My only objection is that it makes Bush look too cute. He looks like a bunny (anthropomorphized) or something with those ears.

It would appear from the news in the electro-papers that the secret, long-term Republican environmental policy of increasing heavy-metal toxicity to decrease the public IQ is very well advanced--although it also appears that in a classic case of "blow-back," some of the poison is slowing their own skulls, too! ...I want to recommend, however, that research scientists test and see if a liberal application of just plain alcohol can grease the brain anew, and cause electricity to re-agitate and flow among the neurons (a research program that could become a regular funding cash-cow!), because I just walked out for a little fresh air (and here in Los Angeles, too--my own IQ being evidently in question--) and sauntered past The Sozzled Mug & Wump, where inside the assembled citizens, normally apathetic and aloof, were loudly singing together a new bar-song they called "Y'all Better De-clare Bankruptcy, Before Congress Passes the Bill" (to the ancient spooning tune of "When the Apples Blossom in East Orange, We'll Be a Peach of a Pear"); and then began to hammer-out another lyric that goes "Don't Take My Social Security, Grandpa Needs a Lung"--this new one to a hip-hop backbeat of an unsure provenance, banged-out clumsily on the barstools, but with a nifty chorus-part deriving from the joyous tradition of this youthful genre, that goes (this is a quick transcription) "Eat shit an' die, ya stoopid muthafuggas!" Excited by these hearty and perspicacious airs, and hoping to increase my own innovative ability (how vain was this hope, shall be clear to you in a moment,) I hastened indoors to order-up one of that house's potent libations, and within minutes my right eye swerved sinister while the other goggled dexter, and so I rose to recount the latest political shenanigans I read about on this web, and proposed that the assembled souls create a likely mock-hymn entitled "Get Out of the Way, O Ye Democrats, 'til the Republican Fratricide is Passed O'er." But with a concerned face the bartender whisked me aside pronto, whispering whether I was trying to ruin his goddamned livelihood, since the choir would never care to practice my hymn: because about half of the sauceheads voted for Bush; and anyway my ditty will have no shelf-life, because we all KNOW that tomorrow the Republicans will cobble themselves back together to engage in another (and I quote him directly) "conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." This last phrase rang the faintest bell and he must have sensed my incipient puzzling, because he motioned to the wall behind him where a well-thumbed copy of Adam Smith, on hand to settle the occasional learned argument amongst the citizens, (as well as being the right size to throw at the head of an incessant commentator,) was propping up a corner of the cash register, --though it still didn't look level to me...

"He looks like a bunny"

Might this be Giblets the bunny-shaped anthropomorphic tiny despot?

I saw that yesterday.

Dead on.

One of the better blog posts on this subject.

Has ANYBODY explained what this Bush SSec campaign would mean for poor people's Social Security disability benefits?

Well, factor this in for starters:

Social Security disability goes negative revenue in 2029 (I believe).

Of course, we're not hearing much discussion about the problems that SS disability is facing.

I expect the Congress to clip some of the support for this program in conjunction with Medicaid/Medicare cuts. Why? No major lobbying group is stepping up to defend the disability program needs. Could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Will the carve out private accounts proposal have an impact on SS disability funding? Yes, in my opinion. Why? Competition for deficit spending revenue dollars (borrowing); price indexing impact (not sure on this one, but I believe it will have an effect on DI) as well as eligibility "reform" (expect to see more of this).

Enough. Now let's hear from the pros.

> Has ANYBODY explained
???

Sure, read the NYT. There David Rosenbaum clearly explains that "At Heart of Social Security Debate, a Misunderstanding".

"there is nothing to prevent Congress from changing the size of benefits"

So SS disability benefits could be zero or a million bucks a year, depending upon the mood of Congress.

That's why there is need for reform. SS cannot function as insurance, because you can't trust Congress and the POTUS.

In the real world SS would be a simple income redistribution program. Money from the working to the retired and needy. Simple, clean and efficient.

But that would smack of socialism.

So enjoy the squeeming and handwringing and smearing and cajoling of all those politicians that want to end SS or don't want to end it but want it the capitalist way or whatever.

Don't expect a single one to say that it is and should be a simple income redistribution program.

As the good old Jack said: "You can't handle the Truth!"

There's an article here on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program that emphasizes the overlap of that program with Supplemental Security Income program (I assume that's the main disability program)
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v65n3/index.html

TANF, of course, is the program that ended welfare as we had known it in 1996. The article is concerned in part with the conflicting direction of work incentives imposed by TANF and SSI, especially given state policies. From it's conclusion:

''In between the sure-fire SSI and non-SSI cases falls a group of applicants and recipients for whom SSI eligibility is uncertain and the messages of the two programs conflict. Forgoing efforts at diversion and employment while awaiting an SSI award mutes the TANF work message, prolongs separation from the work force, and depletes years of eligibility permitted under TANF time limits in some states. The consequences are surely negative for those who are ultimately determined not to be SSI eligible, but they may also hamper the effectiveness of the work incentives now present in SSI.''

Somewhere in there, under cover of addressing very legitimate concerns, is the opportunity to do major mischief, seems to me.

"He looks like a bunny"

Gee, who's Giblets? Sounds like fun.

I was watching ''Brazil'' again the other night, and, having noticed this cartoonist's work before, was struck by the resemblence of his Bush to a shot of Sam Lowry in the movie, through the back side of a magnifying screen. Sam, of course, was the nebbish who was used by those more powerful, but he was also a figure who evaded responsibility and an understanding of his surroundings for a little too long.

To me, socialism as explained by Luc sounds like compassionate christian/muslim/jewish behavior to me, as adapted by a morally advanced and evolved high technology society.

"That's why there is need for reform. SS cannot function as insurance, because you can't trust Congress and the POTUS."

What a strange argument for phasing out social security, particularly when made by the political party of which the POTUS and a majority of Congress are members.

"You must allow us to desroy social security to prevent us from destroying social security."

Some on the left believe that Social Security should be more aggressively redistributive; Luc may be one of them. But that's not the way to go: policy-wise, the element of moral hazard is magnified, and politically, means-testing allows the program to be marginalized and recipients stigmatized.

Phil Gramm once said something like "the last thing we need is more means-testing". The thing is, from his standpoint, he couldn't be more wrong. Means-testing is the friend of him that would make the public sphere small enough to drown. And by contrast, the most successful social programs, both politically and in terms of effectiveness, are those for which pretty much everyone is eligible: Social Security and public-financed education, for example.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/business/03scene.html

Disability Insurance Side of Social Security Raises Questions
By ALAN B. KRUEGER

DISABILITY insurance could be the Achilles' heel of President Bush's efforts to carve personal accounts out of Social Security (although there is a lot of competition for that distinction). The program faces challenges that are at least as daunting as those on the retirement side of Social Security, and fitting the existing program into a system of personal accounts could have serious unintended consequences.

Disability insurance is the Eisenhower-era program added to Social Security to provide financial support for people with a disability that prevents them from working. Some 90 percent of workers are covered. The program is financed by a 1.8 percent payroll tax and has a trust fund that, on paper, is separate from the Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund. Benefits are computed using the Social Security retirement benefit formula.

Although President Bush has stated only broad principles for changing Social Security and has yet to negotiate with Congress, he indicated in an interview with The Washington Post in January that he did not plan to change the disability or survivors components of Social Security.

Two major problems would result from maintaining the existing disability program in the face of private accounts. First, disabled workers currently start receiving Social Security retirement benefits when they reach age 65. Because their disability benefits equal their Social Security benefits, the transition is seamless.

Presumably, under President Bush's plan, the disabled would move off disability benefits and draw on their personal accounts and (smaller) guaranteed Social Security benefit when they reach retirement age. But most disabled workers would not have accumulated much wealth in their personal accounts because they would have had a shorter work life than other retirees. Their benefits would drop sharply at age 65 and, in many cases, their incomes would fall below the poverty line.

This is no small problem. David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out that one in eight people who start receiving Social Security retirement benefits each year are coming from the disability rolls.

If disability benefits were continued at their current level after retirement age, a different problem would arise: disability would be more lucrative than retirement for workers who had poor investment returns on their personal accounts. The disability program already has difficulty in making consistent judgments as to whether workers are disabled - in one study, one in six cases were judged differently by different state disability examiners - so many marginally disabled workers who applied would probably be allowed benefits. Older workers could flood into the disability program, weakening its already frail financial health.

The second problem is that leaving disability insurance alone abdicates responsibility for fixing its financial difficulties, which are much more imminent than the retirement program's financial problems. According to a forecast by the Social Security trustees, the Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund will last until 2044, while the disability trust fund will be exhausted in 2029.

Integrating the disability program into a system of personal accounts is complicated because it is inherently an insurance program....

I posted a new challenge on Max's site to supplement "No economist left behind". We could call it "Show me the numbers". It does not call on privatizers to present every detail of their plan, it simply calls on them to predict 2005 and 2006 growth. That's all. Anyone who is planning on buying a car or changing jobs or refinancing has an implicit expectation of the range of economic outcomes over the near term. You may be right, you may be totally off-base, but everyone is making decisions every day based on that expectation.

So privatizers, just give me a number for 2005. You are perfectly happy making infinite future projections to solve a problem that may or may not manifest in three decades, why would you possibly be afraid of putting forth a number for 3rd quarter 2005? And don't tell me you don't have one, or at least a range, or course you do.

This is rhetorical of course. Privatizers are desperately avoiding putting any near term growth numbers on the table. They will talk P/E, infinite future, worthless IOUs what have you. But they never, ever address the specific numbers in the tables that produce Intermediate Cost and Low Cost. No one will come out directly and defend those numbers. And no privatizer will explicitly recognize that inserting a different set of numbers WILL produce a different outcome.

The cartoon perfectly describes their dilemna. There are gaping inconsistencies in the economic assumptions at the heart of privatization. They have been there for a long time, it was clear as early as the 1997 Report that economic productivity was going to come in stronger than Intermediate Cost projected. And each Report year that has passed has made that more manifest.

Bush et al were simply hoping that nobody was watching, and are still hoping that somehow, anyhow 60 meetings in 60 days before hand picked crowds will stampede Congress, all without putting a single number on the table.

Won't work. "Show me the numbers".

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/opinion/08krugman.html

The Debt-Peonage Society
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Today the Senate is expected to vote to limit debate on a bill that toughens the existing bankruptcy law, probably ensuring the bill's passage. A solid bloc of Republican senators, assisted by some Democrats, has already voted down a series of amendments that would either have closed loopholes for the rich or provided protection for some poor and middle-class families.

The bankruptcy bill was written by and for credit card companies, and the industry's political muscle is the reason it seems unstoppable. But the bill also fits into the broader context of what Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, calls "risk privatization": a steady erosion of the protection the government provides against personal misfortune, even as ordinary families face ever-growing economic insecurity.

The bill would make it much harder for families in distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start. Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless treadmill of payments.

The credit card companies say this is needed because people have been abusing the bankruptcy law, borrowing irresponsibly and walking away from debts. The facts say otherwise.

A vast majority of personal bankruptcies in the United States are the result of severe misfortune. One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies. The rest are overwhelmingly the result either of job loss or of divorce.

To the extent that there is significant abuse of the system, it's concentrated among the wealthy - including corporate executives found guilty of misleading investors - who can exploit loopholes in the law to protect their wealth, no matter how ill-gotten.

One increasingly popular loophole is the creation of an "asset protection trust," which is worth doing only for the wealthy. Senator Charles Schumer introduced an amendment that would have limited the exemption on such trusts, but apparently it's O.K. to game the system if you're rich: 54 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against the Schumer amendment....

> Integrating the disability program into a
> system of personal accounts is complicated
> because it is inherently an insurance
> program....

It is the language. An insurance program can be privatized. An income redistribution program cannot.

If SS were just insurance, and financed only from SS contributions, it could be privatized. And given the accepted theory that markets function better than government, there's a good argument that it should.

But unless you are seriously blinded by Republican dogma, SS is not simply an insurance program.

I'd say it has all the defining characteristics of an income redistribution program, but that's just me.

The Republicans get hilariously silly in their arguments for privatization, and that alone should be enough to keep SS as it is.

But the Democrats could be a bit less silent in stating why SS should be a government function. It might be unpopular in the short run, though I would think that you can't keep it out of the discussion forever.

Well, I'd better leave politics to the politicians.

Lee A. Arnold,

I liked your comment. Please continue to comment in the future.

The Democrat Position on Social Security

The way to fix Social Security is to end the corruption in Washington and return to sound fiscal policy. Mr Bush has sworn to do neither, so he invents a SS crisis.

The 2000 election was about Mr Gore’s proposal to put our SS surplus taxes in a “lockbox”, (use SS taxes to pay down the debt). This was and is the Democrat plan to save SS. We are currently paying about 30% more in SS taxes than SS is paying out. We are prepaying SS. Those prepayments will last beyond 2040. Under President Gore, our SS surplus would be going into the “lockbox” and there would be no SS crisis. Mr Bush, is giving away our SS taxes as tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate welfare. Mr Bush broke his promise to use our SS surplus to pay down the deficit. On top of spending our SS surplus, Mr Bush is selling $$Billions in IOUs that will have to be repaid to the Chinese, Japanese and other foreign interests. Mr. Bush has added over $2 Trillion ($2,000,000,000.00) to the $7.7 Trillion public debt in just four years. It will be worse in his second term, because Mr Bush started his first term with the Clinton surplus. These huge budget deficits mean that future Americans will be paying hundreds of billions of dollars just to make interest payments on the Bush debt. These future interest payments, if large enough, could take too much tax dollars and affect our future ability to pay SS benefits from tax revenue. This is why we need to return to sound fiscal policy. Return to sound fiscal policy today would do more to protect future SS benefits than anything Mr Bush has on the table.

When a politician uses public funds to reward his campaign contributors, we used to call it corruption. Now we call it Bush fiscal policy. Mr Clinton collected over 20% of GDP as taxes and spent about 18.4% of GDP and ran a budget surplus. Mr Bush only collected 16.3% of GDP in 2004 and is spent about 20% and runs HUGE deficits.

Why does our Federal Government have such a large deficit? Corruption. Mr Bush gave huge unaffordable tax cuts to his wealthy campaign contributors. Revenue has plunged and Mr Bush refuses to fix his revenue shortfall by rescinding his tax cuts for his wealthy friends. Mr Bush and his GOP Congress have increased spending from under $1.8 Trillion under Clinton to $2.3 Trillion in 2004 and a whopping $700 Billion increase to at least $2.5 Trillion next year. Exactly how much, we don’t know because Mr Bush won’t give us an honest estimate of how many more Billions his Iraq war will cost us. Much of his new spending is corporate welfare that is lining the pockets of Bush campaign contributors. We have a GOP president and GOP Congress that cannot control their spending. They are pursuing a corrupt, reckless fiscal policy that is looting our Treasury today and sending the bills to our children tomorrow.

Mr Bush talks tough about making a few small cuts in domestic programs in his budget. However, his cuts are tiny compared to his corporate welfare. We are spending billions on a missile defense that does not work and bases we do not need. Defense spending has increased from under $300 Billion in 2000 to over $450 billion in 2004. (Do you feel $150 Billion safer?) The Iraq war will put defense spending over $500 Billion next year. Some defense spending is legitimate, but a lot of it is corruption. Huge corporate welfare contracts to the well connected like the Vice President’s former company, Halliburton are currently under investigation for corruption. This corruption costs the taxpayer and compromises the true needs of our troops. We can find $Billions for Halliburton, but not enough armor for our vehicles.

Mr Bush and Congress added huge crop subsidy payments to millionaire corporate farmers. M r Bush has raided Medicare for corporate welfare for the big drug companies, greatly increasing health care expenditures. Health care costs are spiraling out of control and the current administration, happy that their friends in the health care and insurance industries are making a lot of money, doesn’t see a problem. Mr Bush likes to make excuses for his deficit spending. There is no excuse.

Under Clinton we taxed the wealthy fairly, ran a budget surplus and had a great economy that created a lot of jobs. Under Mr Bush, the wealthy no longer pay their fair share of taxes, there is a huge budget deficit and too few jobs are being created while all the money from economic growth is going to the wealthy. Mr Bush is standing in the way of a return to the sound fiscal policies of Clinton. Mr Bush could end deficit spending tomorrow if he would give up his tax cuts and his corporate welfare. That would be the best policy Mr Bush could make to protect SS.

The SS administration makes 3 projections about the future. A pessimistic forecast, a moderate forecast and an optimistic forecast. Recently, SS has been trending along the optimistic forecast. This is why the SS administration recently changed the moderate forecast date when SS pays out more than it takes in from 2018 to 2020. Under the optimistic forecast, no changes will have to be made to SS in order for it to pay all promised benefits in the future. Why should we let Mr Bush destroy a perfectly good SS program based on projections of shortfalls 40 or more years out that may never happen? Why should Democrats negotiate SS with Mr Bush when any change would have a negative effect on the poorest Americans? Doing nothing leaves the poorest Americans better off than what Mr Bush proposes.

Mr Bush is running another one of his infamous bait and switch scams on SS. Mr Bush only talks about private accounts, never about the drastic cuts in SS benefits that accompany his private accounts. The real SS argument is over the drastic c uts. However since Mr Bush won’t talk about his drastic cuts in SS benefits, we are left with his fake debate about private accounts that do nothing (and the GOP admits this) to fix POTENTIAL (may not happen) shortfalls in SS 40 YEARS in the future. Should Democrats go along with drastic cuts in future SS benefits because Mr Bush is staging a fake argument for a non-solution to a potential problem? Mr Bush is purposely not putting a SS proposal on the table. This is a tactic for avoiding criticism. An honest proposal would have to lay out the problem and how the new policy would address the problem. Ask yourself, is Mr Bush being honest and open about his SS plans? Or is he selling a pig in a poke? How do you negotiate with a swindler? (How about you only take me for $10 instead of $100?)

The big scare about too few workers supporting too many retirees in the future is misleading for two reasons. Large numbers of people retiring will mean less unemployment among younger workers and jobs available for people that want to immigrate to the US. The ratios of workers to retirees will not fall as drastically as predicted. Workers in the future will be more productive. In 1900 the average American farmer fed about 10 people, but the average American farmer today feeds over 100. Farmers are not overburdened; productivity increases have allowed this to happen.

There are some minor changes in policy that would help SS. The first of these is to raise minimum wage from the pathetically low $5.15 to at least $7. This alone will increase SS revenue because workers that make more money end up paying more in SS taxes. Raising employment back to the levels we had during the Clinton years would boost SS People collecting unemployment don’t pay SS taxes, workers do pay taxes.

In conclusion, there is no pressing crisis in SS that demands immediate action. There is an immediate problem with current fiscal policy that could affect our future ability to pay for SS. Mr Bush needs to give up trying to end SS and letting his wealthy friends ditch their responsibility under the social contract. Instead, he should concentrate on fixing his broken budget and return to sound, sustainable fiscal policy. Democrats should demand a return to the lockbox, an increase in minimum wage and better jobs policy. That is all the fix SS needs for now.

-jonny bakho

As the commenters in these threads have long predicted, the President has opened a Pandora's box for the Republicans (they must be wondering really "Why me, oh Lord?"), and given the Democrats a luxurious moment to educate the public as to what is really goin' down:

"New deficit figures are casting doubt on the fiscal wisdom of Congress making most of President Bush's tax cuts permanent... Here's one consequence of the fix Bush and the Congress have gotten themselves into: over the next five years the interest costs on the national debt - the accumulated annual deficits - will be the fastest rising spending category in the federal budget." --from "The High Cost of Permanent Tax Cuts," by Dale McFeatters, Scripps Howard News Service, in the Beauford (South Carolina) Gazette, March 7 (found through Buzzflash)

"People talk about morals; well, it's immoral to take people's money and it's immoral to stick our children with the bill," [U.S. Representative Gene] Taylor said... Social Security is in trouble, Taylor said, because the government has taken money from the program without a plan to pay it back, and to him that is "stealing." --from "Taylor Decries U.S. Debt," by Ryan LaFontaine, Mississippi Sun Herald. March 8 (found through Josh Marshall)

"The Social Security trust fund "had plenty of money in it," Anne Cash, a 70-year-old retired federal worker, declared furiously at a town meeting in North Philadelphia last month. "It should not be tampered with," Ms. Cash told her congresswoman, Allyson Y. Schwartz, a freshman Democrat. "It was not intended for the government to borrow." President Bush, Ms. Cash continued, "owes that money back." --leading three paragraphs of "At Heart of Social Security Debate, a Misunderstanding," by David E. Rosenbaum, New York Times, March 8 (I stumbled upon this curious newspaper accidentally, while looking for lingerie models)

--> And this last article goes on and on, to give a clear example of the Republicans' required next task: explaining why it ain't exactly what it looks like!

Now the fun begins!

Johnny: The adjective is "Democratic". It's the Democratic Party, we have Democratic positions, etc.

Folks like Frank Luntz discovered, in the late '80s, that for some reason, folks reacted more negatively to the words "Democrat Party". Don't assist their assault on our vocabulary.

Great thread. Special thanks to bakho. It takes a lot of energy for people to stay focussed on such bogus arguments as the Bushites present. Bush cannot win on SS unless we get tired. Keep up the good work, guys.

The David Rosenbaum article in the NYT is as fraudulent as the rest of them.

Quote: "there is nothing to prevent Congress from changing the size of benefits"

Quote in reverse: "There is nothing to prevent Congress from taxing your SS retirement account"

Here's John Snow in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18663-2005Mar8.html

"Drawing on the powerful force of compound interest, personal accounts can reduce reliance on the outdated pay-as-you-go formula that can't deliver on its promises."

If the "pay-as-you-go formula" (or income redistribution as I would call it), is not defended on principal grounds, SS will be lost.
Probably not now, but when the privatization starts it will be very hard to turn back.

Ah, and when someone says "the powerful force of compound interest", he doesn't take neither math nor economics very serious. The powerful force of compound inflation! The even more powerful force of compound wage indexing! The all powerful force of exponential functions!

If only their news would catch up to the level of their cartoons, Washington Post may yet become a newspaper once again ...