posted 02-25-2004 06:08 PM            

Kerry already commented negatively on it!

Terry McCauliff said the same, but mentioned how both houses are controlled by Republicans so the best way to turn this around would be a Democrat White House and more Dems in both houses!

I tell you, we baby boomers will be up in arms about this! Definately you're "right on" about this announcement hurting Bush's campaign -- Osama or no Osama!

DANG!

The deficit has to be fixed, but not by sacrificing what's left of social security! Why not pull back troops from the oil war activity Bush so desires? You see, this is the difference! The Dems would rather go slow, pass laws to speed up alternative energies, and not sink so much money into defense for the sake of oil!

And can you believe how Bush positively praised "outsourcing" on this week's speech? OMG!

YUP, they're shooting themselves in their feet again!

Don't forget to watch the Dem debates tomorrow night!

posted 02-25-2004 06:17 PM            

I know who ALWAYS stands to gain REGARDLESS WHO is in the white house.

The democrats are on the INSIDE what the republicans are on the OUTSIDE.

posted 02-25-2004 08:42 PM            

I'm on the light side and I see Dems as more light than the Repubs!

Shatoga has it right!

posted 02-25-2004 08:49 PM            

Lets just leave it at that.

posted 02-26-2004 12:43 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Mech:
In fact...I will go as far as to say you need NOT WORRY about Bush getting re-elected.

We will see if I'm right.

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I hope you're right Mech.

But Reagan already shafted working Americans' retirement age/benefits;
and got re-elected with a compliant media's help.

plans call for reductions as great as 43 percent

The Reagan "reforms" have already increased payroll taxes and raised the retirment age for workers.
http://www.drdaveanddee.com/socialsecurity.html

quote:

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>People born in 1938 and after will be affected, and it's a gradual age increase. For example, those born in 1938, the full retirement age increases from 65 years to 65 years and 2 months; those born in 1950, the age increase is from 65 to 66 years.

The age at which a person can receive Social Security retirement benefits is still 62. Benefits are reduced for each month a person receives benefits before full retirement age.
<
The current Social Security age increase chart is at:
http://finance.americanexpress.com/sif/cda/page/0,1641,15149,00.asp

(It has been excised from the official social security website, but can be found)
http://research.aarp.org/econ/2000_15_eligibility_1.html
AARP:
>The normal age of retirement (NAR) is scheduled to increase under current law to age 67,
and there are multiple proposals being considered to increase it to age 70.<

me: Reagan raised the retirement age and raised payroll taxes, and the media were virtually silent.
bush has a lap dog media that only report what the Administration wants them too.
He can get away with placing the second "(R) dagger-in-the-back" of working americans' retirement.

Recent History of Social Security:
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/ref/rrpres.htm
>Economic Policy<
>During his first year in office, Reagan engineered the passage of $39 billion in budget cuts into law, as well as a massive 25 percent tax cut spread over three years for individual, and faster write-offs for capital investment for business. At the same time, he insisted on, and for the most part, was successful in gaining increased funding for defense....a severe recession set in, with unemployment exceeding 10% in October, 1982 for the first time in forty years. The administration modified its economic policy after two years by proposing selected tax increases and budget cuts to control rising deficits and higher interest rates.<
>The economic gains, however, came at a cost of a record annual deficit and a ballooning national debt.<
>Domestic Affairs
Reagan's domestic policies had a major impact on the American people and will have for many years. He followed p the passage of the largest tax cut in U.S. history by supporting and signing into law the Tax Reform law of 1986. Reagan led the battle for a Social Security reform bill designed to ensure the long-term solvency of the system,<

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quote:

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>At the start of his administration, with Social Security teetering on the brink of insolvency, Reagan attempted to push through immediate draconian cuts to the program. But the Senate unanimously rebuked his plan, and the GOP lost 26 House seats in the 1982 midterm elections, largely as a result of this overreach.
The following year, Reagan made one of the greatest ideological about-faces in the history of the presidency, agreeing to a $165 billion bailout of Social Security. In almost every way, the bailout flew in the face of conservative ideology. It dramatically increased payroll taxes on employees and employers, brought a whole new class of recipients--new federal workers--into the system, and, for the first time, taxed Social Security benefits,<

>"He said he would cut the budget, and he did," declares Peggy Noonan in When Character Was King. In fact, the budget grew significantly under Reagan. All he managed to do was moderately slow its rate of growth. What's more, the number of workers on the federal payroll rose by 61,000 under Reagan. (By comparison, under Clinton, the number fell by 373,000.) <
>It's conservative lore that Reagan the icon cut taxes, while George H.W. Bush the renegade raised them. As Stockman recalls, "No one was authorized to talk about tax increases on Ronald Reagan's watch, no matter what kind of tax, no matter how justified it was." Yet raising taxes is exactly what Reagan did. He did not always instigate those hikes or agree to them willingly--but he signed off on them. One year after his massive tax cut, Reagan agreed to a tax increase to reduce the deficit that restored fully one-third of the previous year's reduction. (In a bizarre bit of self-deception, Reagan, who never came to terms with this episode of ideological apostasy, persuaded himself that the three-year, $100 billion tax hike--the largest since World War II--was actually "tax reform" that closed loopholes in his earlier cut and therefore didn't count as raising taxes.)
Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives--and probably cost Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection--Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84.<

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quote:

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>Regarding
The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security
October 3, 2002<
>...on the final report of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security...<
>...the president chose to require that the commission's final recommendation would allow today's workers to divert at least a portion of their payroll taxes to risk-bearing private, personal accounts. With no debate on the merits, the president thus ordered the commission to introduce privatization, a radical departure from the current insurance model. Privatization siphons precious resources from the insurance pool as it exposes a greater share of retirement income to market risk.
Off limits was any discussion of increasing revenues; this mandate precluded the commission from considering a number of alternatives to benefit cuts, including a proposal to restore the taxable wage base to historic levels by raising the cap to cover about 90 percent of covered wages.<
>The commissioners fashioned all three plans so that those opting for the accounts take an "actuarially equivalent" reduction in their guaranteed insurance benefits. Plan 1 further threatens defined benefits by failing to achieve solvency. Plan 2 and Plan 3 pay for incentives to entice individuals to opt for the accounts through additionally cutting the defined benefit. Plans 2 and 3 threaten still further cuts by relying on currently unavailable general fund revenues to achieve solvency. Ironically, these general funds, according to Dr. Peter Orszag, if applied directly to the existing program with no private accounts, would be sufficient to close as much as two-thirds of the current solvency gap without cutting benefits.
<
>All three plans call for reductions as great as 43 percent in the guaranteed benefit for those retiring in 2075.<
>The administration also sought to limit discussion by selectively appointing to the commission only individuals who already had expressed support for privatization. By contrast, President Reagan's 1983 Greenspan Commission included noted scholars, members of Congress, seniors' advocates, corporate leaders and representatives of organized labor—all of whom were given little instruction beyond a mandate to recommend changes necessary to preserve the program.<
>Privatization sounds appealing in concept but is fatal in reality. The devil is in the details.<
>Statement of
The Honorable Barbara B. Kennelly
President and CEO of the
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare<

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When they say "reform" they mean:
"higher taxes and lower benefits"