How many 'Democrats' in Congress will cave on Social Security?

[indianablue]

You know their will be plenty.

Evan Bayh one of my Senators will probably vote in favor of private accounts. The letters I have read from people who have wrote him he gives a non answer and sits on the fence. A fence sitter on this issue is a Bush supporter in my opinion.

If Democrats do not fight for Social Security to their maximum ability then they might as well disband and become Republican.

[brokensymmetry]

1. I hate to say this...but...

you're probably right.

Why do we keep giving them cover on every issue? I simply do not understand.

[indianablue]

6. Bush, Inc and it subsidiaries is all over the Media everyday.

It is all over the news but very few dissenting voices. This regime is going all over the country spouting these lies but little or no Democratic rebuttal.

It is giving the impression to me that they are to going to fight very hard or if they decide to it will be too late. The American public will be FOXED into thinking it is a good idea.

[papau]

21. 21 facts Centerists must forget because they prove Bush a liar

21 reasons/facts w/ links on how Bush;s Soc Sec Plan is based on lies

21 REASONS WHY PRESIDENT BUSH'S PLAN FOR SOCIAL SECURITY IS A BAD IDEA AND IN FACT IS MISLEADING :

(WAYS TO INNOCULATE YOURSELF AGAINST THE ONCOMING MEDIA BLITZ):

A story of how Social Security is not like a 'pig in a python' (but that's what Bush and company are telling you)We are being scammed to pay for the war on Iraq & associated deficits


You will notice that points have references; see those references at the end of these points. This is not intended to be an 'academic presentation'; thus, the URL's which you can check for yourself.



1. WHO WANTS THE CHANGE AND HOW WILL THEY 'FRAME' THE ISSUE? Wall Street wants privatization in order reap a windfall profit. Everyone else should be very suspicious. If the stock market goes down, your benefits go down.

This is what you will hear from Bush and company: "right now we are on an unsustainable course." They say, 'its unfixable as it is.' They will say: 'the problem will just grow and grow as more and more boomers come on board to obtain their Social Security benefits.' They will say: "the trust fund is empty.

Quite the contrary: Social Security funds are actually increasing and....and will actually expand for 10 more years because of the interest it receives from Treasury bonds. Could it be that Bush and company are worried because, "the government has already used the annual surpluses to finance its operating deficits." (Edmund L. Andrews; The New York Times ; Monday 10 January 2005)

That's right: Bush and company have used the surplus which usually accumulates along with the principal money in order to do something about the deficit that they have created over the past 4 years.



2. EVERYONE SEEMS TO BE SURPRISED: WAS THIS 'TWEAKING' OF SOCIAL SECURITY MEANT TO TAKE PLACE PERIODICALLY? : YES "What people forget is that the baby boom is not like a pig in the python," said Kent Smetters, an associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a former senior official in Mr. Bush's Treasury Department. "If you just balance it over the next 75 years, it just means we have to come back and do the same thing all over again about 15 years from now," Professor Smetters said. (Edmund L. Andrews; The New York Times ; Monday 10 January 2005)



3. WHY ARE WE BEING TOLD WE NEED TO 'DO SOMETHING ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY'? The nation's baby boomers start to retire at the end of this decade and relatedly the cost of retirement benefits is expected to rise much faster than payroll taxes from active workers. Obviously, payments become higher with each generation of retirees, even after accounting for inflation. By 2042, the trust fund will have used up its reserves and payroll taxes will cover only about 70 percent of the promised benefits.


4. WON'T WE HAVE TO PAY FOR CHANGING TO PRIVATE ACCOUNTS?? HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST US? : the Bush administration deems the current system, with its average monthly benefit of $955, as too generous (that's less than $12,000/ year). The Bush Administration wants to cut benefits by more than 40% to help pay the trillions of dollars that would be needed for the creation and maintenance of private accounts. http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=41481

This doesn't make sense given that now Social Security is the most efficient government system ever instigated, utilizing only 1% of the overall funds to manage the monthly Social Security payments for millions of people. More than 99 percent of Social Security's revenues go toward benefits, and less than 1 percent for overhead. The Social Security System is legally separate from the rest of the budget. Bush wants to discontinue that. This will make it difficult it not impossible to track in terms of is the Social Security money really being used for other purposes like making war on Iraq.

Where's all that money right now? "The Social Security trust fund has accumulated more than $1.5 trillion in reserves, held in Treasury bonds." (Edmund L. Andrews; The New York Times ; Monday 10 January 2005)



5. WHO IN BUSH'S ADMINISTRATION IS DRIVING THE MATTER? Karl Rove, Bush's right hand man: He is attempting to convince the public that Social Security is 'heading for an iceberg." )http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6791950 )


4. WHY WOULD KARL ROVE WANT TO PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY? Rove sees it as : “one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times,....“We need to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course,” the e-mail said. “That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the precondition to authentic reform.....government and toward giving greater power and responsibility to individuals,” said Wehner, the director of White House Strategic Initiatives. " Who is this Wehner? : Peter Wehner, the deputy to White House political director Karl Rove. Thus, Rove is attempting to continue the line of 'getting government out of your lives' which is a recipe to allow corporations unbridled power and individuals no retirement through Social Security. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/679195


5. WHAT STRATEGIES ARE BEING UTILIZED IN ORDER TO CONVINCE THE PUBLIC OF THE NEED FOR PRIVATIZATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY?: "The administration has suggested that it would be justified in borrowing some $2 trillion to establish private accounts because doing so would head off $10 trillion in future
Social Security liabilities. It's bad enough that the $10 trillion is a highly inflated figure, intended to overstate a problem that is reasonably estimated at $3.7 trillion or
even considerably less. Worse are the true dimensions of the administration's proposed ploy, which were made painfully clear in a memo that was leaked to the press last week. Written in early January by Peter Wehner.".....(Rove's right hand person):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/10mon1.html?ex=1106369074&ei=1&en=81cd3e12f07545a0

6. WHAT WOULD ACTUALLY TAKE PLACE RE: THIS PRIVATIZATION EFFORTS PER BUSH/ ROVE / THE REPUBLICANS? : "Revamping the system to allow investment accounts would not shore up the future finances and would make the financial picture worse. The administration is considering borrowing $1 trillion to $2 trillion to continue paying benefits to current retirees while tax revenue is diverted into personal accounts, called transition costs, Wehner's e mail said (per this article, this e mail was verified by the White House). Separately, to address the future financial shortfall, the administration is looking at plans to cut future promised benefits, by 46 percent in some cases, with investments expected to make up the difference." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/679195


7. WHO ELSE UNDERLINES THAT THIS IS WHAT WOULD ACTUALLY OCCUR? : " The real impact of President Bush's Social Security privatization scheme: massive cuts in promised benefits. The White House is expected to propose a new system of calculating Social Security benefits called "price indexing." The technical change would mean "cutting promised benefits by nearly a third in the coming decades" – with even deeper cuts in the future. For example, if the "price indexing" change is made, "a retiree in 2075 would receive 54 percent of the benefits now promised." David C. John, a Social Security expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation called the proposal "very much like sticking your hand in a wasp nest.": American Progress Action Fund" <[e-mail]


8. WHAT ARE SOME POINTS THAT YOU MIGHT EXPECT TO HEAR FROM BUSH AND THE REPUBLICANS? Talk about: PRICE INDEXING: The current method of calculating Social Security benefits is adjusted to reflect the standard of living when a person retires. That means when your benefits are calculated based on your average earnings, the salary you made 25 years ago is adjusted upwards to reflect the overall rise in wages (wage growth) since that time. The "price indexing" plan, expected to be proposed by Bush, would make that adjustment based on the rise of consumer prices – essentially the inflation rate. Since wages rise much faster than inflation, that means your newly adjusted salary will be lower. The end result is far lower benefits for every new generation of retirees. If this system had been in place since Social Security's inception, people today would be retiring with a benefit tied to the living standard of the 1930s, when 40 percent of households lacked indoor plumbing.: [e-mail]


9. WHAT ELSE CAN WE EXPECT TO COME OUT WAY RE: THIS PUSH FOR PRIVATIZATION? : You will hear talk about how it will be cheaper in the long-run to privatize at least part of Social Security. Specifically, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan claims, "The cost is $10 trillion if we do nothing. So what you're talking about would be a significant savings over those costs." There are two problems with this argument. First, the $10 trillion figure grossly distorts the modest long-range deficit of the Social Security program by projecting that shortfall over eternity. (There is no shortfall at all until 2052. Projections beyond 2052, obviously, are extremely unreliable.) Second, and more fundamentally, "borrowing $2 trillion to fund individual accounts does nothing to reduce Social Security's long-term deficit." Under the Bush plan the long-term deficit is reduced through deep benefit cuts.:
mailto: [e-mail]

10. WHAT ARE SOME OTHER MATTERS ASSOCIATED WITH RETIREMENT SAVINGS THAT WILL BE BOUGHT UP? The Thrift Savings Plan: what is it land what might be the downsides of such a model, which could be part of the Rovian onslaught?
the Thrift Savings Plan could serve as a possible model for personal investment accounts in Social Security.
Numerous readers said the two programs are unrelated and that the TSP, which relies on federal payroll systems for its basic operation, cannot be replicated on a scale as large as Social Security. Others said a column about the plan failed to stress that the TSP is a voluntary savings program that supplements Social Security, a tax-based program. Cavanaugh's paper (The paper, "Feasibility of Social Security Individual Accounts," was published by the AARP Public Policy Institute. AARP is opposing Bush's plan), for example, says that personal accounts in Social Security will cost more to manage than those in the TSP, in part because the TSP can rely on hundreds of federal agencies to administer payroll deductions and provide retirement planning and other services.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61607-2005Jan9.html?referrer=email

11. SO THE THRIFT SAVINGS PLAN APPEARS TO WORK FOR LARGER PERSONAL INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS, YES? The paper also points out that TSP operates on a progressive fee system (usually 60 cents per $1,000 account balance) so that holders of the higher account balances absorb part of the cost of maintaining smaller accounts. Such a fee system would not work in Social Security because too many accounts would be small, the paper contends. Social Security relies on the government to absorb inflation and market risks, while the TSP shifts those risks to individual investors, Cavanaugh writes. "Attempts to combine these two fundamentally different programs are like mating a bear with a bee -- somebody is going to get hurt," he concludes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61607-20 ...


12. WHY DOES WALL STREET WANT THE CHANGE? In the background, beyond private accounts, are various proposals to cut guaranteed Social Security
benefits in the future.


13. BUT WE WILL NEVER HAVE ANOTHER DEPRESSION AS IN 1929: wrong: In 1973-74, the stock
market lost 48 percent of its value. The stock market is a very dangerous place to put money



14. WHO DOES NOT WANT THE CHANGE? (1) AARP, the nation's largest seniors organization, is coming out
strongly against President Bush's plan to allow private individual accounts
within Social Security. (2) On January 10, 2005, a NY Times Opinion piece stated this: "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."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/10mon1.html?ex=1106369074&ei=1&en=81cd3e12f07545a0

15. HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST TO PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY? transitioning to private accounts could cost $2 trillion. See above information also.


16. TO REVIEW, WHERE WOULD THAT MONEY COME FROM? our taxes will have to be increased to make Bush's proposed plan work.


17. THEY TELL US THAT SOCIAL SECURITY IS BROKE OR GOING BROKE?: With all the clamoring about Social Security, a simple fact has been obscured: the Social Security budget is currently running a surplus; [e-mail]


18. OTHER COUNTRIES MUST HAVE SOCIAL SECURITY AND MAYBE THOSE ARE BETTER? wrong: Chile's system, management fees are around 20 times as high. A privatized system will take money from your Social Security check.


19. SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED THAT YOU WILL NOT HAVE SOCIAL SECURITY? Nothing is going to change, in terms of benefits, for people near your retirement age.


20. WHO TAXED SOCIAL SECURITY TO BEGIN WITH? Ronald Reagan, a Republican, began the taxation on Social Security in 1983.


21. IF WE ARE GOING TO 'FIX IT' HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT TO DO AS RELATED TO WHAT HAS BEEN DONE IN THE PAST TO 'FIX' IT? "If you compare its position now with its position at the time of the last reforms in 1977 and 1983, it's clearly better," Professor Diamond said. "Even then, it was readily fixed without radical reforms, and it's obvious that can be done again." (a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-author of the book "Saving Social Security.")





There is no Social Security crisis, just as there were no weapons of mass destruction. Social Security has provided a lifeline to millions of Americans with
millions of checks, and in more than 60 years has never missed a payment—and this track record can continue. Social Security is basically a sound system
that can meet 100 percent of its obligations for the next 39 years, and with responsible changes it can continue to do so indefinitely.

"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."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/10mon1.html?ex=1106369074&ei=1&en=81cd3e12f07545a0

And don't forget: It remains a fact that 30% of the votes in this national election were cast, and 80% of the votes were compiled, by three private companies, owned and controlled by conservative Republicans.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/01/12_give.html



REFERENCES:




Edmund L. Andrews; The New York Times ; Monday 10 January 2005:

HTtp://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=41481

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6791950 )


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/10mon1.html?ex=1106369074&ei=1&en=81cd3e12f07545a0


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61607-2005Jan9.html?referrer=email

[e-mail]

[NVMojo]

2. I don't doubt some form of extortion will be involved.

[mopinko]

3. not the women members

this is from jan schakowskym whom i am so incredibly proud to say is my congressman.

WOMEN WOULD BE DISPROPORTIONATELY HURT BY PRIVATIZING SOCIAL SECURITY

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and 35 women Members of Congress sent a letter to President Bush today to express their concern that women would be disproportionately hurt by privatizing Social Security. The text of the letter follows.

January 12, 2005

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing to express our deep concern that the views of millions of American women were not adequately represented at your event to promote Social Security privatization yesterday. Any privatization proposal will have real consequences for real people, particularly women, who will be disproportionately hurt by the kinds of drastic changes privatization would entail. We, as women Members of Congress, will fight to ensure that the economic security of women is not sacrificed in a rush to restructure the Social Security system.

As you know, women comprise the majority of Social Security beneficiaries, representing almost 60 percent of all Social Security recipients age 65 and over. Women are also less likely than men to have pensions or retirement savings to supplement their Social Security checks.

Without Social Security, 52 percent of white women, 65 percent of African American women, and 61 percent of Hispanic women over the age of 65 would live in poverty.

Privatization would significantly reduce a number of current-law protections that help women liveout their retirement years in dignity.

First, Social Security helps level the playing field for women by using a progressive benefit formula that provides a greater benefit to those with lower earnings, as is the case for women who on average earn less than their male counterparts and who also tend to have fewer years in the workforce. Privatization would replace this progressive benefit structure with private accounts based only on a worker's contributions to the account.

Second, recent press reports suggest that your Administration favors a privatization plan that includes "price indexing," which would reduce Social Security's progressive benefits by up to 46 percent for future retirees. These benefit cuts are the equivalent of asking today's seniors to live at a 1940s standard of living.

Third, Social Security benefits are not eroded by inflation, because Social Security has an automatic cost-of-living adjustment. In contrast, there would be no guarantee that private accounts would allow seniors to keep up with the cost of living in retirement. Inflation protection is particularly important for women, who generally live longer than men.

Fourth, Social Security provides benefits that cannot be outlived, while retirees would have to carefully manage their withdrawals from private accounts and could easily outlive their balances. This is an especially significant risk for women because of their longer life expectancy. A woman's monthly income would also be lower than a man's with the same account balance, because the woman would have to make a finite amount of funds stretch over more years of retirement.

Fifth, Social Security provides automatic protection for widows, without any reduction in the level of her husband's own benefit. That is, Social Security pays a benefit to a widow equal to 100 percent of the husband's benefit prior to his death. This benefit does not require a reduction in the husband's benefit, as is the case in private pensions. This protection could not be duplicated with private accounts, as the account would be the only source of income for the couple while both were alive and then for the widow, after the husband's death, necessitating a reduction in income for the couple in order to assure income for the surviving spouse.

Finally, Social Security assures economic security for women who care for children or dependent family members, by providing benefits to spouses and survivors. With an individual account, a worker would have to sacrifice part of her own benefit in order to provide income to her dependents. Social Security, as family insurance, pays benefits to all of a worker's dependents without reducing the worker's own benefit.

We welcome efforts to strengthen and improve Social Security, but we believe privatization would do neither. Privatization would eliminate key protections vital to women under the current Social Security structure, and it would substantially weaken the financial status of the Social Security Trust Fund by draining trillions from it to fund the private accounts.

Private accounts on their own do nothing to improve the financial health of Social Security. They are not a solution to Social Security's long-range financial imbalance. Indeed, even without any changes, Social Security will be able to pay full benefits for almost fifty years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and even after that, the system will be able to pay approximately 80% of benefits.

We have time to develop a bipartisan consensus on the best kinds of improvements to Social Security that would strengthen, not dismantle, this vital and effective system of assuring economic security. Thank you for your attention to our concerns. We look forward to engaging in an ongoing dialogue.

Sincerely,

NANCY PELOSI House Democratic Leader

HILDA L. SOLIS Member of Congress

LOUISE SLAUGHTER Member of Congress

LOIS CAPPS Member of Congress

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE Member of Congress

GRACE NAPOLITANO Member of Congress

TAMMY BALDWIN Member of Congress

CAROLYN MALONEY Member of Congress

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD Member of Congress

LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD Member of Congress

LYNN WOOLSEY Member of Congress

JAN SCHAKOWSKY Member of Congress

BETTY MCCOLLUM Member of Congress

JULIA CARSON Member of Congress

ROSA DELAURO Member of Congress

NITA M. LOWEY Member of Congress

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY Member of Congress

DIANE WATSON Member of Congress

MAXINE WATERS Member of Congress

MARCY KAPTUR Member of Congress

BARBARA LEE Member of Congress

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON Member of Congress

ZOE LOFGREN Member of Congress

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON Member of Congress

CAROLYN CHEEKS KILPATRICK Member of Congress

CORRINE BROWN Member of Congress

STEPHANIE HERSETH Member of Congress

DARLENE HOOLEY Member of Congress

MADELEINE BORDALLO Member of Congress

SHELLEY BERKLEY Member of Congress

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ Member of Congress

STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES Member of Congress

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN Member of Congress

ANNA ESHOO Member of Congress

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ Member of Congress

LINDA SANCHEZ Member of Congress

[NoFederales]

8. APPLAUSE!

I feel much better. And we can keep pressuring the rest.

The message about how killing/hamstringing SS and what it will do to families and individuals should be relentlessly kept in the press. Many folks do not realize the damage * seeks to inflict upon them and they need to hear alternative viewpoints.

NoFederales

[HereSince1628]

4. Talkingpointsmemo.com is more or less keeping a list

[Rose Siding]

15. Everyone who cares about this issue should be reading TPM

The dems are talking and he's linking to local sheets. Lots of valuable information about the *broad* temperature of resistance withing the party.

[cyclezealot]

5. Bayh is an exception to this rule.

That Democrats have to be bribed to do what Repugs. do naturally. .Bayh is one of a handful of Democrats, who betray that phrase.. Bayh, Bush , Nader...I would vote for Nader...Sorry.
As to numbers of Democrats who will betray working people to vote for private accounts...I would say fewer Democrats will betray working people than Repugs. who will vote with working people.

[papau]

7. I agree - at least 40 GOP in the house are deficit hawks that will not buy

the Bush lies that a future debt equals a current debt

[cyclezealot]

23. But then Tom Delay reminds us, Repugs do take bribes.

Should 40 repugs not turn on the working class, then the Bush lies will die on the vine? How can anyone take Bush seriously after the Iraq WMD's?? As Gore Vidal calls us, The United States of Amnesia. Well, he probably would give credit to our condition, to the media, not the people..

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Blanche Lincoln says no way

at least that is the last I've heard. She's come up a notch in my esteem because of her skepticism of Bush's claims.

[BansheeDem]

10. I wrote some of this as a reply in another thread ...

As Democrats, we can have a real impact on the future of Social Security if we play it smart; and at the same time take back an issue that was ours to begin with. FDR would have been dead set against the indexing of benefits, and we should as well. But I think it could be argued that he might have been in favor of some partial privatization of the plan today. I too would argue that partial privatization is not necessarily a bad thing as long as the fund is tied to indexed equities (like the fortune 500) and managed like the THRIFT savings plans used by government employees. They can invest up to about 15 percent of their gross pay as a means to supplement their retirement. That plan has been in effect for nearly 20 years and has not lost a penny. The key is that the management of the fund is blind in that it is tied to a wide range of investments that hedge against each other and deliver albeit, a lower - but steady return; and much higher overall than Social Security.


FDR's Message to Congress on Social Security
January 17, 1935

"In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, noncontributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."

[Dr Fate]

11. Probably a majority. Then the Jonestown wing will make the usual excuses.

"But we have to think of those swing voters-they are more important than the hard-workng DEM base."

"People will somehow respect us if we abandon our convictions, move to the center and play nice instead of standing up for our beliefs."

"If we dont cave, the media will call us Micheal Moore conspiracy nuts- oh, the horror!!!"

"We are just playing rope-a-dope, giving them enough rope to hang themsleves"

"The media tricked us into kissing Bush's ass."

etc, etc.

[Jim Sagle]

12. And don't forget the best line of all: "We're just playing chess."

[Dr Fate]

13. My favorite: They will send them ANTHRAX if they challenge Bush!!!

Best to wait all this out I 'spose!!!

Oh the horror- I'm pacing & I'm pissing in my overalls- what to do, what to do!

[paulk]

14. I don't know that there will be plenty

I would prefer to be optimistic, rather than trash the Democrats preemptively like you are.

In fact, I really question your motives in starting this thread.

[Dr Fate]

16. All motives aside, facts is facts.

"If Democrats do not fight for Social Security to their maximum ability then they might as well disband and become Republican."

I agree w/ that statement- and while I see your point, and I suppose we could all be less cynical-perhaps we need to stop making excuses and start giving some tough-love to the DEMS.

I hope I'm wrong- I hope the DEMS can be unified and fight for their base like the Repubs do.

[paulk]

17. facts aren't facts until they're facts

the debate hasn't happened yet - there is no solid proposal from the Bush administration yet.

I suspect the Democrats will be a lot more united on this than people suspect - Social Security has always been a bread and butter issue for them and I seriously doubt they will roll over on this one.

The OP's time would be better spent writing his/her Senators and Representatives (of both parties) explaining why Bush's "reform" is a bad idea and urging them to vote against it, than writing on an anonymous internet message board that the Democrats are sure to fold on this.

[Dr Fate]

18. That is true...

...but I can see why so many in the base are reluctant to lend the benifit of the doubt.

Cant wait to be wrong on this one.

[AmandaRuth]

19. imho - Dems will vote for if they agree with the ideology and

ARE NOT up for re-election 2006.

Repubs will gather in the backroom and figure out how much they need to pass, if they can pass easily, those that are up for re-election will be excused. Those that face any type of threat from a Dem in 2006 will be excused.

If the vote is close, those that are up for re-election in 2006 will be bullied, threatened, and basically blackmailed by their own party into passing this.

Sorry for the negativity.

[Gloria]

20. This is the time for Democrats to state bluntly that BUSH IS A LIAR...

if they don't do it now, you can kiss it all goodbye. Forever.

They need an organized CAMPAIGN against Bush, in general. On everything. THey should be running the 2006 midterm election NOW.

But they won't. They suck.

[KnowerOfLogic]

22. At least half, probably more. nt

[leftofthedial]

24. all but one or two

probably


they ALL work for corporations, not the people.