A General Proposal for 2008 Campaign Platform

[Parisle]

---- Sure, it may be too early to be speculating about a lot of things, and calculating time in "Bush administration years," the interval between possibly re-taking the House in the 2006 midterms, and the 2008 election could become painfully long,.... in fact, it might never end.

---- Personally, I'd like to see a Clark-Warner ticket (as already noted in another thread) But the composition of the ticket is a matter quite apart from "platform" items,... and the democrats have put forth their 6-point plan, albeit in frustratingly nebulous terms. They need to hit American voters with at least a couple of meaningful specifics. Here goes,....

---- For all the talk about "saving" Social Security, not one helpful stopgap measure has thusfar been proposed, let alone implemented. Mention the problem of "appropriating" current Social Security surpluses for the budget, and republicans are quick to jump up and point out that LBJ put SS in the general fund. Clinton had the opportunity to return the "trust" fund to separate budget status when he finally achieved his budget successes in '98, '99, etc, but he failed to do so,... a critical mistake. Gore seemed a likely successor, and he spoke often of the "lockbox," but we know what happened to Gore. And Bush has wildly exacerbated the problem, while preaching a disingenuous "reform" that would be primarily aimed at re-capitalizing Wall Street.

---- Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to bite the Social Security bullet, and tell America something it will appreciate hearing. Tell them that the pattern of government "borrowing" from their supplemental retirement fund is going to stop,.. period. Annual surpluses are running around $150 billion these days, after benefits are paid out,... so take a vow that this surplus amount will left in the fund at the end of your first year in office. Then see that it happens.

---- Of course, this will open a $150 billion hole in the already-deficit regular budget, but that must be dealt with, as well. But by 2008, $150 billion will represent about 5% of the overall budget, and that shouldn't be too terribly hard to cover. Hell, we spend more than that on corporate welfare. A nice symbolic gesture would be to cut by 10% all federal pensions paying over $60,000 annually; ordinary citizens will like that. Remove the "off-shoring" tax-escape for companies doing business here, but operating out of the damned Cayman Islands. And initiate some serious fines, fees or surtaxes on whichever US firms are exporting our jobs to India, etc. I'm sure some combination of measures like these would not only raise the necessary funds, but would be so popular on Main Street that republicans could not afford to vote against them.

---- But the point is,...... stop talking about Social Security and do something,... at least as much as to admit what has been wrong with the way the system has been financially exploited, and stop doing it. People will appreciate it,... people who happen to have the best voting records in the population, by the way, ... and they will breathe easier while further reforms are being contemplated. You can't go wrong with this one.

[Parisle]

1. Okay,..... I was curious,...

---- Another poster has asked why there was so little discussion of the economy here,... and I had aimed this post directly at the economic issues relative to the campaigns,..... but I was disappointed that it received no comment, pro or con. I really think Social Security has to be a winner issue with the democrats,.. particularly since the White House is preparing to spend the next two years trying once again to hand it over to Wall Street. What's up with this?

[MH1]

3. A constructive critique..

Your title was an eye-roller for me. Usually posts with similar titles, are, um, entertaining. Just my experience, they tend to express some point naively and without much substance.

Your post is good though. But I think a more descriptive title ("We need REAL social security reform in the 2008 platform" for example), may have got you a better response. (Or maybe not...the economy isn't a barnburner issue around here these days, as already observed).

Edited to unconfuse the i's and t's.

[MH1]

2. Lockbox

Didn't Bush agree with the lockbox concept in 2000?

If so, we certainly should be pointing out that he reneged on it, every chance we get.

I could be wrong though.

[Parisle]

5. Thanks, MH,....

---- I vaguely recall Bush giving a little lip-service to the lockbox concept in the 2000 campaign,.... and we definitely ought to mention that. But when we DO mention it, we might ALSO point out that Bush's largest single campaign donor for the 2000 campaign was none other than Charles Schwab, the investment brokerage house. They spent over a million bucks with Bush,... and their payback was supposed to be the SS Privatization plan. And while the democrats stood firm in opposing the plan (as did 65% of all Americans) they failed to grasp that their opposing stance could have been vastly solidified by making even the smallest gestures of their determination to "do the right thing."

---- Okay,... so the Bush administration was gobbling up a $150 billion SS surplus each year for the past 6 years. Why not initiate a small legislative push to require that a small given percentage of those receipts be left in the account? Say,.. $25 billion per budget,.... the trust fund would be a hundred billion bucks better off than it is now,... and the "gesture" would have done more for the democrats than millions in political advertising, eh?

----The Social Security system is not a defective pyramid scheme. The numbers are there for it to function as well as any "annuity" plan,.... except that the accumulated funds have been repeatedly appropriated by government since the system got back into the black in 1983. Reagan started it to blur the size of his own deficits, and the practice has continued ever since. As I said, Clinton should have stopped it. The "trust fund" actually should contain over two trillion dollars right now,.. earning REAL interest instead of generating future federal debt. What's the annual interest on $2 trillion? The truth of the matter is that Wall Street financiers did not want a gigantic peoples' "credit union" competing with their own profit-based operations, and politicians did not want to reveal the actual size of their profligate spending.

---- Solving the Social Security debacle is, in effect, a symbolic solving of the problem of a disingenuous political industry colluding with Big Money to ultimately shortchange their constituents.

---- You're right,..... my first headline was a dud.

[MH1]

4. Corporate taxes

Remove the "off-shoring" tax-escape for companies doing business here, but operating out of the damned Cayman Islands. And initiate some serious fines, fees or surtaxes on whichever US firms are exporting our jobs to India, etc.

A plan much like this was in Kerry's 2004 platform. Many liberal bloggers disliked it because it rewarded corporations that kept jobs in the U.S. I guess they couldn't get past the "reward corporations" to see that it was necessary to make the plan saleable, not to mention fair, while being a quite workable way to improve domestic job retention.

[Parisle]

6. Politically, This Is A Problem of Concensus

---- Once the democrats get a significant majority of the people solidly behind them,... say a reliable 65% or so,... then they will pull ahead in elections and be able to reign in corporate abuses. They just have to sequence their actions appropriately.

---- The social security issue would obtain the popular backing the party needs,... IF they handle it right. I put another Social Security post on the board a little while ago,.. I hope you will check it out.