CATO Institute shill chastises Democrats for changing stance on SS.

[Carolab]

http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200505200912.asp

Boy, their logic always confounds me.

[zoeb]

1. without reading it...I didn't know the dems had a plan...n/t

[Carolab]

2. You need to read it to understand. Or not.

This author conflates the argument certain Dems held in the '70s and '80s with the reasons for their support today. They argued against it then for different reasons and for Federal employees only.

[applegrove]

3. Bush wants a stock market bubble and then that will end America.

Tell the ****er to take the recession he has been putting off for 4 years like a man. Stop giving tax cuts or raiding the SS to keep the market booming.

America is already in debt. Artificially hight stocks are already threatening the retirement of many pension funds. Why would you want to repeat that mistake?

[Carolab]

4. Of course. But that's not the point of this post.

I am simply attacking the logic behind the author of this article. How can he criticize the Dems for being against Social Security a few decades ago IN GENERAL when they were arguing against it as a form of "double taxation" for Federal workers alone, who would then bear a disproportionate share of the burden for shoring it up? That's not the same as trying to save the entire program now! He is trying to make it seem as though these are the same circumstances, and saying that Dems are flip-flopping on this issue, but they are NOT. They are still arguing in favor of saving it, but a few decades ago they didn't want to put that on the backs of Federal employees in the form of higher payroll deductions than other workers. Now they are simply trying to protect the Republicans from destroying it altogether, for EVERYONE, and they are objecting because the Republican plan is designed to harm the working poor and the elderly while feathering the nests of Wall Street "investment fund managers" and giving the rich a "pass" on paying into the social safety net that even THEY have drawn benefits from while they found loopholes to avoid paying taxes to shore it up and keep it solvent. In addition, the program has put a heavy debt on self-employed people by making them pay excessive FICA, and these same people never even had the benefit of an employer who was paying part of this tax OR providing health care or a pension for them!

The author is also trying to excuse Bush for saying he'd save Social Security and not "privatize it" while campaigning 10 years ago, and then reversing that position today. He is trying to make it seem that if it's okay for Democrats to switch positions, then it's okay for Bush to do it too. Except the Dems didn't switch positions, they were responding to a particular aspect of the program at a different time.

[applegrove]

5. The tax cut just before the last election has kept the stock market

going for the last few months. They are looking for more fodder to line their cage. They are desperate. Because they want the 2002 recession to happen only when the next Democratic President gets power. And they will steal from the middle class and the pensioners to do it. And once that money is gone..it is gone.

If Bush is such a 'big man' that he can take the US into an 'extra war' he should be man enough to let the correction happen when it is needed as opposed to putting it off and making it much, much worse.