Troll-B-Gon
Posted on 02/02/2005 2:28:12 PM PST by The Loan Arranger
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat in the Senate on Tuesday predicted that President Bush's plan to revamp social security by diverting taxes into private investment accounts would fail to pass Congress.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid was speaking as Bush prepared to use his State of the Union address on Wednesday to argue for his proposals and then follow up with a five-state tour to campaign for the new investment accounts.
"President Bush should forget about privatizing Social Security," the Nevada Democrat said. "It will not happen. The sooner he comes to that realization, the better off we are."
Bush has yet to spell out details of his plan but hopes to build public support and win over some Democrats while shoring up support from his own Republicans who control Congress.
Without Democratic support, the plan will fail to win the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles which can block any major piece of legislation in the 100-member Senate.
Reid said none of the 44 Democrats in the Senate would back a plan that diverts Social Security taxes into accounts that workers would invest in stocks and bonds. Opponents argue it would only add to Social Security's financial problems, force big cuts in benefits and add to ballooning budget deficits.
But Bush and his supporters argue it will help preserve the retirement system for generations to come.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush wants bipartisan support and will talk about the problems facing Social Security as he travels Thursday and Friday to North Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Arkansas and Florida.
"We hope that people will focus on solutions and what they're for, rather than trying to stand up and simply oppose things that they are against," McClellan said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
With four years left to rape the Treasury, Bush's State of the Union address outlines his goal
to leave the cupboard bare for seniors, continue the bloodletting in Iraq, push for imperialism
abroad while taunting the gelding Dem,ocrats who service his every whim.
His ideas for the Treasury rape scored just two sentences in last year's lying State of the Union.
This year, it's the signature topic of his 40-minute speech before his subjects and a cowed nation of victims.
The White House says Bush will offer new details about his plan to let Enron-type brokers to divert some of
their Social Security payroll taxes into their pockets.
Oh it won't happen huh?
This man evidently is unaware that tossing down a challenge like that only causes people to redouble their efforts to make sure it WILL pass. I know this is the case with me. No elected SENATOR will tell ME what will or will not pass. These people are supposed to represent ME and other Americans. Since I'm in a "blue" state I'm going to enjoy giving the offices of Cantwell and Murray hell over this. Perfect opportunity for me to reach out to Dems my age and get them onboard too since they support reform for obvious reasons.
Will happen, SS "reform." Sorry lefties.
Die.
They call it 'deferred compensation'. They do not pay into the pool, and neither does the state.
Why is this okay for some, and not for all. With as many people as California has on this plan, how can it not escapes somebody's attention back in DC on the right?
I could've sworn that local/state gubmints can't do that anymore. Then again, we're dealing with a 'RAT-infested gubmint in Kalifornica (Arnold excepted), so that would explain it.
Troll-B-Gon
Frankly, you are right. Make them stay up all night until they cave.
Bush cannot make the same mistake he made with regard to Iraq in 2003, postwar. He needs to come out swinging against this anti-reform demagoguery, starting TONIGHT.
Otherwise, like the opposition to the Iraq war, it will become the new conventional wisdom among the "sheeple."
But if we make them actually have to do a physical filibuster, to really stand there and speak continuously for days, weeks, months at a time...and if we don't let any of their pork into anything, and won't devote any time to anything else, they can probably be literally physically brutalized by exhaustion into submission.
Meanwhile, the country will see them up there everyday, droning on like morons about nothing, while our privately own accounts are frustrated.
How I wish the Republican leaders would know when to show fang and make a filibuster actually be a FILIBUSTER. If they PHYSICALLY fail because they cannot go on, if they flag, you take the floor and close debate. Let them exhaust themselves and lose anyway when someone swoons in the middle of the night.
On judicial nominees and Social Security, the Republicans have got to be willing to take it to the mattresses.
You really should spend your time more productively. I suggest you start by scraping Reid, Kennedy, Pelosi, Boxer and the rest of the bugs off the windshield of George W. Bush's Second Term.
Doesn't he know what happened to the last obstructionist?
GWB is beating every one of these 'Rat morons at strip poker; now they are all broke and nekkid and it's truly a horrible thing to watch.
Harry Reid small grey man with a big mouth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/states/docs/sou98.htm
Now, if we balance the budget for next year, it is projected that we'll then have a sizeable surplus in the years that immediately follow. What should we do with this projected surplus?
I have a simple four-word answer: Save Social Security first.
Our fiscal discipline gives us an unsurpassed opportunity to address a remarkable new challenge, the aging of America. With the number of elderly Americans set to double by 2030, the baby boom will become a senior boom.
So first and above all, we must save Social Security for the 21st century.
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, State of the Union Address, 1998
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/states/docs/sou99.htm#socialsecurity
Today, Social Security is strong, but by 2013, payroll taxes will no longer be sufficient to cover monthly payments. By 2032, the trust fund will be exhausted and Social Security will be unable to pay the full benefits older Americans have been promised....
From its beginnings, Americans have supplemented Social Security with private pensions and savings. Yet today millions of people retire with little to live on other than Social Security. Americans living longer than ever simply must save more than ever.
Therefore, in addition to saving Social Security and Medicare, I propose a new pension initiative for retirement security in the 21st century. I propose that we use a little over 11 percent of the surplus to establish universal savings accounts – USA accounts – to give all Americans the means to save.
With these new accounts, Americans can invest as they choose and receive funds to match a portion of their savings with extra help for those least able to save. USA accounts will help all Americans to share in our nation's wealth and to enjoy a more secure retirement. I ask you to support them.
William Jefferson Clinton, State of the Union Addresss, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/states/docs/sou00.htm
Tens of millions of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck. As hard as they work, they still don't have the opportunity to save. Too few can make use of IRAs and 401-K plans. We should do more to help all working families save and accumulate wealth. That's the idea behind the Individual Development Accounts, the IDAs. I ask you to take that idea to a new level, with new Retirement Savings Accounts that enable every low- and moderate-income family in America to save for retirement, a first home, a medical emergency, or a college education..... Those people ought to have retirement as well as the rest of us. (Applause.)
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, State of the Union Address, 2000
Different strokes for different folks, different "names" for the retirement accounts and different schemes for funding them, but if it looks like privatization and it walks like privatization and it smells like privatization....maybe it is privatization.
My brother confirms that, indeed, they can't do it anymore, but there are millions that are currently still enrolled in the system.
Arnold has made enemies of the Teacher's Union and most of the public employees. He's attacking Calpers right now, and for what reason I'm not sure. I'm glad that he is. The guy has guts.
Bush won, he controls the agenda, his tax reduction, refund works, the economy is good, his Social Security plan will be great for people...Oh btw, he was right on with the election in Iraq!!!
Now take your smarmy ass and go jump off a bridge with the rest of the loonies on the left!
I give you the purple finger salute!
Could it be Calpers' leading role in the Loony Left's attempt to destroy Wall Street? In any case, anyone willing to piss off the public employees unions has quite a bit of good in him.
Amen!
How many times have the Dems have declared a Bush program dead? Only to see it pass by healthy margins.
They're idiots.
Another example:
All this talk of "exit strategies", doom and gloom, and "bring the troops home".
It apparently hasn't occurred to them that---around this time next year---Bush will probably start doing just that. Approximate total withdrawal: JUST IN TIME FOR THE MID TERM ELECTIONS! And the Rats will be left sputtering on the sidelines as the Commander in Chief travels from base to base welcoming our boys back home.
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