hume knows it.

So why is a major network news anchor allowed to get away with this? This isn't a difference of opinion or just a matter of Hume's point of view, it's a deliberate misquotation in the service of ideology that's now been making the rounds for two weeks. Does Hume plan to ever apologize and air a retraction?

Drum

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Genius.

courtesy of Rigorous Intuition

[Tyrone Slothrop]

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
[courtesy of Rigorous Intuition

From Ty's blog: I was interested to see this today on Democratic Underground...

Do not listen to these guys when the say they are far removed from DU- Ty knows DU

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Not that he had any journalistic cred, but this is pretty egregious:



Drum

A. I think Bush's SS plan for "investment" is unwise and illusory. I state this for context.

B. Drum has used far more egregious "logic" in his fisking of Hume here than did Hume. Note how he throws in an aside dismissing the add-on annuity as something FDR "never really cared about", as if that removes it from what FDR explicitly said. Hume was more accurate than Drum in this regard. FDR did advocate for exactly what Hume claims. Drum should have simply said "FDR didn't really mean it", and then winked at his followers. FDR was looking to make additional contributory annuities a part of the healthy breakfast. Whether you then claim that you have to detract from the basic part to do this depends on whether the level of SS payroll funding is sacrosanct in your mind.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by bilmore
A. I think Bush's SS plan for "investment" is unwise and illusory. I state this for context.

As Alan Greespan pointed out today, it is risky to put a percentage of the social security revenue into private accounts. However, something needs to be done to prevent fiscal disaster, and so far this is the only solution proposed that has a chance of working. So we need to be careful, but we have no choice. Rejecting Bush's plan without proposing a viable alternative is purely political posturing and irresponsible statesmanship.

On a more serious note - what is wrong with Brit Hume's mouth? Is it just me or does he look like a fish that just tore its mouth away from a fishing hook.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
FDR did advocate for exactly what Hume claims.

Back that up, please. Here's some background, to help you get started:

• 
  Roosevelt was not advocating that the present system of guaranteed Social Security benefits "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans." Rather, he was proposing that both mandatory contributions and voluntary annuities would eventually eliminate the need for a different fund which was established to provide pension benefits to Americans who were already too old in 1935 to contribute payroll taxes to the Social Security system.
  
  Roosevelt outlined the three major tenets he envisioned for Social Security in the January 17, 1935, speech that Hume quoted. As the Social Security Administration (SSA) has noted, these tenets are: 1) "non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance"; 2) "compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations"; and 3) "voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age."
  
  The second element, "compulsory contributory annuities," is the backbone of Social Security's current system of guaranteed retirement benefits, which are funded with payroll taxes that employees pay throughout their working years. But it was the first element, a retirement benefit fund for those who would never pay into the new system due to advanced age, that Roosevelt said would eventually be "supplanted" -- or made unnecessary -- by both voluntary annuities and compulsory contributions like those in the current system. In his January 17, 1935, speech, he noted: "It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the [non-contributory] old-age pension plan [the other half coming from the states], which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans." As the SSA noted, "It was the President's view ... that ultimately the welfare pensions funded by the states with federal contributions would become unnecessary as the two programs of annuities would gradually come to obviate any need for such welfare type programs."
  
  During 1935 congressional hearings on Roosevelt's Social Security bill, Edwin Witte, executive director of the Committee on Economic Security (CES), clearly stated that the voluntary accounts were intended as a "separate undertaking" meant to "supplement" the compulsory system, not replace it: "The voluntary system of old-age annuities we suggest as a supplement to the compulsory plan." Further, voluntary annuities would be "similar to those issued by commercial insurance companies" -- as Witte explained -- but they would differ from private accounts in that their funds would be deposited into and paid out of the Social Security trust fund, and they would provide a government-guaranteed benefit like mandatory contributions. Prominent contemporary Democrats support Roosevelt's idea of supplemental government-sponsored investment accounts that are paid for by non-Social Security funds, although unlike Roosevelt's plan, these accounts would not be linked to the trust fund.*
  
  Former Social Security associate commissioner James Roosevelt Jr., Roosevelt's grandson, noted in a January 31 Boston Globe op-ed piece: "The implication that FDR would support privatization of America's greatest national program is an attempt to deceive the American people and an outrage."
  

cite

Or try this:

• 
  Hume’s claim is that FDR wanted to replace Social Security with private accounts. Hume is lying. Here’s the FDR statement that Hume is misquoting:
  
  In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.
  
  So, FDR was proposing three things: a temporary “old-age pension,” for seniors who wouldn’t have time to pay into the Social Security system; a compulsory-contribution annuity--meaning, Social Security as we know it today--which would become a “self-supporting system,” and, third, voluntary individual accounts. Ultimately, the old-age pensions would be supplanted by the self-supporting annuity system (meaning, Social Security.)
  
  Hume turns this completely on its head. He pulls two unrelated bits out of the FDR quote, and adds the wrods “government funding” between them. Because it’s so carefully done, it’s clear that it’s deliberate. And it’s a nasty form of dishonesty. Hume is manipulating Americans’ trust of FDR in order to build support for dismantling FDR’s legacy.

your pal

Now, please quote the part of FDR's speech where he said what Hume said.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
However, something needs to be done to prevent fiscal disaster, and so far this is the only solution proposed that has a chance of working.

So something needs to be done to avoid deficits in fifty years, and that something is borrowing a ton of money now.

Rejecting Bush's plan without proposing a viable alternative is purely political posturing and irresponsible statesmanship.

This would be easier to take seriously if Bush had released a plan. He's still trying to sell the crisis, and refusing to release his plan -- he doesn't want to negotiate against himself, don't you know?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Back that up, please. Here's some background, to help you get started:

[Loads of crap from the progressives at Air America.]
Now, please quote the part of FDR's speech where he said what Hume said.

Ty -- I basically agree with Bilmore. There is no need to quote anything because your initial post (on whcih Bilmore commented) has it all in there.

The first half of Hume's statement is entirely, completely accurate -- a quote from FDR. The second half of Hume's statement is at most a use of the last paragraph of the FDR quote that is subject to different interpretations. Hume may be wrong in his spin on what FDR would have wanted -- but I don't think any reasonable person could say he is lying.

[eta: I do think it is vaguely ridiculous to suggest that FDR and W are ideologically or practically in line on this issue -- but the progressives are so pissed by this for the same reason that that Reganauts were so pissed at Clinton stealing some of their themes (they hate the guy). It is neither rational nor attractive.]

S_A_M

P.S. I've gotta tell you all, there is an Air America station in my area now, and the few snippets I've listened to have annoyed me almost as much as Limbaugh, et al. They have the same wonderful lack of perspective, with the added attraction of being bleeding heart, PC candy-asses. Fucking whiners too, because its their turn in the barrel. Almost enough to turn me to the GOP. [But then I see Lott and Delay, and despair.]

[Replaced_Texan]

So I guess death squads are back on the table?

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
So I guess death squads are back on the table?

They should never have been off the table. The whole anti-assassination thing should never have been applied in the first place, and it only applied (AFAIK) to foreign leaders anyway.

Our common ground might be in agreeing (at least) that their methods and operations better be approved in advance (at a general level) by the Vatican or some other similar higher authority approved of and directly accountable to the WH.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Spanky
Rejecting Bush's plan without proposing a viable alternative is purely political posturing and irresponsible statesmanship.

1. Raise the cap, and, correspondingly, raise the max monthly benefit.

2. Expand 401k options, such as caps, and liberalize emergency access to such funds without penalty.

3. Keep tax rates low.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by bilmore
B. Drum has used far more egregious "logic" in his fisking of Hume here than did Hume.

I agree. Notice how he called Hume a "news anchor"?