Posted on 10/22/2002 11:47:28 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
With congressional election campaigns in full roar, Terence McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, this year sent out fund-raising letters charging Republicans with plans to dismantle our Social Security system. As I see it, McAuliffe is guilty of mail fraud.
First, the letters imply that the plan requires most, if not all, Social Security tax revenues to be invested in stocks. This is false. Under the Bush plan no taxpayer is required to invest any revenues in the stock market. The investment is entirely voluntary and is limited to no more than 16 percent of the payroll tax.
Second, in characterizing it as a "Republican" plan, the letters fail to disclose that Democrats such as former senators Patrick Moynihan of New York and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, as well as current senator John Breaux of Louisiana, have endorsed bipartisan proposals for investing Social Security revenues in stocks.
One of the arguments advanced in support of the bipartisan plans is that, like the present Bush plan, they provide special new benefits for women and minority groups — who tend strongly to favor the Democratic Party. Such plans, like the current Bush plan, provide for the inheritance by the taxpayers' heirs of the stock accumulated in Social Security accounts.
Currently, married women live on average some 10 years longer than their husbands. This means that, for a decade or more, the Bush plan will provide widows with much greater benefits than they now receive.
African-Americans in particular have shorter lives on average than whites. Many die before deriving any benefits from their Social Security accounts — which die with them. Under the Bush plan the heirs will inherit the stock accounts.
Finally, McAuliffe does not mention that former president Bill Clinton also had made a proposal similar to the Bush plan. Ironically, under the Clinton proposal the government, and not the taxpayer, selected the stock. This would give the corporations chosen by the White House a special incentive to make campaign contributions to the president. In contrast, under the Bush plan each taxpayer is free to choose stock from among a diversity of companies. Thus the political corruption fostered under the Clinton plan would not occur under the Bush proposal.
In my view McAuliffe's letters constitute a violation of Chapter 63 of the U.S. Criminal Code, which makes it a felony to use the mail to obtain money by "false or fraudulent pretenses." However, it is unlikely that any prosecutor will seek an indictment against McAuliffe. This is because any jury pool in Washington, for example, would be composed substantially of Democrats with a bias in favor of acquittal (as was the case in the bribery trial of Michael Espy, Clinton's agriculture secretary).
In my view, the leaders of my party now should fire McAuliffe. Indeed, in addition to his present unethical practices, he also has played a critical role in the fund-raising scandals of the Clinton administration.
In 1996, McAuliffe raised $43 million for the Clinton-Gore campaign. Early in the campaign he wrote a memorandum to Clinton that led to the overnight use of White House bedrooms to solicit campaign contributions. In a handwritten note on McAuliffe's memo, Clinton wrote enthusiastically "Ready to start overnights right away."
McAuliffe also has raised more than $100 million for various Clinton projects, including Clinton's legal-defense fund, the presidential library to be built in Arkansas and Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign in New York.
During the 1996 campaign McAuliffe also was involved with the Teamsters union in a scheme that made six separate illegal transfers of money into the re-election campaign of Teamster president Ron Carey, who eventually was removed from office.
This year questions have arisen as to how McAuliffe raised $18 million in profit from a $100,000 investment he made in the now-bankrupt Global Crossing Ltd. — a company currently engaged in stonewalling a congressional investigation by a House committee. To date McAuliffe has not released the records of his questionable transactions.
McAuliffe clearly has brought our party into scandal and disrepute. However, in a larger sense the accountability for McAuliffe's disreputable money-raising tactics lies with the members of the New Democratic Leadership Council, of which Sen. Joseph Lieberman of my home state of Connecticut was a founder. Wanting continuously to profit from McAuliffe's unsavory tactics, they remain silent even when he deceives their constituents.
As a lifelong Democrat it is my view that, until our party sheds itself of domination by the "New" Democrats and McAuliffe, we will not deserve to control either the Congress or the White House.
Jerry Zeifman (jzeifman@yahoo.com) formerly was chief counsel of the House Judiciary Committee. He has served in government under five Democratic presidents.
The Democrat party will never 'deserve' to control congress or the White House.
So don't file the law suit in Washington, DC. File it where the plantiff lives.
African-Americans in particular have shorter lives on average than whites. Many die before deriving any benefits from their Social Security accounts — which die with them. Under the Bush plan the heirs will inherit the stock accounts."
Some Democrats might just "get" Bush after all...
ROTFLMAO! I'm sorry for laughing so hard, it's just that I thought you were serious for a second there.
If more behave like the author, it will.
Like annie said...
This was definitely the exception that proves the rule
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.