Stan Greenberg and Carville are Bush Sock Puppets
by Gary Boatwright, Sat May 07, 2005 at 08:18:38 AM EDT
As strategists urge ideas, many in Congress would rather keep focus on the GOP's unpopular plan.
Every Democrat who doesn't want to keep the focus on Bush's unpopular plan is a Bush Sock Puppet Extraordinaire. This shouldn't even be up for discussion.
"Democrat forecast on Social Security: severe obstruction, no ideas," headlined a bulletin from the Republican National Committee on Friday.
That sounds like a damn good forecast to me. Any Democrat who offers ideas about how to help Bush destroy Social Security is a Sock Puppet.
Bush's proposal to let workers divert some of their payroll taxes into individual investment accounts has not fared well in public opinion surveys, and his endorsement last week of a plan to curtail future benefits of all but the lowest-earning 30% of workers is not faring much better.
The more Bush tries to defend privatization, the more unpopular it becomes:
Despite Bush's continual urging for politicians to put ideas on the table, many Democratic strategists say there is no down side to opposing Bush's plan and offering nothing in its place.
"The public will be satisfied to hear the Democrats just say no," said Guy Molyneux, a senior vice president of Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a Democratic polling firm. "As far as the public is concerned, Social Security's financial problem is not urgent, and Congress should take its time."
Uh oh! There are apparentlly some Dem Wits who don't want Bush to be lonely looking like a complete moron:
But now that the president has shown some of his cards with his support last week for curtailing benefits for retirees in the middle and upper reaches of the income scale, Democrats can no longer just say no, this line of thought holds.
Just when you think Democratic incompetence has reached an apex, they want to take us higher:
In a memo last month, Carville and colleague Stan Greenberg urged congressional Democrats to come up with an alternative to Bush's call for individual investment accounts.
Translation: Bush is winning the unpopularity war! We have to demonstrate to the American people that we have just as many ignorant ideas as Bush does.
This next part is the key. Democrats have done such a poor job of explaining Social Security, that the L.A. Times can actually print this nonsense:
Bush has cast the individual accounts as part of a broader plan, which is still taking shape, to improve the finances of the system.
The Social Security program's trustees estimate that, pressed by the retirement of the baby boom generation, Social Security will owe more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes starting in 2017. In 2041 it will have spent its entire accumulated surplus, and the payroll tax will be sufficient to pay 74% of promised benefits.
Until the Democrats can understand and explain two simple points, it is the height of incompetence to try and move the debate forward.
One, Bush has absolutely no interest in improving the finances of Social Security. Bush has not proposed anything. Bush has flapped his gums about private accounts and cutting benefits for the middle class. Democrats should keep the focus exactly where it is. Bush wants to destroy Social Security.
Two, estimates are estimates. The Democrats need to get with the program and start putting out their own estimates. The Democrats need to point out that the Social Security Trustees are Bush Sock Puppets:
Secretary of the Treasury John W Snow
Secretary of Labor Elaine L Chao
Secretary of HHS Michael O Leavitt
Commissioner of Social Security Jo Anne B Barnhart
They are all political appointees who serve at the will of the President (meaning they can be fired at any time)
together with:
Trustee Thomas R Saving
Trustee John L Palmer
who are Presidential appointees who serve four year terms.
Any notion that these Reports are insulated from political influence should be chucked out the window right now.
I've been following the Social Security minutae very closely and I didn't know that until Bruce Webb pointed it out. Democrats need to inform the American people that the Social Security Trustees are Bush Sock Puppets. Their estimate is worse than worthless, it is wrong and Bush is a liar. Social Security will not be bankrupt in 1942.
Stop the music! What did Carville suggest?
but they should seize the moment to address pension reform, health costs and other issues," Democratic strategist James Carville said Friday.
Do you detect the eerie similarity between what Rep. Bill Thomas just said and what James Carville said?
Query: What in the hell do health care costs, pension reform, long term care and tax restructuring have to do with Social Security? These are all separate and distinct issues. If Carville, Clinton and the rest of the Bush Sock Puppets let Bush and Thomas confuse the issue or put together a large omnibus bill that lumps them all together, Bush wins.
Both committees will probably have to act without significant Democratic support. "No spoonful of artificial sweeteners will lead us to support replacement of Social Security with private accounts," Rep. Levin said.
That appropriate adjective in that sentence should be absolutely no Democratic support.
We can only hope and pray that the latest batch of Bush Sock Puppets keep a sock in in and let Bush and the GOPers continue to drown in their own woebegotten ideological morass.
Their proposal relies on a variety of benefit cuts and tax increases to shore up Social Security's finances. But no politician has endorsed this approach.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, a Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, said there was no need to. Democrats would stick together, he said, "until the president realizes that private accounts are a nonstarter. The people have looked at privatization, and they have decided they like the security that comes with Social Security."
Why can't the Democratic party get unanimous agreement not to throw a Social Security life preserver to Bush?
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