Wednesday, December 28, 2005

What might have been on Social Security – I agree with every word Stanley Kurtz writes in this Corner post: “The supposed political story of 2005 is the president's run of hard luck. And the conventional litany of slip-ups always features the president's failure to reform social security. That so-called failure will someday be seen as a badge of honor. The real failure here was the Democrats', who will ultimately be shamed by their sacrifice of the nation's welfare to political calculation.Read the rest. And, yes, I”ll admit that the Democrats “won” the battle, but their obstruction – and the Republicans timidity – on this critical issue will haunt the United States for generations to come. Everybody knows the demographic tsunami is coming, but almost nobody could muster the political courage to prepare for it. Sigh.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

This debate is too little almost too late I would say, and little hope for a solution in the near term. I supported Mr. Goldwater in 1964, who wanted to shift SS to the private sector, which I enthusiastically supported; the Dems crucified him for that, far worse than they did to President Bush over his proposal. So we had a delay of 40 years or so on facing this issue squarely in the face. We and the EU will be bankrupt if it takes another 40 years to address this issue. By the way, in the late 1940’s, SS was supposed to roll over to an annuity type fund; the Dems forgot to enact that change.

Anonymous said...

Bush's "badge of honor": Bleed the system's reserve, partly to pay for an unnecessary pet war (which none-too-incidentally had ruined his credibility when it came time to sell this dog). Then, offer vaporous wishtalk and an indistinct sketch to divert future monies to his financier cronies, because after all, nothing truly bad has happened to the stock market for a whole 2 or 3 years. Perhaps Kurtz refers to a different "president's plan." But that future badge of honor must be like the "honor" Bush has restored to the Oval Office.

He even famously promised to "reach out to everyone who shares our goals." Clearly a bipartisan compromise was just inches away! In other words.... DAMN those unserious, obstructionist Democrats! Damn them to HELLLLL!!! Alas, what could anyone expect but cheap politics from a party so debased that they'd cripple our future economy by cynically killing any chance of honest national health care reform as a.... oh.

Anonymous said...

Ida: say it, don't spray it.

Anonymous said...

good one, Ida! you almost had me convinced that people believe that sort of garbage.. well, anyone outside of DU regulars, I mean

Anonymous said...

Social Security reform might stand a chance if we get a president who:
1. Doesn't so obviously and clumsily view it as a pipeline to reward his CEO backers;
2. Hasn't squandered his presumed reserve of trustworthiness;
3. Doesn't regard negotiation as shameful capitulation.

Not to say that past presidents weren't guilty of some of these things, but you must admit that GWB has hit the trifecta.

Anonymous said...

actually, no.. you don't need to admit any of those things on behalf of GWB as none of them are proven to be true... but please provide us with evidence, wvwv.. we'll wait while you look up your sources

Anonymous said...

aaron, I think we all agree with you about the 'opt out' feature.. but as Eric once said (at least I assume it was he), and let me paraphrase... "you know Social Security must be a good program when the government makes it compulsory"

Anonymous said...

There was an opt-out provision for localities, but Congress closed that loophole in the 80's (Eric posted something about this a few months ago). If SS wasn't compulsory, it would collapse in the blink of an eye.

JG said...

"Bush's 'badge of honor': Bleed the system's reserve..."

Reserve??

Anonymous said...

yeah.. the reserve... you know.. the "lockbox"

Anonymous said...

Haw, haw! Lockbox! Budget surpluses are so gay!

Robert said...

This is a link to an essay by Arnold Kling re: productivity permitting an afforable welfare state.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=122805C