Man ! The NYTimes slaps Bush hard on Social Security !

[kentuck]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/10mon1.html?oref=login

<snip>
ate February is now the time frame mentioned by the White House for unveiling President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security. The timing is no accident. By waiting until then, the president will conveniently avoid having to include the cost of privatization - as much as $2 trillion in new government borrowing over the next 10 years - in his 2006 budget, expected in early February.

In this and other ways, the administration is manipulating information - a tacit, yet devastating, acknowledgement, we believe, that an informed public would reject privatizing Social Security. For the record:


<snip>
Logic? That thinking is wishful to the point of being magical. Medicare is not going to fix itself any more than tax cuts will pay for themselves. And Social Security is not a crisis for which enormous borrowing, huge benefit cuts and risky private accounts are a solution. Rather, it's a financial problem of manageable proportions, solvable without new borrowing by a combination of modest benefit cuts and tax increases that could be distributed fairly and phased in over several decades, while guaranteeing a basic level of inflation-proof income for life.

It appears that the president and his aides are trying to sow ignorance to gain support for their flawed privatization agenda. Lawmakers, policy makers and the American people have to let the administration know that they know better.

[LynnTheDem]

1. Amazing how bush thinks just like Hitler did.

bush does just like Hitler did, too.

Only Hitler was far more intelligent. Not sure if bush being so much dumber is a good or bad thing for us.

Nice to FINALLY see some MSM speak against the bullshit for once! :)

[radfringe]

2. It's the "terra-lert" approach

Worked so well in convincing people we had to invade Iraq -- so why not use FEAR to convince people that Social Security is in a crisis and ONLY bush* can save us?


Bush Paints His Goals As 'Crises'
President Reprises A First-Term Tactic
By Jim VandeHei -- Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 8, 2005; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57476-2005Jan7.html

President Bush had great success in his first term by defining crises that demanded decisive responses. Now, as he begins a second term, Bush is returning to the same tactic to accomplish three longtime conservative goals.

Warning of the need for urgent action on his Social Security plan, Bush says the "crisis is now" for a system even the most pessimistic observers say will take in more in taxes than it pays out in benefits well into the next decade.

He calls the proliferation of medical liability lawsuits a "crisis in America" that can be fixed only by limiting a patient's right to sue for large damages. And Bush has repeatedly accused Senate Democrats of creating a "vacancy crisis" on the federal bench by refusing to confirm a small percentage of his judicial nominees.

This strategy helped Bush win support for the war in Iraq, tax cuts and education policies, as well as reclaim the White House. What is unclear is whether the same approach will work, given the battering to the administration's credibility over its Iraq claims and a new Democratic campaign accusing Bush of crying wolf.

"This White House had made an art of creating crisis where a crisis does not exist," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

[Carolab]

3. I'm rubbing my eyes in disbelief.

They are reporting the truth?

[unblock]

4. don't worry, they'll come around

they're just publishing it now so that later, they can say they did.

mark my words, come february, when bush "unveils" his plan, the nytimes and the rest of the msm will be faithfully reporting the banana republicans talking points.

they might be a widdle bit more skeptical on this one than usual, but they'll still do enough to keep their guy in the white house press room.

[Sperk]

5. I'magine if they did this kind of reporting before the war.

n/t

[teryang]

6. Who are they going to rip off first central bankers or...?

...prospective retirees?

This is what the worthless pile of IOUs disinformation is all about:

<The year 2018 is when the system's trustees expect they will have to begin dipping into the Social Security trust fund to pay full benefits. If you had a trust fund to pay your bills when your income fell short, would you consider yourself insolvent?

In suggesting that 2018 is doomsyear, the president is reinforcing a false impression that the trust fund is a worthless pile of I.O.U.'s -as detractors of Social Security so often claim. The facts are different: since 1983, payroll taxes have exceeded benefits, with the excess tax revenue invested in interest-bearing Treasury securities. (An alternative would be to, say, put the money in a mattress.) That accumulating interest and the securities themselves make up the Social Security trust fund. If the trust fund's Treasury securities are worthless, someone better tell investors throughout the world, who currently hold $4.3 trillion in Treasury debt that carries the exact same government obligation to pay as the trust fund securities. The president is irresponsible to even imply that the United States might not honor its debt obligations.<snip>

The social security trust fund is a creditor of Uncle Sam, just like the central banks of Japan, China, and Europe. Who do you think this American government will rip off first? Bankers or its own citizens? Basically, they've borrowed the money from the taxpayer and spent it on general revenue items, like "defense" contracts and the war in Iraq. The argument goes we owe the money to our taxpayers, and what belongs to the taxpayers belongs to the government, therefore we don't have to pay it.

This is the logic that purportedly justifies transferring social security revenues to wall street in a futile effort to avoid the inevitable long term bear market caused by the unprecedented size and scope of America's credit crisis. The truth is that the government is facing insolvency but the social security trust fund isn't. Therefore, it is going to be liquidated to save the corrupt class of financial mismanaging politicians and CEOs from the consequences of their own outrageously irresponsible policies.