Policing Armey

Posted by Crust
June 6, 2007

Of course we already have a "voluntary add-on program", actually more than one, in the form of 401K's and IRA's. These are subsidized by the government in the form of preferential tax treatment. Joe, what do you think is insufficient about the current system that we need a fourth layer of government retirement programs?

Posted by arch stanton
June 6, 2007

Joke, how much longer before Bill Frist, Ralph Reed and Tom Delay are blogging here?

Posted by Terrapin
June 6, 2007

Good post Joe.

At the very least, Dick Armey seems to be aware that you exist.

But I did want to address an issue that you brought up in one of your earlier posts. You used the metaphor of 'arguing between the 40 yard lines' (or something like that) and I disagreed with you immediately. You may reside within the 40 yard line but the current generation of conservatives/Republicans does not. They occupy a far more radical position on the football field and they have been playing there for the past 25-30 years.

Dick Armey himself admitted to this in his reply to you. The GOP has made enormous progress by telling you 'DLC centrists' that you are so far to the left that you have come to believe it and in response you take a couple steps to the right. We are not having a debate as to the degree of government regulation that should be applied to a problem - we are having a debate as to whether the government has the right to regulate industry.

If you think that there are any 'moderate' Republicans left then you should point them out because I have not seen a single one take a stand against this radical conservatism. And I do not mean speaking out - I mean voting when it counts.

Posted by John
June 6, 2007

In response to your semi-endorsement of the Chilean scheme, I'm going to quote from http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=503: (World Bank report cited is here: http://wbln1018.worldbank.org/LAC/LAC.nsf/ECADocbyUnid/146EBBA3371508E785256CBB005C29B4?Opendocument)

"Advocates of privatization often cite other countries such as Chile and the United Kingdom, where the governments pushed workers into personal investment accounts to reduce the long-term obligations of their Social Security systems, as models for the United States to emulate. But the sobering experiences in those countries actually provide strong arguments against privatization.

A report this year from the World Bank, once an enthusiastic privatization proponent, expressed disappointment that in Chile, and in most other Latin American countries that followed in its footsteps, "more than half of all workers [are excluded] from even a semblance of a safety net during their old age."

Other cautionary points made in the World Bank report and other studies about the experience in Chile:

- Investment accounts of retirees are much smaller than originally predicted-so low that 41 percent of those eligible to collect pensions continue to work.
- Voracious commissions and other administrative costs have swallowed up large shares of those accounts. The brokerage firm CB Capitales calculated (see english language discussion by Stephen Kay here) that when commission charges are taken into consideration in Chile, the total average return on worker contributions between 1982 and 1999 was 5.1 percent-not 11 percent as calculated by the superintendent of pension funds. That report found that the average worker would have done better simply by placing their pension fund contributions in a passbook savings account.
- The transition costs of shifting to a privatized system in Chile averaged 6.1 percent of GDP in the 1980s, 4.8 percent in the 1990s, and are expected to average 4.3 percent from 1999 to 2037. Those costs are far higher than originally projected, in part because the government is obligated to provide subsidies for workers failing to accumulate enough money in their accounts to earn a minimum pension."

Posted by Franco
June 6, 2007

Imagine this scenario:

Suppose I have a brand new baby and I decide I'm going to start saving now for his college education. So I decide I'm going to put $100 in a shoe box every week. Then, when he's 18, I'll have $93,600 saved. The first week, true to my vow, I put $100 in the shoe box. But I'm running a little short that week, so I take out the $100 and put in an IOU for $100. The next week I put in another $100, but I'm short again, so I take out the $100 and put in another IOU. This continues week after week until the kid turns 18 and I have a box full of IOU's. Theoretically, they're assets. In practice, they're worthless because they're MY IOU's.

This is exactly the situation we have with the Social Security trust fund. The dirty secret is: there ISN'T any trust fund. It's a fiction. It's just a lot of government bonds (IOU's). But they're OUR IOU's. They'll be paid for by the same taxpayers who would be be paying the bill if the trust fund didn't exist.

The trust fund was invented in 1981 to partially cover up the huge deficits that were created by Reagan's tax cuts. But it makes no sense - the government can't loan itself money. Social Security should be put back on a pay as you go basis and payroll taxes scaled back proportionately.

Posted by John
June 6, 2007

Sorry about the last comment: it seems that the auto-formatter for the commenting system misread my URL (and at least on Safari, blew away the margins...)

Here's the link to the article:

http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=503

Posted by superfly
June 6, 2007

Ditto on what Crust said, come on Joe, don't play this game.

As to your "Wyden Mandates" infatuation, when will you get it into your head that market forces don't work for health care?!!!! Getting sick is not a "choice" by a rational actor. Anything short of taking the underwriting aspect away from the insurance companies is a waste of time.

Finally, you keep saying that those with insurance pay for those without, so should I just send those bills I get from my doctor directly to you then, or your insurance company? And all those people who file for bancruptcy because of their medical bills, where should they send them?

Insurance companies do everything they can to not pay the bills of their "customers," they sure as hell aren't paying for those who aren't. And yes, I know it's an indirect cost, but my point is, you're being disingenious in stating it as if not having insurance is some sort of free ride.

Posted by linda
June 6, 2007

Joe, you're getting closer delving into inefficencies. Your Emma snark was way cool. :)

When can we get to the foxes running the henhouses that is super costly and inequitable?

Those that argue that our system promotes research should look to other nations' break throughs that are foreign and [tongue in cheek] socialist like face/heart transplants, HIV/AIDS, SIDS, yada.

What kind of savings would an 'Apollo Project' stem cell research generate? The cost of Alzheimers and other neuro deseases comes to mind.

Posted by xander
June 6, 2007

re:Franco
you are right that this is how the current system works. What would be better is if we had the foresight to actually invest the money, instead of having it just be a tax-and-spend program. Of course that will require cuts in government programs (see: Medicare, Dept.of Education, Dept. of Defense).

Posted by Crust
June 6, 2007

Great question re PAYGO at the end. I don't see how Armey can reconcile his stated principles with his actions as House Majority Leader, especially under Bush.

Brad Delong hs been asking much the same:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/06/questions_for_d.html

Posted by John
June 6, 2007

And now for my meta-critique of the minute:

Joe, here's a problem. Mr. Armey posts talking points which amount to nothing more than bare assertions of vague problems. "Hillary isn't a moderate." "Social Security is a problem." "Universal health care is inefficient socialism." "Freedom is good."

Since he hasn't done anything more than wave his hands around, you have no way to provide any more substantive response to him than simple denial. But you, being the policy wonk that you are, extrapolate and respond with specific proposals.

Now he can will come back and attack your proposals, which is pretty easy to do. (Thumbnail sketches of complex issues always leave rhetorical holes.) Suddenly, the discussion is all about how bad your ideas are, leaving the ultimate (rhetorical, not logical) conclusion of the debate to be: Armey is right, and you are wrong.

It's a fairly juvenile debating trick. It's designed to leave you looking like you don't know what you're talking about, while he can look like a weighty intellectual, without ever having to defend his basic assumptions.

Don't fall for it. Make him defend his own ideas, first.

Posted by Terrapin
June 6, 2007

Franco - You wrote: "It's just a lot of government bonds (IOU's). But they're OUR IOU's. They'll be paid for by the same taxpayers who would be be paying the bill if the trust fund didn't exist."

You are right, those IOUs are backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States of America. They are United States Treasuries - the safest investment vehicle on the planet. The only way that they can default is if the entire nation - the entire world economy - were to be declared bankrupt. No nation is going to do that.

And if conservatives were so afraid of debt then they wouldn't have gotten us into the monetary sinkhole of Iraq.

Joe is on the right track here. We need tweaks to the retirement age, elimination of the payroll tax limit, replacement of the estate tax, etc. The fact remains that Clinton raised taxes on the super-rich and still grew the economy. And it can all be done from within the 40 yard lines - if only the conservatives would join us there.

Posted by Franco
June 6, 2007

No, xander. You missed the last paragraph. It's not tax and spend - it's a tax shift. The trust fund was a Bob Dole invention, meant to cover up the huge hole blown in the budget by Reagan's tax cuts. It's a shift in the tax burden from higher income taxpayers (most of Reagan's tax cut was a reduction in the top rate) onto middle income taxpayers. The proper correction should be tax-neutral: reduce the payroll tax and increase the top tax rates.

Posted by p_lukasiak
June 6, 2007

I still have to go with a single payer system (I mean, lets face it, it can't possibly be more inefficient, bureaucratic, and annoying than HMOs/managed care plans) for health care....

and don't touch social security. period. The problem isn't social security, the problem is that unless something is done there will be insufficient general revenues to pay off the notes held by social security. We need to increase general revenues (i.e. raise taxes) in order to generate a surplus to pay off existing non-social security debt....and transfer that surplus to paying off the social security trust fund as it becomes needed.

If we do that, by the time the trust fund does run out of money, we will be so used to budget surpluses that are used to redeem the debt held by social security that all we'll need to do is switch to supplementing social security from general revenue.

Its quite simple, really. Fiscal responsibility today is the way to ensure the future -- and no amount of "minor fixes" in benefit levels or retirement ages is going to address the simple fact that the percentage of GDP spent on Social Security benefits is going to rise inexorably. Currently, between now and 2030, its going to rise from 4.2% to 6.2%.... we can fiddle all we want to with benefits and retirement age, and maybe slow that down a tad, but we can't stop this increase from happening without destroying social security as we know it.

So, the choices are "destroy social security" or "sane fiscal policy, including higher taxes".

Posted by Crust
June 6, 2007

"[A] It can be solved fairly easily: by raising the retirement age progressively. That is, according to income: the more money you have, the older you are before social security payments kick in...Bill Gates should be, like, 80. You and me, Congressman, maybe 75 or so.
[B] Or we can eliminate the income cap on social security payroll taxes."

I vote for option B. Why introduce the extra complexity of means testing retirees?

Posted by Franco
June 6, 2007

Terrapin, The point isn't whether the bonds will get paid. Of course they will. The point is, who pays to redeem them? The answer is, the taxpayers. And if we didn't have them, who would pay the costs of Social Security benefits once the system goes into deficit? The very same taxpayers. Having the "trust fund" doesn't accomplish a damn thing. We pay the same either way, because the trust fund is a fiction. We're holding our own IOU's.

All the trust fund really does is to provide a vehicle to push more of the overall tax burden onto middle class taxpayers.

Posted by p_lukasiak
June 6, 2007

"You are right, those IOUs are backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States of America. They are United States Treasuries - the safest investment vehicle on the planet. The only way that they can default is if the entire nation - the entire world economy - were to be declared bankrupt. No nation is going to do that."

Quite right, Terrapin. Wingnuts don't realize that this is debt owed by the United States --- the exact same kind of debt we owe to China, and Saudi Arabia, and Japan and all the other countries that have been financing the deficits created by Bush's fat cat tax cuts -- and if that debt wasn't held by Social Security, it would be held by other lenders --- and we'd still have to pay it off.

Posted by p_lukasiak
June 6, 2007

"Terrapin, The point isn't whether the bonds will get paid. Of course they will. The point is, who pays to redeem them? The answer is, the taxpayers."

no franco...the point is that the debt would exist, and have to be paid off by taxpayers, regardless of whether it was held by the Social Security Trust, or China. If those obligations weren't held by the Trust fund, someone else would be holding them -- and they'd still have to be honored.

Posted by Franco
June 6, 2007

"the point is that the debt would exist, and have to be paid off by taxpayers, regardless of whether it was held by the Social Security Trust, or China. If those obligations weren't held by the Trust fund, someone else would be holding them -- and they'd still have to be honored."

Nice sentiment, but unfortunately, that's not the way things have worked out. In practice, the increase in payroll taxes haven't reduced the overall debt one cent. All it's done is allow other tax reductions, mostly to higher income taxpayers, which was its true purpose back in 1981. It's a back door way to shift the tax burden from wealthier taxpayers to the middle class.

Posted by p_lukasiak
June 6, 2007

"Nice sentiment, but unfortunately, that's not the way things have worked out. In practice, the increase in payroll taxes haven't reduced the overall debt one cent. "

are you really this dense?

Increases in payroll taxes (assuming you mean SS taxes) have no impact on the size of the debt BY DESIGN. Where it does have an impact is to whom the money is owed. Without increased payroll taxes, we'd simply owe more money to places like China.

And increases in payroll taxes didn't allow decreases in other taxes. Those two things are completely unrelated, because social security taxes are NOT part of general revenue, but fat cat tax cuts came OUT OF General revenue.

Posted by LnGrrrR
June 6, 2007

Joe,

By jove, some days I really think you are getting the hang of being a blogger! Good post, and it's nice to see that you're responding to the blog readership.

It's much more fun to see you against the right wing than the left. :)

Posted by Unholy Moses
June 6, 2007

Maybe you could also call out Dick for this piece of crap line:

"It is not by accident that America has a similar amount of refining capacity as we did in the 1970s and no new nuclear generation in more than a generation."

Bullshit. Refining capacity was purposefully reduced during the 80s to increase prices. Raw Story link:
http://tinyurl.com/dv2ow

Also, if he's so worried about Social Security, why doesn't he support applying SocSec taxes to ALL income, instead of just those who make less than $90K?

That would add a huge influx of money into the system, restore fairness to it, and ensure rich people don't get out of paying their fair share.

Of course, Dick won't suggest that because, like so many others on the political right, he'd rather pander to the rich using lies and distortions rather than actually solve any problems for the majority of Americans.

Posted by Franco
June 6, 2007

"And increases in payroll taxes didn't allow decreases in other taxes."

So it's merely coincidence that the Trust fund scheme was hatched at the same time as Reagan's tax cuts? You can't be that naive. Calling it general revenue or trust fund is a shell game. The division is purely fictional.

Without the increase in payroll taxes we would not owe more money to China. We'd simply have had a smaller reduction in tax rates. And the fix is precisely the reverse: reduce payroll taxes to pay as you go levels and increase the top tax rates an equivalent amount. No net increase in the amount we owe China, but at least we stop screwing over working taxpayers (or at least one way fewer).

Posted by Joe Klein's Murdered Conscience
June 6, 2007

Sigh. Every time I try to get out...

What Joe doesn't tell you, or likely doesn't know, is that those "non-risky" assets were government debts, and they were terribly risky - or at least priced as terribly risky - providing incredibly high yields back when interest rates skyrocketed in Chile.

Whatever early "success" the Chilean privatization system had, it has long since faded as yields on "non-risky" investments declined, and the political connected firms which administer the things increased the degree to which they robbed the funds blind.

Posted by amberglow
June 6, 2007

"Remember, we have a system of universal health insurance right now. It's a system where those of us have insurance pay, through higher premiums, the medical bills for those who don't have any. That's socialism, I say! Just kidding, but it is pretty damn inefficient."

This is not true. Your higher premiums to do not at all go toward covering anyone else not in your pool--they go directly to the profit sheet for the HMOs. What you pay a HMO does not at all go for anyone without insurance. No private HMO or Insurer covers poor people for free or even for a reduced cost. They're not non-profits, nor are they public entities, nor are there any laws mandating any sort of coverage for anyone except government employees and Medicare/Medicaid.

Posted by amberglow
June 6, 2007

Our taxes go to public hospitals and clinics--not your premiums or your employer's premiums. None of that premium money goes to anyone without coverage.

It's astonishing how ignorant you are about this.

Posted by amberglow
June 6, 2007

As for Social Security if you raise the SS taxes 1 percent on all earning more than $100,000/yr, you fund the program for another 100 years at least. Right now, it's already fully funded thru 2050 or something like that. You have to up the tax now, because the boomers who will be eating it up are still working now.

Posted by mm
June 6, 2007

a blast from the past.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1025086,00.html

“The Incredible Shrinking Democrats.”

The Democrats are having trouble with graciousness these days.

Minutes after the President finished his speech, Ron Reagan—a de facto Dem since he spoke at the party's convention—was opining on MSNBC that the al-Souhail- Norwood hug was exploitative and staged. Others soon expressed similarly mingy thoughts. This was a symptom of a larger disease: most Democrats seemed as reluctant as Kerry to express the slightest hint of optimism about the elections. Congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi diminished themselves by staging an unnecessary pre-buttal and a misleading rebuttal to the President's speech.

Reid's claim that George W. Bush would reduce Social Security benefits 40% was hogwash. The President has merely stated the obvious, that reductions will be necessary. Reid also made the absurd comparison between Bush's very conservative investment-account proposal and Las Vegas gaming tables. Finally, there was the boorish and possibly unprecedented hooting of the President by Democrats during the speech.

"No! No! No!" they shouted, inaccurately, when Bush asserted that the Social Security trust fund would, in a decade or so, start paying out more money than it takes in. If nothing is done, it surely will.

Bush's private investment accounts, combined with a reduction in benefits or higher taxes, is one way for baby boomers to lighten the burden of our retirement upon our children. There are other ways, but none without pain. A far more profitable—and absolutely necessary—reform would be a market-oriented overhaul of Medicare, but Dems just say no to that too.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh021005.shtml

Amazing, isn’t it? In fact, Reid said that Bush would replace the current “guaranteed benefit” with a “guaranteed benefit cut of up to 40 percent.” And of course, Reid is perfectly right about that, even if Bush keeps hiding the ball, and even if millionaire pundits like Klein are there to help Dear Leader do it. But then, try to believe what Klein said next—and try to believe that Time printed it:

KLEIN (continuing directly): Finally, there was the boorish and possibly unprecedented hooting of the President by Democrats during the speech.
"No! No! No!" they shouted, inaccurately, when Bush asserted that the Social Security trust fund would, in a decade or so, start paying out more money than it takes in. If nothing is done, it surely will.

Except no, the “hooting” wasn’t unprecedented, and no, the shouting didn’t occur when Bush made the accurate statement Klein cites. The shouts of “No” quite clearly occurred when Bush made a wildly misleading mis-statement: “By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt” (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/4/05). How easy is to disinform voters? With fallen life-forms like Klein on call, it’s amazingly easy to do so. What’s the state of our current discourse? It isn’t just that mainstream journalists fail to challenge Bush’s misstatements. No, it’s now much worse than that—when Bush deliberately misleads the public, men like Klein simply pretend that he said something else! How easy is it to disinform voters? Many voters will read Klein this week, and for their trouble, he’ll lie in their face about what his Dear Leader said.

Posted by p_lukasiak
June 6, 2007

"Our taxes go to public hospitals and clinics--not your premiums or your employer's premiums. None of that premium money goes to anyone without coverage."

Amberglow, Joe is talking about the direct impact of treating the uninsured on higher hospital costs, costs that are passed along to the insurance companies...and therefore the consumers.

As I'm sure you're aware, all hospital emergency rooms are REQUIRED to treat everyone who walks in the door regardless of their ability to pay. In cases where they are too sick to be transferred to a "publicly funded" hospital (or when there is no space available there) they wind up getting admitted. Basically, they wind up giving out "free" care....but nothing is free, it gets passed on down the line...

Now shoot me before I defend Joe again.. :)

Posted by JoshA
June 6, 2007

Nice post. Armey's formulation also means that Gov. Schwarzenegger is a socialist in addition to Romney.

The Social Security point is also a good one. Its important to remember that in 2043 or whenever the system is "in crisis", it still would be in better condition than the rest of the government, with its revenue covering about 85% of its costs. For the federal government as a whole, revenue is only about 75% of its costs.

Posted by ama
June 6, 2007

Now shoot me before I defend Joe again.. :)

KAPOW!

Posted by Beth in VA
June 6, 2007

Alright Joe--your post is basic common sense among most of the educated electorate, and nearly all of the Democratic party.

I don't get, just don't get, why people would trust the Enron types with the livelihood and dignity of our senior citizens.

Posted by Anonymous
June 6, 2007

Becase, Beth, as in the case of Dick Armey, they are PAID BY CORPORATE CLIENTS to get that view out in the media. They are able to do so WITH THE COOPERATION OF CORRUPT MEDIA OUTFITS LIKE TIME WARNER who publish such abject nonsense with NO DISCLOSURE OF THE CLEAR JOURNALISTIC CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

Posted by AlphaLiberal
June 7, 2007

Good post, Joe.

I do wish we could have some discussion on the massive bureaucracy under the current private sector insurance system as opposed to Medicare.

Posted by Wil Burns
June 7, 2007

THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2007

KLEIN’S NEW MORNING: We think Joe Klein has a case to make about his savaging on the web. Indeed, we think we web-cats serve ourselves poorly when we drift toward the demon-tale-driven mistakes we have long criticized in others. (Though this is part of human nature, in which we’re all involved.) But we were quite surprised by this second Swampland post, in which Klein responded to Dick Armey on the question of Social Security. It seemed to us that Klein has changed his views from a few years ago:

KLEIN (6/6/07): [L]et me take on Armey with regard to entitlements. First, Social Security. I actually went down to Chile ten years ago and looked at that country's privatized plan. It was excellent—but the money was there to fund private accounts for younger workers because the government had had a windfall, privatizing the industries than had been socialized under Allende. Also, the plan was regulated in a way that Dick Armey would never allow...

As for Social Security here, partial privatization is a sideshow, unaffordable because we have such enormous outstanding obligations to my sad, self-indulgent, obnoxious baby boom generation. A voluntary add-on program, suggested by Gene Sperling, with government matching funds according to income, is a good idea. But, to my mind, the Social Security "crisis" is well down the list of priorities. It can be solved fairly easily: by raising the retirement age progressively. That is, according to income: the more money you have, the older you are before social security payments kick in. Bill Gates should be, like, 80. You and me, Congressman, maybe 75 or so. Or we can eliminate the income cap on Social Security payroll taxes. Have it work like the Medicare payroll tax. This is not rocket science. Just painful politics.
Klein rejects partial privatization of Social Security; indeed, he calls it “a sideshow.” And he praises “a voluntary add-on program...with government matching funds according to income.” Indeed, the Social Security “crisis” (Klein’s scare-quotes) is “well down his list of priorities.” It can be solved fairly easily, Klein says, in the ways he describes, perhaps others.

We found this surprising, because we recall Klein’s position on these matters during Campaign 2000. In that campaign, Candidate Bush proposed partial privatization; Candidate Gore rejected this idea, instead proposing “a voluntary add-on program...with government matching funds according to income!” (Gore called this “Social Security Plus.”) What was Klein’s reaction? Here’s part of his session with Tim Russert as the mainstream press corps tore Gore apart for his disgraceful views on this matter:
KLEIN (5/6/00): The—the concern I have about the Gore campaign is that he has learned one lesson and he's kind of becoming a one-trick pony.

RUSSERT: Attack. Attack. Attack.

KLEIN: Attack. Attack.

RUSSERT: Governor Bush put forward a Social Security plan calling for a partial privatizing, and he attacks, saying that is risky. The fact is, President Clinton proposed taking parts of the Social Security trust fund and putting them in the stock market in his State of the Union message just—just a year ago. [Warning: See clarification below.] Yesterday, you had Pat Moynihan and—and Bob Kerrey and John McCain all coming out, saying, “Let's have a commission and this is an idea worth looking at.” Why—why—why does Gore just auto—almost knee-jerk attack, attack, attack?

KLEIN: Well, because it's—it's, you know, scaring people about Social Security. Medicare has worked for the Democrats since time immemorial. In this case, you know, it's really interesting, Gore is in a—you know, for someone who is so wedded to the information age, he really is being reactionary...
As we’ve discussed in detail before (links below), this was completely typical of the way the mainstream press corps was reacting to the dueling Bush/Gore proposals. It seems to be the opposite of what Klein said in yesterday’s post—seven years later.

There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind—but there were many things wrong with Klein and Russert’s performance that day. For starters, Russert’s account of the Clinton proposal was vastly misleading (see above); Bush’s privatization proposal involved risk to the individual SS recipient, Clinton’s earlier proposal did not. And uh-oh! Inevitably, Russert gave his standard, unbalanced account of the “simple facts” of this complex issue. He suggested the press corps had failed to inform the public, who were being misled by Vile Gore:
RUSSERT: But the role of media becomes critical here, Joe Klein. If—the facts are simple: When Social Security began, Franklin Roosevelt, genius, he—the life expectancy at that point was 63. He made eligibility for Social Security 65.

KLEIN: Right.

RUSSERT: It was a—was a very popular program. There were 45 workers for every retiree and life expectancy was exactly that age. Now we're approaching two workers for every retiree. Life expectancy is 78 going to 85. You're going to have 80 million people on Social Security and Medicare for about a fourth of their life, for three to 20 years. Everyone knows that, and yet when you present it to Al Gore, he'll say, “No problem. I'll take the surplus and it'll pay for it.” Even his own Secretary Treasury written volumes of reports—trustees reports, will say, “No, it doesn't work that way.”

KLEIN: No, it doesn't.

RUSSERT: What is our job? Can we call time out and say, “Excuse me, Mr. Vice President, it doesn't add up?”

KLEIN: I suspect that he's gonna have trouble with this as this goes on because—in, in part because younger people, the generation coming up, those eight or 12 of them who are actually interested in public life, understand that unless this system changes, they're not gonna have pensions and they want to have control over their futures.
Of course, it could have worked the way Gore suggested—and Klein’s dire prophecies seem to fly in the face of what he has said this week. But in May 2000, Gore was being trashed this way all over the mainstream press—and Bush was being hailed as a moral giant for “daring to touch the third rail.” Eventually, Russert found a standard way to exit this well-scripted topic:
RUSSERT: You mentioned Al Gore going to the back of the plane, being likeable, irreverent. Why doesn't the public ever see that side? Why—why doesn't he just, when he takes off his jacket and puts his earth tones on display, also have this personality that no one sees?
Pathetic, isn’t it? Playing the fool for Jack Welch and a multimillionaire class, Russert slickly found a way to work those “earth tones” in. But then, they kept pumping this perfect bull-sh*t until they had Bush in the White House.

Yep! That was May 6 in the year 2000, as the press corps was working to put Bush in power. Seven years later, Klein seems to see this policy matter quite differently. But then, Bob Herbert just said that he’s baffled by the fact that Gore isn’t president, seeming to forget what he did in real time to keep Gore on the outs (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/6/07). Did Pravda ever air-brush the past any better than our mainstream pundits have done? You simply can’t make this group come clean about their past groaning misconduct.

We find no fault with Klein’s current views. But his conduct back then helped put Bush where he is. Our question: When will this cohort start to explain their conduct from Campaign 2000? Who will be first to break the Code, to discuss our actual history? -Bob Somerby Daily Howler

Posted by Charles Watkins
June 7, 2007

"sad, self-indulgent, obnoxious baby boom generation"

I seem to recall having sadly, self-indulgently, and obnoxiously contributing vast amounts of my income into the social security and medicare system. Unlike the so-called "greatest" generation who just voted themselves a windfall. If the money to cover me is not there, it's because it was spent for other things.

Posted by Jim H.
June 7, 2007

If you put your retirement funds into long-term bonds, you're collecting interest. Not as huge as the profit that all stock markets make, at all times -- whoa, you can lose money on the stock market? -- but more secure.

So when you're 25, your ss contribution starts earning money. When you're 66, you start collecting. Since contributions have been earning money for 30 years, it's not just the taxpayers that pay. Imagine, the Chinese have partially subsidized my retirement. Along with every other investor. Why should social security have investing in our debt all to itself?

The reason why conservatives do their best to destroy this system is because their buddies can't have a bigger taste of it, and it actually pays off to its contributors.