The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works (-1: Sorry, not good enough. This is the time to blast the GOP's government-is-evil values out of the water, not for feeding post-partisan memes about "non-ideological" "pragmatism") -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford (-1: Is burying UHC the #1 goal of this speech?), a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. (-1: As appropriate, programs can be fixed, rather than ended. You've been baselessly signaling that Social Security isn't working right. Are you going to end that program, or just chisel it down?).The current Congress will not allow harm to come to Social Security. However, 2010 could be 1996 if the public turns against Obama -- and they'll turn on a dime if a new terror strike occurs, if a major scandal hits, or if double-digit unemployment persists. An out-for-blood Republican Congress matched with (not against: with) a turncoat Dem president: Now that's a scenario which bodes ill for Social Security.
Indeed, that may be the only arrangement of players which could pull off the privatization trick.
7 comments:
I know that the destruction of Social Security is some people's dearest wish. And it seems like it's still their goal. But, how can they do it as we go into this near (and possible) depression?
Wouldn't the economy have to gt A LOT better for that to happen?
Good, and unnerving, point.
I think it will happen sooner than that. The Geithners of the world must be positively drooling over this big pile of public money their dear banking industry so badly needs to recapitalize itself.
What Obama has going in his favor is that he is a Democrat (if only in name). If a Republican were to give that inaugural speech, alarm bells would be ringing. Nobody trust a Republican within a mile of an entitlement program. But someone like Obama could present a plan Bush would be proud of and be given so much of a benefit of doubt that it just might pass. There are enough conservative Blue Dog Dems out there already to make this a plausible scenario.
We do social programs no favor if the clearly broke, and ruinously expensive, Medicare program is refused a remedy for fear that Social Security is the real target.
President Obama has previously made this distinction himself, when he said the issues with SS were manageable with small adjustments (true), whereas there was grievous problem with Medicare (also true).
What was already wrong with Medicare was compounded with the added flawed Medicare D prescription drug coverage. The projections of Medicare costs show it growing cancer-style to take over much of the federal budget. When things cannot keep going the way they're going, they won't.
XIslander
Wouldn't UHC take care of the medical problem?
I know, I know, Obama isn't touching UHC with Paul Krugman's ten-foot pole. But it is the obvious solution, for this and many other things.
So long as we're paying contractors big bucks for processing Medicare claims, Medical will continue to bleed money.
XI: It's true that Obama didn't call Social Security what he called Medicare (an example of bloated government), but he DID refer to it as an 'entitlement program' and needing to be fixed *right away*, both phony right-wing talking points (which doesn't bode well for its future under his hand).
Sergei Rostov
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