'Green tackles tough issues' -- Not!
This priceless and clueless commentary from George Bush at Milwaukee's Hilton last night:
This is a little off subject here, but the biggest problem we got in the long term is dealing with these entitlement programs that we can't pay for, that's Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid. If you're an older person you're in good shape. If you're a younger person who is just working, you're in lousy shape. And I can't wait to work with Congress to solve the Social Security and Medicare issue.What makes that hilarious is that Mark Green has spent the last year ducking the Social Security issue and refusing to take a stand.
One reason I ran for office is to solve problems and not pass them on to other presidents and other members of Congress. It's time for the United States Congress to stop playing politics with Social Security and Medicare so a young generation of Americans can look at these entitlement programs and say I'm not putting my money into a black hole. And it's hard work. (Applause.)
It's hard work, but I'm confident we can get it done. I'm going to keep working it. That's what the people expect us to do. And I appreciate Congressman Ryan. He's not afraid to take on the tough issues. That's the kind of person you want in Washington, D.C. -- and neither is Mark Green. You see, you've got to have somebody in the governor's chair who sees a tough issue and says, I'm going to take it on, that's why I ran. You've got too many people in politics who say, well, it might affect my poll numbers and therefore, I'm going to duck it. I just can't imagine people running for office and saying I'm going the duck the tough issue.
In April 2005, Green said he supported allowing people to opt out of Social Security and create their own accounts, but insisted that was not privatization. Since then, however -- and since Bush began pushing his Social Security changes -- Green has figured out he is on the wrong side of a volatile issue, and has clammed up.
Do you think George Bush had any idea who Mark Green really is when he said all of those nice things about him?
3 Comments:
Allowing citizens to opt out of social security to put their money in personal accounts, as the Ryan-Sununu plan would have allowed, was not privatization. It was modeled after the Federal Thrift Savings Plan, and the accounts would have been managed by the Federal government.
To the Democrats' credit, they convinced the public that Bush was going to take away everyone's social security check, and the President and most Republicans were afraid to deal with the issue the right way.
But social security was an issue before, when President Clinton admitted the program was in trouble and something had to be done about it, and it will be an issue after President Bush leaves office.
It would be really great if Congress would deal with serious issues like tens of trillions of dollars of unfundated mandates, rather than issues that have no chance of passing and are only playing to the faithful on both sides.
Troy, demolishing social security plays to the financial institutions that funded Bush's re-election. Once you can invest in personal accounts, it's only a quick slide-step to investing SS funds in your 401(k) or an IRA.
Raise the cap on SS taxes and future generations rightly deserved benefits would be secured for even longer. There's no threat to SSat all if we do that.
Raising the cap on SS taxes would simply increase the payments made to SS beneficiaries, since the Supreme Court has already ruled that payments out have to correspond to payments into the system. We can apply the SS tax to 100% of income, and it would only delay the insolvency of the system by six years.
Talking about the 'quick slide-step' is exactly the rationale that politicians of both sides have been using to justify their views forever. Ryan-Sununu does not demolish social security, it secures social security for those who truly need it, i.e. widows/orphans and the disabled, while allowing others to actually earn a positive rate of return and achieve inheritability for an asset for which they've worked a lifetime.
And what is the benefit to 'financial institutions that funded Bush's re-election? The entire system would be managed by the federal government, not by Wall Street firms.
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