Posted on 09/09/2011 2:32:55 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
There is a brand of Republican who looks at President Obama’s vulnerability on the economy and says, “Go for it!” They argue that the overriding issue of the campaign should be jobs — and that everything else should be a distant second.
There is another kind of Republican who sees the election of 2012 as a tipping point for the nation — a do-or-die moment when we will either pull back from the precipice of debt and national decline or fall off the edge. This second brand of Republican is hoping that a candidate will emerge who can lay before the American people the nature of the challenge we face in a direct and forthright way. If a campaign is run and won on the need to reform our obese government, the new president will have a mandate to take the necessary steps once in office.
After Wednesday’s Republican debate, it seems that Mitt Romney represents the first group, and Rick Perry stands for the second.
Members of the first camp — and it includes lots of smart people, such as Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Mike Murphy — may agree that defeating Obama is critical, but they argue that it’s tactically stupid to mention the looming bankruptcy of “popular” federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare. At Wednesday’s Republican debate, Mitt Romney, responding to Rick Perry’s earlier description of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” planted a flag and declared that “our nominee has to be someone who isn’t committed to abolishing Social Security, but who is committed to saving Social Security. . . . I will make sure that we keep the program and we make it financially secure. We save Social Security. And under no circumstances would I ever say by any measure it’s a failure. It is working for millions of Americans, and I’ll keep it working for millions of Americans. And we’ve got to do that as a party.”
Rubbish. How can you deny that a bankrupt government program is a failure? As for whether it’s a Ponzi scheme, well, when the program was adopted, there were 17 workers for every retiree, and the average life expectancy was 58 for men and 62 for women. By 2035, there will be an estimated 2.1 workers for every retiree, and life expectancy — even if it remains at 2011 levels (male 75, female 80) — will still be about 18 years longer. What Perry said was the simple truth: There will be no funds for 25-year-olds to draw upon when they reach retirement age.
There was a time when Social Security was a net asset to the government — which is why the federal government routinely raided the funds raised by the Social Security payroll tax to spend on other programs. But that is no longer true. As the Social Security trustees’ 2011 report documents, Social Security added $49 billion to last year’s budget deficit and is projected to add $46 billion to this year’s deficit. And $2.6 trillion of our $14 trillion national debt is owed to the Social Security trust fund. Or rather, “trust fund.”
This reality was dramatized during the debate over raising the debt ceiling, when President Obama attempted to scare seniors by warning that Social Security checks might not go out on time if recalcitrant Republicans continued to refuse to raise taxes. He thus exposed the naked truth — that the trust fund is bare and the checks to current and future beneficiaries depend upon taxes and borrowing.
The Romney Republicans want candidates to tiptoe around the question of entitlements, as if the truth will be too harsh for fragile voters to hear. But the voters are not so sensitive — nor so uninformed.
A Gallup poll taken in May found that 67 percent of Americans believe that Social Security and Medicare are already creating or will within ten years create “a crisis for the federal government.” That included 54 percent of Democrats. Another 19 percent expect the crisis within 10 to 20 years. Only 4 percent said the programs would not create a problem for more than 20 years, and 7 percent said “not in the foreseeable future.”
To face the facts about Social Security is not to throw granny over the cliff, as the Democrats would have it. There are reforms (such as the program adopted by Chile, as Herman Cain mentioned and as I wrote about recently) that would offer a better return for retirees and a better deal for younger workers. Republicans can also fairly propose gradual increases in the retirement age.
Either Americans are going to solve this problem by facing up to it, or they aren’t. But Republicans cannot hope to sneak the issue past the voters during election season with dishonest palaver and then impose a solution — or worse, join the Democrats in denial. On this issue, Rick Perry was treating voters as adults.
Perry said EXACTLY what he meant, THE TRUTH! He's said before and he will say again.
Amen, Sis. That's why I said I hope he doubles down and doesn't try to "clarify" his remarks.
This is an excellent opportunity to teach and espouse Conservatism.
Indeed, Congress should have passed major income tax simplification back in the 1980's when they had the chance--imagine what the US economy would be like if we had something like the Forbes income tax plan in place since the late 1980's!
Today is my last day on the job, i just turned 75 last month and one of the reasons i am quitting is because the job has been going down hill and the other reason is that there are other things i would like to do.
I don,t think i can live on a little more than a thousand a month but i figure on making a fortune by prospecting for gold, ha ha.
The only difference between social security and the internet ponzi schemes is that on the internet it is voluntary, however there are so many people just like me who are of the will of the wisp type and do not think of the future, that and the fact that i have been self employed a few times, ( yeah those rich business men ) many people felt something had to be done so they came up with what we got.
As some one once told me, Government is full of educated fools and the bigger government gets the more fools they get, it is time to try a different kind of retirement plan.
At any rate i have paid into it for many years and i am not going to volunteer to let them keep it.
People on it or about to be on it will be the last — hopefully.
Instead of making EVERYONE “buy” into the government program, people in true need could be assisted — (just as with health care). It is wrong to force the states to adopt the federal program, force it on the entire country and grow federal control — it always goes bust.
Indeed, Congress should have passed major income tax simplification back in the 1980’s when they had the chance—imagine what the US economy would be like if we had something like the Forbes income tax plan in place since the late 1980’s!
Rick Perry’s Air War (with the EPA)...........>>>Texas alone opted for the unfriendly approach. It’s the only state that did not issue a plan for compliance—and Perry has made it clear that Texas has no intention of complying. The move was a blatant slap to the Obama administration—and once again gave Perry the national spotlight. Defying the climate rules offered him the perfect opportunity to loudly decry the science of global warming—which in his book Fed Up! he calls a “contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight”—and to slam EPA as a “rogue agency” with an “activist mind-set” that has “targeted Texas.” Such rhetoric is viral catnip to the tea party voters who could help catapult Perry to the 2012 presidential nomination.<<<..............
And over 60 percent say that they also oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. So being hell-bent on ending Social Security is a wise course only if you have a better alternative to offer. Still waiting on Perry to identify that.
It's been working for him so far.
You are aware that the only people in those three Texas counties who participate in the plan are county workers, aren't you? So what about the rest of the population?
It’s a model!!
They OPTED OUT!
So should we!
If Obamacare is unconstitutional because the government cannot force individuals to buy health insurance from a private company then how can it be constitutional for the government to require individual to invest in a retirement account with a private company?
You work for the county government, do you?
In Texas Schools, Perry Shuns Federal Influence ………>>>When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan jabbed Mr. Perry on public schools in mid-August, it was only the latest skirmish between the governor and the Obama administration since late 2009, when Mr. Perry announced that the state would not sign on to common core-curriculum standards.<<<...
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NO! I don’t.
And I don’t work for any campaigns, political party or PAC or anything.
I find it interesting that you and others think I must do this from some angle other than wanting to FIX this mess!!
So how do you see it working then?
I find it interesting that you and others think I must do this from some angle other than wanting to FIX this mess!!
Everyone says they want to fix the mess. But nobody seems to have a coherent plan to do it.
Trial lawyers prep for war on Perry America’s trial lawyers are getting ready to make the case against one of their biggest targets in years: Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Among litigators, there is no presidential candidate who inspires the same level of hatred – and fear – as Perry, an avowed opponent of the plaintiffs’ bar who has presided over several rounds of tort reform as governor.
And if Perry ends up as the Republican nominee for president, deep-pocketed trial lawyers intend to play a central role in the campaign to defeat him.
That’s a potential financial boon to a president who has unsettled trial lawyers with his own rhetorical gestures in the direction of tort reform. A general election pitting Barack Obama and Perry could turn otherwise apathetic trial lawyers into a phalanx of pro-Obama bundlers and super PAC donors......."
The cavalry!
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