Social Security

Hang On to Your Wallet! The Government is About to Rescue Us

dlindorff — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:55:19 -0400

by Dave Lindorff

When the financial markets started coming undone earlier this week,
the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve stepped in, and with $85
billion of our money (actually our children's money,
since they borrowed it from China and Saudi Arabia), bought foundering
AIG, the world's largest insurance company, and assumed its colossal
pile of crap debt.

That didn't help, and the stock market crashed further, falling to
levels not seen in three years. Banks, meanwhile, stopped lending,
figuring to just hold onto their money and try to weather the crash.
The US Treasury and the Fed stepped in again, this time pumping nearly
$300 billion more of our money into foreign money markets, and getting
European and other governments to do the same in an effort to get the
credit markets open again and to stop the stock market swoon. That was
on top of some $700 billion already spent on bailouts.

It didn't work. Thursday, the markets continued to fall, well into
the afternoon, and it looked like another seriously down day. But then
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came up with a new idea. He said he
and the Bush administration were considering setting up a new agency to
assume all the bad debt of the banking sector--meaning all those bad
loans they made, and that they lured unsuspecting consumers into taking
out, by way of deceptive marketing techniques and outright fraud.

Note that we're talking about perhaps half a trillion dollars
here--of our money again. And remember, much or even most of this money
will never get repaid, and we're talking about money that could have
funded reduced class sizes in every school in America, a national
healthcare system, a crash R&D program into non-carbon energy and (not or) a strengthened Social Security and Medicare program.

The drones in the Democratic Party leadership in Congress
immediately jumped on the bandwagon, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-CA) urging her charges to act quickly to get some kind of a bill out
there to facilitate the bail-out, which could cost anywhere from $600
billion to $1 trillion, but most estimates.

The thing to remember here is that this is not a rescue of the
little guy (though the Democrats say their rescue plan, when it
appears, will include some kind of relief for people unable to pay
their mortgages). Don't hold your breath. Odds are those people facing
foreclosure will still be unable to pay their mortgages, and besides,
there's no way there will be relief for the majority of homeowners who aren't missing their mortgage payments, but who are struggling mightily to meet them each month.

Primarily, who gets helped by this enforced taxpayer largesse are
the fat cats who own all the stock in these financial institutions, all
the executives who pay themselves outsize salaries each year for their
lousy management records, all these hotshot traders who make the deals
that later turn sour, long after they've run off to another job taking
their bonuses with them.

We ordinary people, who live from check to check, will feel the
pain of this "rescue" in the form of higher taxes in coming years, and
in a devalued dollar--because you can bet that all that money they're
printing, and all that added debt they're piling on to the mountain of
debt already out there is going to make the rest of the world pretty
queasy about holding onto dollar-denominated debt, or about buying any
more of it.

When you hear a banker say he's going to help you, it pays to hang
onto your wallet. When you hear a politician say he's going to help
you, hang onto your wallet. If they're both saying the same thing, and
especially if one of them is the head of the Federal Reserve Bank, then
you better really hang on tight.

Not that that will do any good.

The real answer to this crisis is, firstly, a massive dose of
trust-busting, so that no bank or investment bank or insurance company
is so big that its failure becomes a threat to the financial system,
and thus the government has to rescue it with taxpayer money, and
secondly, a return to the era of Glass-Steagall, when it was illegal
for banks to also be in the investment banking busiiness.

All the talk of "efficiencies" and of "better service to the
customer" that has been endlessly parroted to justify mergers like
Citicorp and Travelers, or JP Morgan and Chase Bank, or now Bank of
America and Merrill Lynch is fraudulent. Just to give an example, my
bank, once known as Willow Grove Bank, a small family-owned
institution, was bought by another bank and became Willow Financial.
Almost immediately the staffing levels went down. Recently, the
combined entity, which ran into trouble, was bought by another
institution, Harleyville Bank. Now there are half as many tellers most
of the time. As one teller confided, "Every time we get bought, they
lay people off."

Of course they do. That's what mergers always do. To recoup the
costs of the merger, management cuts back on service and employment.

The truth is, for all the talk about the efficiencies of bigness,
getting a mortgage today isn't any cheaper than it was in the 1950s,
when there wasn't even any such thing as a national bank that would be
"too big to fail."

The real reason we have mega financial institutions is that mega
financial institutions pay mega bucks to managers and make mega
donations to the campaign coffers of politicians. They also get to put
some of those mega-buck managers into key advisory positions in each
administration, Republican and Democrat, to ensure that government
polices allow them to get even bigger and even richer--and to ensure
that when they screw it up, they get rescued at the taxpayers' expense.
__________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006
and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Does Anyone Want to Buy a Private Pension Plan? Going Once...

dlindorff — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:17:54 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

That deafening silence you hear coming from the McCain campaign is
straight-talkin’ John touting his plan for privatizing Social
Security...not.

With Wall Street banks falling like dominoes, a hundred billion dollars vanishing overnight, and the Treasury
Department scampering about trying to prop up failing enterprises
from Bear Stearns to Fannie Mae, and with domestic and global equity
and bond markets swooning, Americans are afraid to open those envelopes
that come every quarter telling them the value of their hard-earned
401(k) retirement plans.

No wonder John McCain isn’t touting privatizaton these days.

It’s not just that many of those private 401(k) plans McCain and
his ilk so love for the working stiff were invested in the very
financial institutions that have seen their share values drop to zero,
or in other financial institutions that were themselves heavily
invested in the stocks or debt instruments of the growing list of
failed institutions. It’s that the tottering US financial edifice is
shaking the broader markets, making stocks, bonds, and even giant
insurance companies like AIG look like houses of cards, and a poor bet
for funding one’s dotage.

Paul Krugman, in today’s New York Times, says that the Federal
Reserve Bank and the US Treasury Department, in letting Lehman Bros,
the nation’s fourth largest investment bank, go bankrupt, instead of
doing yet another government bailout, was a kind of financial Russian
roulette. Could Lehman’s collapse lead to a wholesale collapse of Wall
Street and the US banking system, ala 1929-31? Krugman says,
incredibly, that nobody really knows, including Fed Chairman Ben
Bernacke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

That’s not the kind of thing you want to hear when you’ve managed,
over the course of a working life, to save maybe a few hundred grand in
a tax-deferred retirement plan that is all invested in stocks and
bonds. Nor is it very comforting, if you are one of the millions of
Americans who put your money into some kind of insurance annuity,
expecting to get a guaranteed stream of income for life, to hear that
AIG, the largest insurance company and one of the biggest issuers of
such “private pension” programs, is struggling to come up with $40
billion in cash to avoid going belly up itself.

Now fortunately, for nearly all American workers, there is a
backstop: Social Security, which is not invested in any financial
instruments, and which pays out monthly benefits to retired and
disabled workers and their dependents based not upon the whims of the
markets but on the lifetime earnings of the worker in question. Unlike
a 401(k) investment, which is dependent for its size and reliability on
the performance of the financial markets in which its assets are
invested, or an annuity, which is dependent upon the financial survival
and viability of the insurance company which issued it, Social Security
is a program in which the payments of benefits are an obligation of the
federal government, and are paid from a fund of money that has been
paid into by the retiree and her employer in earlier years, by current
workers and their employers who pay a tax on current earnings, and, if
necessary, by supplemental funds allocated by the Congress. Social
Security benefits are adjusted each year for inflation (though since
President Bill Clinton, those adjustments have been reduced because of
a sleight of hand that makes inflation appear to be less than it really
is).

McCain, and Republicans in general, have been pressing for years to
have Social Security privatized, or partially privatized, with at least
some of the money taken from employees and employers for Social
Security invested in financial instruments such as stocks or bonds.
They’ve tried to sell this snake oil to young workers by pointing to
the rising stock market, and claiming ominously that some day, with so
many current workers approaching retirement, Social Security will go
“bankrupt.” Last year, the Bush Administration, which has filled the
Social Security Administration with GOP hacks, actually had notices
sent out to every American worker warning that “unless something is
done,” Social Security might not be there for younger workers when it’s
their turn to retire.

This kind of cynical scare tactic is beneath contempt, and is
designed to weaken support for one of the most significant progressive
legacies of the New Deal. The reality is that as the Baby Boom
generation reaches retirement, starting with the first Boomers who will
hit 65 in 2011, the elderly lobby, already enormously powerful, will
swell to become perhaps the most powerful “special interest” voting
bloc this nation has ever seen. Retired Americans will have the
electoral clout in another 10 years to make Social Security whatever
they want it to be.

They (we really, since at 59 I am part of that generation) will
insure that the government pays us and our fellow retirees a decent
retirement stipend, and we will also insist that reforms be undertaken
to insure that our kids also get secure retirements.

We will do this not by undermining the program, as McCain and other
Republicans have called for, by privatizing all or part Social
Security, but by making sure that every dollar earned by even the
richest of people is taxed, instead of having the social security tax
limited to the first roughly $100,000 of earnings. We will demand that
if more taxes are needed, they be paid by employers, not workers.
Currently employers and employees each pay about 7.5% of wages as a
payroll tax into the Social Security Trust Fund. There is no reason why
that split should be 50/50, though. Employers could pay a bigger share.
(Right wing economists try to argue that any tax paid by an employer
ultimately comes out of the employees’ wages, but this ignores the law
of supply and demand: workers don’t negotiate wages, or accept a job at
a certain pay level, based upon the gross wage being paid, but on what
they will be taking home each payday. Extra taxes paid by an employer
could not be automatically taken out of employee pay. They would have
to come out of corporate profits.)

The timing of the current spreading financial crisis has exposed
McCain’s call for privatization of Social Security as a bad idea
masquerading as reform. Since McCain can be expected to pursue the idea
if elected, it’s just one more reason for American voters to reject his
candidacy.
______________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006
and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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digg_title = "Does Anyone Want to Buy a Private Pension Plan? Going Once...";
digg_bodytext = "By Dave Lindorff\r\n\r\n That deafening silence you hear coming from the McCain campaign is straight-talkin’ John touting his plan for privatizing Social Security...not.\r\n\r\n With Wall Street banks falling like dominoes, and the Treasury Department scampering about with trying to prop up failing enterprises from Bear Stearns to Fannie Mae, and with domestic and global equity and bond markets swooning, Americans are afraid to open those envelopes that come every quarter telling them the value of their hard-earned 401(k) retirement plans.\r\n\r\n No wonder John McCain isn’t touting privatizaton these days.\r\n \r";
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There Are No Unintended Consequences in Politics

Chip — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 17:42:44 -0400

Bush and his cronies are out to destroy our country (and others, too!) in pursuit of his "One World Order." This is part of a huge fascist plot to undermine democracies - including our constitutional republic.

For those who think this is extremist, take a look at a former thread about the NAFTA Superhighway.

And to those who continue to wave the flag patriotically, however thoughtlessly, don't think It Can't Happen Here. Don't think "This can't be happening!" It can, and is.

Maybe, finally, the immigration issue will cause our neighbors on the other side of the aisle to take time to look at the issues, not as right vs. left, but rather as right vs. wrong, even as Pat Buchanan writes "His" (Bush's) "refusal to defend and secure the borders is well-nigh impeachable....Time to lock and load."

Opponents of the Immigration Act are gathering in a March for America and are petitioning in accordance with Jefferson's Manual.

The mainstream media consolidation has meant a uniformity of content and message. That's consistent with the sixth characteristic of fascism, controlled mass media.

Bush's support for the immigration bill illuminates (an accurate pun, intended) a carefully contrived, incrementally segmented, well-dispersed series of actions leading toward the ultimate goal of globalization. Fragment the picture into enough small pieces, enough incremental legislation, and it will go undetected - until it is too late, and accomplished.

The immigration bill is one piece of that picture. The bigger picture is the merger of the North American continent into one trading block: one currency, diminished if not obliterated national sovereignty, etc.

As always, the key question is: "Who benefits? Who pays?" To answer that question, take a look at just one impact of this "immigration bill."

"In February 2004, Congress passed H.R. 743, the Social Security Protection Act, which includes a provision authored by Senator Grassley (R-Iowa), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that prohibits aliens (and their spouses and dependents) from claiming social security credit for work performed while in the United States illegally unless the alien obtains legal status at some point. Although this represents a major improvement in the law, it does not entirely close the loophole that permits benefits to be paid on the basis of work performed by illegal aliens. As noted in the Senate Finance Committee's report on H.R. 743, "individuals who begin working illegally and later obtain legal status could still use their illegal earnings to qualify for Social Security benefits" despite this new provision (Senate Rpt.108-176, p. 24).

This law applies to aliens of all nationalities, regardless of the existence of totalization agreements. The agreements compound the problem, however, by increasing the pool of foreign workers who can qualify for U.S. social security benefits on the basis of work performed while here illegally. Under totalization agreements:

Foreign workers can qualify with as few as 6 quarters of work, rather than 40 quarters (benefits would be prorated to reflect only credits earned in the United States); and
More family members of workers are entitled to benefits, because the agreement waives rules that restrict certain payments to non-citizen dependents living outside the United States. Under current law, non-citizen spouses and children must have lived in the United States for at least five years (lawfully or unlawfully), and the family relationship to the worker must have existed during that time in order for them to receive benefits while outside the United States. A totalization agreement overrides this requirement."

Notice that a foreign worker (another possible euphemism for "illegal immigrant") may qualify for social security benefits after as little as 6 quarters? While American citizens don't qualify until 40 quarters?

But there's more, to just this one aspect of the proposed immigration bill. There's the law of unintended consequences.

"For example, a worker who turns 62 after 1990 generally needs 40 calendar quarters of coverage to receive retirement benefits. Under totalization agreements, workers are allowed to combine earnings from both countries in order to qualify for benefits. The Agreement with Mexico, like other totalization agreements, would allow workers to qualify with just six quarters, or 18 months, of US coverage.

But Mexico's retirement system is radically different from that of the United States. For example, only 40 percent of non-government workers participate in Mexico's system, whereas 96 percent of America's non-government workers do. In addition, the US system is progressive, meaning lower wage earners get back much more than they put in; in Mexico, workers get back only what they put in, plus accrued interest."

Care to venture a guess what the outcomes of the law of unintended consequences will be?

The impact of the proposed law becomes even more interesting (and twisted) when one considers just two more factors: 1) there's been no comprehensive study - read that "guesstimate" - of the potential cumulative financial ramifications of the economic impacts, and therefore, the impact on the American taxpayer is unknown, and 2) it appears the government is (again, or still, depending on your perspective or disillusionment) "cooking the books." According to a Congressional Research Study done by the Library of Congress:

"Currently, since Mexico meets the “social insurance country” definition, a Mexican worker may receive U.S. Social Security benefits outside the United States. Family members of the Mexican worker must have lived in the United States for at least five years to receive benefits in Mexico, but typically under a totalization agreement, this requirement is waived allowing the payment of benefits to alien dependents and survivors who have never lived in the United States.

The Social Security Administration reports that the projected cost of the agreement would average $105 million annually over the first five years. In September 2003, the Government Accountability Office reported that “the cost of a totalization agreement with Mexico is highly uncertain” because of the large number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico estimated to be living in the United States."

So, we are to believe although we don't accurately known the number of illegal immigrants in the country, we can reasonably estimate the the cost to provide them social security benefits? Is it credible to think that $105 million annually will cover the social security benefit costs without knowing the number of illegals in the country, let alone their ages? This sounds like crystal ball calculating!

This is precisely the reason that the immigration bill - which will give amnesty to lawbreakers - is a hot button issue. It is not an accident that we see thousands of illegal aliens in the streets demonstrating - often waving their homeland countries' flags - openly demanding amnesty for their illegal entry into the country. They know that they are cheap labor to the corporate interests - "Who will pick your tomatoes?" - and they know that they have a quasi-protection in the current corporate-controlled political environment. And the government is happy to collect their tax receipts, often under falsified social security numbers and names, and sequester the funds. According to the CRS report:

"The Social Security Administration (SSA) maintains an “earnings suspense file” that represents an estimated $520 billion in wages that cannot be posted to individual work records because the names and Social Security Numbers (SSNs) on wage reports submitted by employers to SSA (W-2 forms) do not match SSA’s records.7"

Experience has taught illegal immigrants that they can cross the border and have a better life (albeit exploited) in the states than in their own countries, where their governments are too corrupt to support and reward the economic development of individuals - or shrewd enough to negotiate favorable agreements.

There are a whole range of actions that could be taken to work toward eliminating illegal immigration if we have the political will to do so, but, instead, the politicians would rather grab the money and keep their corporate benefactors quiet; it props up the government's fiscal picture.

Never mind the taxpayers who will pay the tab for increased eligibility to social security - or the whole range of other social services, such as health, education, corrections, police and fire, etc.

This is a complex problem (I've omitted numerous other complicating considerations and factors, like "anchor babies," children born in the US of illegal immigrants) that the politicians want to simplify and dispense with through amnesty, unintended consequences be damned. But that's not the only answer, is it?

The best "amnesty" program is economic development in their own countries, where they can live with and support their own families and communities.

###

For an overview of the S.1348, the Immigration Reform Act of 2007, see: http://usliberals.about.com/od/immigration/i/BushImmiReform.htm

Bush Readies Sign-Off on Social Security for Illegal Aliens

Chip — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 01:29:14 -0500

Despite the pervasive media buzz, the 109th Congress did little about social security insecurity. Now comes the good news that a dedicated group of retired military enlisted personnel prevailed in their three-and-a-half-year long pursuit for public disclosure of Bush’s U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement.

At a time when American citizens, especially the bulge generation of baby boomers, are increasingly uneasy about what part of their retirement income they can depend on social security to provide, Bush is preparing to sign into law without Congressional approval (though Congress would have 60 days to vote to reject it) the U.S.-Mexico Totalization agreement negotiated in June, 2004.

A loophole in current Social Security law allows illegal immigrants who worked in the U.S. and paid taxes using fraudulent social security numbers to eventually receive Social Security benefits. The Congressional Research Service estimates that there is currently $520 Billion dollars in a fund set aside to for social security payments that cannot be tied to a federally-issued social security accounts for workers.

A 2003 General Accounting Office study concluded that the Social Security Administration (SSA) had no rules for implementing totalization agreements and did sketchy work evaluating the fiscal stability of Mexico’s social security system.

“SSA has no written policies or procedures it follows when entering into totalization agreements, and the actions it took to assess the integrity and compatibility of Mexico’s social security system were limited and neither transparent nor well-documented...SSA provided no information showing that it assessed the reliability of Mexican earnings data and the internal controls used to ensure the integrity of information that SSA will rely on to pay social security benefits.

The proposed agreement will likely increase the number of unauthorized Mexican workers and family members eligible for social security benefits. Mexican workers who ordinarily could not receive social security retirement benefits because they lack the required 40 coverage credits for U.S. earnings could qualify for partial social security benefits with as few as 6 coverage credits. In addition, under the proposed agreement, more family members of covered Mexican workers would become newly entitled because the agreements usually waive rules that prevent payments to noncitizens’ dependents and survivors living outside the United States.

The cost of such an agreement is highly uncertain. In March 2003, the Office of the Chief Actuary estimated that the cost of the Mexican agreement would be $78 million in the first year and would grow to $650 million (in constant 2002 dollars) in 2050. The actuarial cost estimate assumes the initial number of newly eligible Mexican beneficiaries is equivalent to the 50,000 beneficiaries living in Mexico today and would grow sixfold over time. However, this proxy figure does not directly consider the estimated millions of current and former unauthorized workers and family members from Mexico and appears small in comparison with those estimates. The estimate also inherently assumes that the behavior of Mexican citizens would not change and does not recognize that an agreement would create an additional incentive for unauthorized workers to enter the United States to work and maintain documentation to claim their earnings under a false identity...

Currently, social security credits are earned by anyone who has worked in covered employment in the United States. This is true even if the person was unauthorized to work when he or she earned coverage credits. For example, noncitizens, including Mexicans, who are at least 62 years old and lawfully present in the United States, will receive retirement benefits today as long as they meet the coverage credit threshold. Even Mexican citizens who are not lawfully present in this country can receive social security benefits earned through unauthorized employment if they later return to live in Mexico. Similarly, under current law, noncitizen dependents and survivors can also receive social security benefits under some circumstances.”

There is no doubt who profits from illegal labor: corporate and business interests who benefit from the illegal labor depressing wage rates. Approximately 7 million hard-working, non-unionized illegal aliens willingly do all types of work without complaints for fear of deportation. And the Bush administration ignored its responsibility to enforce the law. “Just four notices of intent to fine employers of unauthorized workers were issued in 2004, down from 417 in 1999, according to the Government Accounting Office.”

The Democratic Party agenda on retirement security is clear. “Democrats believe that after a life of hard work, you earn a secure retirement. Our commitment to protecting the promise of Social Security is absolute.”

As legislators grapple with the competing interests for retirement security between generations and among constituent groups, a ballooning war-generated deficit and red ink federal budgets for years to come, we again see how Bush’s policies divide rather than unite us, to the benefit of corporate benefactors.

Paging Charlie Rangel! Bush Wants to Tax The Rich

Bob Fertik — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 10:46:04 -0500

On December 7, I proposed a wealth surtax to pay for all past and future costs of the Iraq Occupation - not because I support a wealth surtax, but because I believe it would end the occupation in a nanosecond because wealthy Americans would never be willing to pay for it.

Never could I have imagined that George Bush is also proposing to tax the rich!

Of course, Bush is trying to con Democrats into supporting Social Security privatization - something no Democrat who wants to be re-elected will support.

But if Bush wants to put a tax increase for the rich on the table, why don't Democrats sit down at the table and offer to support his tax increase if it is used to pay for all of the costs of Iraq?

Charlie Rangel, are you listening?

WeDemocrats.org

wedemocrats — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:35:15 -0500

WeDemocrats In order to stimulate an active interest in government affairs, to restore TRUST of our government, to foster and perpetuate the idea of FREEDOM and principles of a Democratic Nation and to provide for our people through administration of the highest degree of justice, FAIRNESS and social welfare, do associate ourselves together as an official progressive grassroots organization, of the Progressives' Democratic Party. Auxilary groups on Democrats.org and BarackObama.com.
What will help Democrats win elections will be a surge in grassroots energy and a reengaged corps of activists who are working to take their party and country back. 6,236 - IN ALL 50 STATES AND DC!!! It’s a Fantastic Start.
Join this group!

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http://www.WeDemocrats.org

ron@wedemocrats.org

Join WeDemocrats at: http://www.wedemocrats.org/dadamail/mail.cgi/list/maillist/

Krugman: "Social Security Lessons"

Ted Kahl — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 10:43:27 -0400

Social Security turned 70 yesterday. And to almost everyone's surprise, the nation's most successful government program is still intact.

Just a few months ago the conventional wisdom was that President Bush would get his way on Social Security. Instead, Mr. Bush's privatization drive flopped so badly that the topic has almost disappeared from national discussion.

Many pundits and editorial boards still give Mr. Bush credit for trying to "reform" Social Security. In fact, Mr. Bush came to bury Social Security, not to save it. Over time, the Bush plan would have transformed Social Security from a social insurance program into a mutual fund, with nothing except a name in common with the system F.D.R. created.

n addition to misrepresenting his goals, Mr. Bush repeatedly lied about the current system. Oh, I'm sorry - was that a rude thing to say? Still, the fact is that Mr. Bush repeatedly said things that were demonstrably false and that his staff must have known were false. The falsehoods ranged from his claim that Social Security is unfair to African-Americans to his claim that "waiting just one year adds $600 billion to the cost of fixing Social Security."

Meanwhile, the administration politicized the Social Security Administration and used taxpayer money to promote a partisan agenda. Social Security officials participated in what were in effect taxpayer- financed political rallies, from which skeptical members of the public were excluded.

[...]

But the campaign for privatization provided an object lesson in how the administration sells its policies: by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies. These were the same tactics used to sell both tax cuts and the Iraq war.

And there are two reasons to study that lesson. One is to be prepared for whatever comes next on Mr. Bush's agenda. Despite the tough talk about Iran, I don't think he can propose another war - there aren't enough troops to fight the wars we already have. But there's still room for another big domestic initiative, probably tax reform.

Forewarned is forearmed: the real goals of reform won't be as advertised, the administration will say things about the current system that aren't true, and the Treasury Department will function in a purely partisan capacity.

The other is that the public's visceral rejection of privatization, together with growing dismay over the debacle in Iraq, offers Democrats an opportunity to make an issue of the administration's pattern of deception. The question is whether they will dare to seize that opportunity, when for some of them it means admitting that they, too, were fooled.

The Carefully Staged Bamboozlepalooza

Ted Kahl — Fri, 20 May 2005 23:33:41 -0400

(LA Times) MILWAUKEE -- As President Bush resumes his cross-country campaigning to promote his vision of Social Security restructuring, it's no secret that he's relying on outside organizations to help provide the supporting cast.

Yet a memo circulated this week among members of one group, Women Impacting Public Policy, illustrates the lengths to which the White House has gone to make sure that the right points are made at the president's public appearances.

"President Bush will be in Rochester, N.Y., for an upcoming event and has called on WIPP for help," the memo to members stated.

It went on to describe several types of workers the White House wanted to appear on stage with Bush, starting with a young wage-earner "who knows that SS could run out before they retire."

Each participant would represent some aspect of Bush's proposal to let younger workers divert a portion of their payroll taxes into individual investment accounts that they would control. The accounts, in turn, would be part of a broader restructuring plan that would slow the growth of benefits to ensure Social Security's solvency.

"Essentially, everybody needs to be under the age of 29," the memo said. It requested an immediate response, because "we will need to get names to the White House."

The solicitation reflected the latest refinement of the White House sales strategy for Social Security, featuring a heightened emphasis on younger workers. The new theme was on full display today as Bush took his Social Security roadshow to Wisconsin, the 26th state he has visited to promote the restructuring.

"You got any thoughts about Social Security?" Bush asked 22-year-old Concordia University senior Christy Paavola, one of five younger workers who appeared on stage with him at the Milwaukee Museum of Art.

"Yes," Paavola replied. "I don't think it's going to be there when I retire, which is really scary."

"Got anything else you want to say?" Bush asked.

"I really like the idea of personal savings accounts," Paavola said.

"You did a heck of a job," Bush said. "You deserve an A."

The president said he intended to continue reminding "youngsters" like Paavola that "they need to get involved in this issue because if the United States Congress does not act, we have saddled a young generation with an incredible burden."

[...]

Bush's talk-show-style events are a key part of the White House's strategy. They typically feature one Social Security expert and several workers or retirees who sit on stools next to the president and explain why they think the accounts would be a good idea.

Although it is common for advocacy groups and political organizations to spotlight supportive views at public events, the WIPP memo suggests that the White House has provided outside organizations with explicit instructions on the kind of participants it has in mind.

"He would like to visit with local workers about their views on Social Security. The following is some information on who he would like to visit with," it said.

In addition to a younger worker who feared Social Security would run out of money, it said the White House also was looking for parents who wanted to pass on their retirement nest eggs to their children, a single parent not eligible for Social Security spousal benefits, a business owner who pays both the employer and employee share of payroll taxes, and a college senior about to enter the workforce.

"Business/accounting/finance majors are typically the best candidates as they already understand the investment concepts," it said.

Stop Nuclear Strike with a Cellular Spike! - Mass Immediate Reponse

CactusPat — Sun, 15 May 2005 20:56:32 -0400

PFAW has set up a text message system to counter the expected "NUKULAR" Option...
"Stop Nuclear Strike with a Cellular Spike!" Create anti "Nuclear" reaction with your mobile phone.

With the Nuclear Option’s timing in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s hands, there won’t be enough warning to send out an email alert the moment he drops the bomb on the Senate. But we can deliver a text message straight to your mobile that embeds a Senate phone number based on your state. With just a couple pushes of the button we'll instantly deliver you, and thousands of others, to the halls of power, right before the vote. This groundbreaking new technology will create a spontaneous rebuttal – and we need you to be part of it! Sign up now.

"Nuclear Option" Mass Immediate Reponse

With the Nuclear Option’s timing in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s hands, there won’t be enough warning to send out an email alert the moment he drops the bomb on the Senate. But we can deliver a text message straight to your mobile that embeds a Senate phone number based on your state.

So please take a moment to fill out the short form below to sign up for our "Nuclear Option" Mass Immediate Response. By giving us your cell phone number, we will text message you as soon as Senate Republicans trigger the "nuclear option." Embedded in that text message will be a link to the Senate switchboard. With the push of a couple buttons, your call – along with thousands of others – goes right through to the corridors of power demanding preservation of the filibuster.

This is a brand new technology, and this is the first time it is being used on a large scale. (Don’t worry: we will NEVER send you spam or disclose your number to anyone else; in fact, we won’t even send you any more text messages without first sending you an e-mail like this one, asking you to opt in.)

Frist Went Shopping at the 'WRONG' Shoe Store

CactusPat — Sun, 15 May 2005 01:18:53 -0400

From Progressive Dems of America, via "SarahLee" over at KOS, comes this gem. Seems ol' Bill Frist needed some new shoes, only thing was, the shoe store was downstairs in the building where Americans United to Save Social Security's office is housed... Apparently the ad hoc demo started out with "Between 35-50 people from Americans United and the Campaign for Americas Future demonstrated against and spoke to Frist who said he support the President's plan which includes privatization and middle class benefit cuts..."

Story from Americans United to Protect Social Security:

And it grew to 50-60 people - 6 DC police cars showed up, one gave Frist's SUV a ticket

- he spoke to our folks for a while - said he supports the president's plan - it was a cordial exchange for the most part - it ended with a big part of the group chanting Senator Frist don't privatize.

- get this - he double parked and held up traffic, got ticketed, got protested - and all this to buy two pairs of shoes from Allen-Edmonds

- one pair cost $235 and the other was $295. He agreed with one of our staff members that privatization was not a solution for solvency.

Senator Frist is blocking traffic to buy $530 worth of shoes and he wants to cut SS benefits for the middle class...

More photos avail. here (warning for dial-up users, large files)
what the hey! here's a bonus pic... (thanx to kos memeber "thirdparty" for posting)