Sleight of Hand (In Budget is complete Soc Security destruction)

[papau]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11235990/site/newsweek/from/RSS

Sleight of Hand
Bush buried detailed Social Security privatization proposals in his budget. Can the surprise move jump-start bipartisan reform?

By Allan Sloan
Updated: 12:09 p.m. ET Feb. 8, 2006


Feb. 8, 2006 - If you read enough numbers, you never know what you'll find. Take President Bush and private Social Security accounts.

Last year, even though Bush talked endlessly about the supposed joys of private accounts, he never proposed a specific plan to Congress and never put privatization costs in the budget. But this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday.

His plan would let people set up private accounts starting in 2010 and would divert more than $700 billion of Social Security tax revenues to pay for them over the first seven years.

If this comes as a surprise to you, have no fear. You're not alone. Bush didn't pitch private Social Security accounts in his State of the Union Message last week.
<snip>

[central scrutinizer]

1. lying by omission as well as by commission

why am I not surprised. Not only does he lie when his lips are moving, he lies when his lips aren't moving.

[Angry Girl]

2. Anybody reading this? Dems? Hello? You done ducking yet?

For crying out loud, you have to adopt new tactics with monsters of this ilk. You'll never survive in the cage with a cobra if all you do is try to stay away from it.

[robbedvoter]

9. They are dinosaurs. Disappeared with a whimper.

[King Coal]

3. This isn't Bush. This is Karl Rove. This is Rove's plan.

That fucker does what he wants, and nobody can stop him.

[Angry Girl]

4. Baloney. Rove is human, not the anti-Christ (despite the rumors)

He can't stay immune forever - he will get old and weak (even if he does carry out human blood sacrifices daily) and he has plenty of powerful enemies.

[King Coal]

5. Ok, let me re-phrase that.

Nobody will stop him.

[Angry Girl]

6. You said it, Binky!

:cry: :banghead:
"But someday... SOMEday...!" she said, trying to comfort herself....

[King Coal]

14. It won't do any good.

[Mithras61]

7. If you look closely...

you can tell from the budget exactly where their priorities lie. Actually, these scumbags are so transparent it's shameful. They simply want to eliminate all forms of social welfare and switch over to corporate & GRB welfare (tax cuts, tax breaks, etc.).



GRB = Greedy Rich Bastards

Edited for spelling (2nd one in ten minutes... must be time for more coffee...:D)

[robbedvoter]

8. Difi to Gonzalez: "Any other secret plans?" ...Crickets......

I bet we'll be finding more and more as the empire proceeds....

[neverforget]

10. It worked out so well for them last year, why would they think this will

get through in an election year?

[cali]

11. Precisely. This is good news for dems

if only they'll use it. So much for busco's bi-partisan commission. This is D.O.A. and great ammunition for dems. I can't believe they're this stupid.

[xxqqqzme]

12. This privatization of SS

really scares me. I was disabled in an auto accident when I was 47 - can no longer work - w/o SS disability & medicare I would be totally f*cked. It took me FIVE years 2 get SS disability. My health insurance premiums were $468/mo and I wasn't sick but still considered a major medical risk because some speeding a*shole rammed the car from the back. What happens 2 people, who like me are disabled through some negligent act, under privatization.

[Megahurtz]

22. Good question! What about the Disabled?

How the hell can someone in that or a similar position save anything for a private account???
How can one work when their health isn't up to par?

And with the way things are going no poor or middle class can make enough money
to save for private accounts either.

It scares me how much this guy is in dreamland. Sometimes I actually wonder if he is one of those people that believes their own lies.

[LynnTheDem]

25. Answer; you better be damned lucky at stockmarket investing.

We ALL better be damned lucky at it. And if not? Then starve and die. It's the New Compassionate American Way! RAHRAHRAH!

[brentspeak]

13. We need a Dem with guts to just say it loud on TV:

"Bush lied during his State of the Union Address. He flat out lied."

What's the White House going to say? "The President didn't lie about the SS privatization; he just didn't mention it." That's not going to go over well with the American public.

[lovuian]

15. His legacy is to destroy ALL SOCIAL programs

Medicaid Medicare and Social Security the back bone of our peoples lives...

[madmark]

16. this may sound like heresy, but while many dems are dependent

social security, I believe even more members of the red state base are dependent on it and would be harmed by the dissolution of the program. Sometimes I think just let these people get what they wish for.

[Whoa_Nelly]

17. The author of the article AGREES that SS is unsustainable--WTF?

Where are the complete studies and projections that will make Social Security benefits unsustainable?!?!

These assholes will stoop to any level to make sure the PNAC plan goes all the way through. Destroying our nation, one (maybe three...?) steps at a time, from the inside out. :grr: :mad: :nuke: :mad: :grr:

[kiraboo]

18. Sustainable or not,

it would be suicide, literally, for poor americans to allow this administration to "fix" it. The shrub is not likely to allow last year's bipartisan snub of his SS plan go unchallenged. He's a stubborn man and he's a stupid men to boot. It may very well work in our favor this time.

[LynnTheDem]

23. bush; lied in 1978; lied in 2001...and 2002...and 2004. & still lying now.

LIED in 1978 when he said SS would be bankrupt by 1988 if it wasn't privatized.
http://www.bushfiles.com/bushfiles/midland.html

And in 2001:

Commission Impossible:
Why Bush is abandoning Social Security reform

So when Bush became the latest Republican to back away from the commission, its critics were ecstatic. For months they had warned that conservative-style reform would require either unpopular tax increases or equally unpopular cuts in benefits.

Now it looked like the White House had come to the same conclusion.
http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V12/22/confessore-n.html

Then in 2002:

Social Security In The 2002 Elections:
Candidates Won By Renouncing Privatization

A special Republican Campaign Committee task force instructed candidates there was no way to win votes with the Bush Social Security plan.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6717

Report Predicts Deep Benefit Cuts Under Bush Social Security Plan
http://www.mediatransparency.org/aroundthewebblurb.php?aroundTheWebBlurbID=58

2004:

bush; Inventing a "crisis"

Projections in a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office say that the trust fund will run out in 2052. The system won't become "bankrupt" at that point; even after the trust fund is gone, Social Security revenues will cover 81 percent of the promised benefits.

The report finds that extending the life of the trust fund into the 22nd century, with no change in benefits, would require additional revenues equal to only 0.54 percent of G.D.P.

That's less than 3 percent of federal spending - less than we're currently spending in Iraq. And it's only about one-quarter of the revenue lost each year because of President Bush's tax cuts - roughly equal to the fraction of those cuts that goes to people with incomes over $500,000 a year.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70E11F73F550C748CDDAB0994DC404482

bush's temporary TAX CUTS for the rich, if made permanent, will cost THREE TO FIVE TIMES GREATER than the amount of Social Security over the next 75 years.
http://www.thedubyareport.com/socsec1.html

Cost of the 2001/2003 tax cuts, if made permanent; $11.6 trillion

Cost of the new Rx Drug Benefit; $8.1 trillion

Combined cost of Rx drugs and permanent tax cuts; $19.7 trillion

Shortfall, Social Security Trust Fund; $3.7 trillion

http://www.cbpp.org/1-4-05socsec.htm

And if we DO NOTHING WHATSOEVER, (don't even bother coming up with alternative plans to bush's bullshit) then retirees will still get 81% from 2052 onwards...With bush's "plan", you'll only get 75% from 2042 onwards.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120804X.shtml

So, as always, doing bush's plan IS WORSE than doing nothing at all.

Gee, what a surprise.

[Whoa_Nelly]

30. Thanks, LTD

All you posted is what was on my mind when I read that crap about "unsustainable Social Security".

on edit:
It's archivists, like you, of the information and all the Bushwhack lies that are going to be needed again and again, especially over these next two years, and maybe even more so by 2012.

Good job!
Well done!
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[grytpype]

19. Thank you Georgie!!!!

Dear Presnit Bush,

Thank you so much for raising the issue of SS privitization again in an election year. We look forward to using this issue to crush the Republicans this fall and take back Congress.

Sincerely,

The Dems

[pinniped]

20. * is sure the magician ( sleight of hand ).

Those pukes' greatest trick was taking our surplus and billions and billions of future tax earnings for the next 1000 years and making it disappear.

* is also good at making billions for necessary programs disappear.

Oh ya, he's also good at making that pesky piece of parchment with scribbles on it disappear.

[sam the dawg]

21. what's a good pol to do?

If the gov collects ss, the pols raid the funds and break the system.
What began as a well intended social net to protect the extremely disadvantaged,
has been perverted into a nefarious beast -- feeding all the wrong things.
I'm no rethug, but honestly, this ss system as it exists now, is a ied of wmd
proportions lurking in our financial system.

[Bridget Burke]

24. So--what do you suggest?

Make some adjustments to protect Social Security? Or destroy it?

Not only the "extremely disadvantaged" need Social Security. Besides, we've been paying into it.

[Straight Shooter]

27. I've got a wake up message for you.

What they take now for Social Security, if they manage to eviscerate the Social Security program, they will find something else to take the place of those taxes. And, believe me, it won't be for the health and welfare of society, it will be to expand the neocon empire.

Take tort reform, for example. To my understanding, it was supposed to drive insurance costs and healthcare costs down. Do you see any evidence of that yet? Nope. The money still comes out of everyone's pocket, but now it's all directed to the benefit of Big Pharma and Big Corporations.

I don't believe for one second that anyone will have one more cent in their pockets after bush privatizes Social Security. No one will, that is, except for bush and the corporations which protect him. Think about how much of your taxes goes to our military. Now think about what our military is actually accomplishing, beyond its intended purpose, in terms of profits and who is profiting the most. Halliburton ring a bell?

Leave Social Security as it is, or wait for a Democrat in the Oval Office and a Democratic majority Congress to fix its inherent problems. All the Repubs want to do is smash every good thing that ever came out of the Democratic party and its leaders.

[Megahurtz]

26. And I would like to see a list of

all of the countries who are recieving billions of dollars from the U.S. regularly.
I would like to see who, how much, how often, and what for.
Anyone know how to get ahold of that list?
Other countries are getting aid while people in our own country are going down the toilet!:hurts: Something is really wrong with that one and I am surprised
that I don't hear more people speaking up about it.

(Of course that's not counting the billions being spent on bogus wars)

There is way too much money leaving this country, being handed out for other purposes,
while all of us here bite the big one.

Anyone else ever considered that one???

[CrispyQ]

28. But he's keeping us safe from terrorists.

:puke:


Last week on one of the 'news' stations they interviewed a group of Ohioans regarding the SOTU address. They were all very concerned about the economy & did not agree with the dimson that we have a robust economy. However, in the end, many said that they are glad he's president cuz they trust him to keep them safe from terrorists. :puke: :puke:

When did Americans become such a terrified group of pansies? And how fucking safe can you possibly be if you don't have a job & can't feed or house your family? Holy crap. Half of America deserves what they are going to get from this fucking administration.

[Inland]

29. Why would anyone even bother? It's meaningless.

A item budgeted for 2010 is meaningless. I guess it allows Bush to say that he's put the reforms in place, and it's someone elses problem to figure out how to pay for it.

[cantstandbush]

31. So why haven't the Dems been out screaming about this? n/t