Comments on: Linkage

By: Kenneth

Kenneth — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 16:03:55 +0000

Not only is it insulting to hear them use democrat instead of Democratic, it is an intententional insult that angers me every time it is allowed to be used. I can’t believe that the “media” allows the bastardization of the word.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 18:03:04 +0000

Thorley, There is a difference between saying “there is no crisis” and saying that nothing should be done. There is a minor, long-term financing problem that should be addressed, and a vigorous debate about the best way to address it is all to the good. (I personally would favor removing the salary cap on the FICA tax, making it at least flat and not regressive, as it presently is.) If you take the time to examine the arguments of those in the “there is no crisis” camp, you’ll see that the argument is actually something more like “There is no crisis that necessitates fundamentally transforming Social Security in order to ‘save’ it.” The point being that Social Security can continue to exist indefinitely in its present form with some minor adjustments. This is miles away from the signals that are coming from the administration, which suggest that the ultimate objective is to transform SS into something other than what it is today. And to top it all off, the proposals that Bush seems to be concocting do nothing to address the financing problem; if anything, they exacerbate it.

By: Thorley Winston

Thorley Winston — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:21:39 +0000

Uncle Kvetch wrote:

Thorley, now that you’ve set us all straight, tell it to those wild-eyed lefties over at Time Magazine:

No need, they’ve ended up conceding the argument. From the Time magazine article you so thoughtfully provided:

As early as 2018, Bush said, "you're either going to have to raise the taxes of people or reduce the benefits." At another appearance intended to promote federal standards for testing high school students, Bush went off script to warn a group of teenagers, "The system will be bankrupt by the year 2040."

Bush is clearly stating then that unless we do something to change the system, we are looking at raising taxes [and/]or cutting benefits. Later on in the Time article they end up admitting:

That projected shortfall is not a new situation, or even the worst that Social Security has faced. The system came within days of insolvency in the early 1980s. And there's always the option of fixing it the way policymakers did then, by raising taxes or tinkering with benefits by, for example, raising the retirement age.

In other words, Bush is stating that he wants to change the Social Security system now because if we don’t do it before the baby boom generation begins to retire, there is a problem because we are looking at having to raise taxes and/or cut benefits in the future. The authors of the Time magazine article are stating there is no problem because we can always raise taxes and/or cut benefits in the future. Both agree to the likely outcome of doing nothing until the problem manifests itself, the difference is that “There is No Crisis” mongers have put themselves in the unenviable position of (a) trying to demagogue any sort of benefit “cuts” while (b) stating that they don’t think that there is anything wrong with raising taxes and cutting benefits particularly since (c) under their proposal of doing nothing until the problem manifests itself, we would wind up having do more of both.

By: Darren

Darren — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:24:33 +0000

Just curious: how does one initiate a discussion on this forum? I ask because there is an interesting article in the Asia Times about the recent Ukranian election. Also, I appreciate that this forum is censored (moderated) and hence this post will be removed to stop it detracting from the original post.

By: Jason McCullough

Jason McCullough — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 04:16:58 +0000

Has a nastier connotation; something about that “at” ending makes it sound bad, like racist/homophobic/etc.

By: horatio kornpone

horatio kornpone — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 02:41:17 +0000

Okay, Thorley, please explain something. What is it with bizarre expressions like “Democrat president” (or “Democrat party”) when the correct usage is “Democratic”? I hear this on the TV from right-wing nutjobs all the time, and it puzzles me. It makes anyone using it sound, well, semiliterate is being nice about it. Is it a code signal? A way for right-wing nutjobs to identify one another?

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 00:49:07 +0000

Thorley, now that you’ve set us all straight, tell it to those wild-eyed lefties over at Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1018030,00.html

By: Thorley Winston

Thorley Winston — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 22:18:30 +0000

Finally, the BlogPAC sets up its There Is No Crisis website (via Matt Yglesias). And a good thing too. A few weeks ago, Matt, Mark Schmitt and I had a good conversation about the need to build some sort of organization around the intellectual energy of the left blogosphere’s discussion of Social Security. This is a great start.

It doesn’t say much for the “intellectual energy” of the left of the blogosphere that this is the best they can come up with. The fact of the matter is you’ve already lost the argument that Social Security is a problem* and rather than try to participate in finding a workable solution, you’ve opted to become the play the part of ostriches denying that there is a problem. Enjoy your stay in the political wilderness, looks like you’re determined to be there a while. * In no small part due to the last Democrat President who was at least willing to admit there was a problem. http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=896