Please tell me I am reading this page wrong. Want to be fair....

[madfloridian]

I posted this at the end of another thread in a another forum, but the more I think about it the more alarmed I get. I want someone to tell me I am misreading what the DLC website is saying.

It sounds to me like they do not even like the fact that Bush has said that seniors already on Social Security and Medicare won't be cut. They will of course, but it sounds like our Democrats want them changed right now to private programs. This is so sad, and it is stressing out so many seniors.

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253094&kaid=131&subid=192

SNIP..."Here at home, the president was forced last month to reassure jittery international financial markets that he would at some point in the near future deal with the increasingly dire fiscal situation of the federal government. Yet his political team is gearing up for a full-court, multimedia campaign to promote a partial privatization scheme for Social Security that will make that fiscal situation far worse, in no small part because Bush is taking the pain-free approach of promising future retirees they can stay in the old system with full benefits even as a portion of the payroll tax that finances it is diverted into private accounts.

It sounds to me like our own party does not want to allow those presently on the system to stay there. I hope I am reading it wrong. :shrug:

[BamaLefty]

1. Your kidding...

Whoa.

[madfloridian]

2. Do you read it that way also?

I am seething. I did not want you to agree that is what it said.

[lonestarnot]

3. Sure as hell sounds like another stop drop and roll act to me.

[quiet.american]

4. I read it differently

First, let me say, I am absolutely NO DLC supporter. Evan Bayh and Al From are useless as Democrats as far as I'm concerned. However, my interpretation of that sentence is as follows:

Shrub's plan for planning to privatize Social Security is outside the realm of the reality-based community because the money used to finance the privatization is money which is allocated to pay the full benefits of those retiring in the future.

However, Shrub's mathematics dictate $1 of this money can be used to cover $2 worth of costs -- so to speak -- simultaneously financing the full benefits of future retirees and financing the privatization scheme. Someone will be left out in the cold -- guess who.

That's how I read it.

[madfloridian]

6. No, that is how I read it....seniors left out in the cold.

But I read it that the DLC wants the total privatization faster than Bush. I just read it again, and it still seems that way. :shrug:

[quiet.american]

7. Perhaps the wording is poor--

--And is making this the Rorschach (probably just mis-spelled that) of paragraphs.

I re-read it as well, and still don't arrive at the same conclusion as you, but arrive at the conclusion their objection is that while Shrub is attempting to reassure the international financial markets the U.S. economy is getting better, he's gearing up a huge campaign right now to, in fact, make the economy even worse through this absolutely disastrous, horrible Social Security scheme.

[madfloridian]

8. Says Bush is using the "pain-free" approach of keeping seniors on.

partial privatization scheme for Social Security that will make that fiscal situation far worse, in no small part because Bush is taking the pain-free approach of promising future retirees they can stay in the old system with full benefits even as a portion of the payroll tax that finances it is diverted into private accounts."

Now it seems they are critical of Bush for taking the "pain-free" approach. I will keep reading it.

[quiet.american]

9. Yes, I see where you're coming from --

-- but when I read it in the context of the paragraph, I interpret the phrase "pain-free" to mean,

Bush is waving a magic wand and promising future retirees they can stay in the old system while he creates the "new" one without his actually doing the work of figuring out where the heck the money is going to come from.

Just like he waved his magic wand to say his horrible tax-cuts would boost the economy without bothering to do the math through to its natural conclusion.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Poorly worded?

Bush's new scheme requires borrowing $2TT now, if I understand his alledged proposal. Sounds like they are attacking his plan, but the wording does seem to convey that they are attacking the current system.

The current system is solvent thru 2057, so I don't know why the DLC would be going after a core Democratic program....but then, there is a lot of things today that make absolutely no sense to me.

[AndyTiedye]

10. You Might Be Reading It Wrong

They are pointing out that Boosh**'s proposal will cause a fiscal meltdown,
which it would.

I don't see in there anything that says that the Dems support
the privatization of Social Security in the first place.

[Eric J in MN]

11. The DLC is not the Democratic Party.

MoveOn has over 2 million members.

How many members does the DLC have? 25?