It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | Social Security Sacrificed to Rich Heirs and Super Affluent |
A few days ago, I wrote a short piece here on Irregular Times about Bush’s proposal to break the promise of Social Security and cut Americans’ benefits, even if they’ve been paying into the Social Security Trust Fund for years.
I wrote that Bush’s attacks on Social Security were being made in order to protect wealthy inheritors of multimillion dollar estates from having to devote any of their gains to their communities, in spite of the fact that they didn’t even work to get the money. I also wrote that Bush’s cuts to Social Security payments that widows, seriously ill and injured people and people above 65 have earned through years of hard work and devotion would be made in order to protect special tax breaks for super wealthy people. After all, I suggested, if Bush’s special tax deals for wealthy Americans were not put through, the money could easily pay for the Social Security shortfall that is scheduled to begin about 40 or 50 years from now.
Predictably, a right wing extremist, who seems to make it an act of devotion to his beloved Republican President to come to Irregular Times and try to blunt our criticisms, offered a worried, blustering response. He started out by calling me “Boy”, and then asked in a frantic tone, Where’s your evidence???
Well, of course, we came back and offered plenty of evidence in response, and the right winger’s criticisms faded away. I found this particular piece of supporting information this morning, however, and I think it’s worth considering because it makes the case so coherently. It’s from E.J. Dionne, who writes for the Washington Post.
Bush has refused to put his own tax cuts on the table as part of a Social Security fix. Repealing Bush’s tax cuts for those earning more than $350,000 a year could cover all or most of the 75-year Social Security shortfall. Keeping part of the estate tax in place could cover a quarter to half of the shortfall.
Take all or most of the shortfall (that will come in one and half generations from now) erased from doing away with Bush’s tax giveaways to people earning over $350,000 and add that to a quarter to a half of the shortfall erased by keeping the traditional tax on rich kids who get millions of dollars from their rich parents, and there is no Social Security problem.
The upshot is this: Bush is cutting my Social Security, which I’ve paid into for decades, so that rich heirs and people making over $350,000 a year can get special tax breaks. It’s a fact.
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Wow, I made the front page again! And I am still called a right wing extremist! TOOOOOO Funny. Can you please use my name next time!
By the way…don’t forget the evidence I presented. Which is ACTUAL working evidence being practiced and succeeding. I guess that is not worthy to note. It doesn’t fit your propaganda…
Comment by Hoosier Texan — 5/3/2005 @ 9:18 am
Hoosier, I’m very sorry that you regard it as a funny thing when widows, old people, and people suffering from serious injury and illness are threatened with having their modest Social Security benefits severely cut - in spite of the fact that these people earned the benefits by paying in for years.
To promote such cuts in favor of protecting the financial looking the heirs of wealthy family fortunes and people who earn over $375,000 every year - yes, I call such a perspective extremist. It’s a right wing priority as well. So yes, I call you a right wing extremist when you promote a right wing extremist agenda.
That these Social Security cuts could be made up for by scaling back Bush’s special benefits packages for the extremely rich is not propaganda. It is a mathematical fact.
You’re not dealing with the math here. Of course, you can’t. You’re merely blustering - the equivalent of our Connecticut Born and Raised President Bush trying to put on a folksy drawl while he talks to hand-picked crowds about the value of breaking the Social Security promise.
Comment by jclifford — 5/3/2005 @ 9:44 am
You’ll pardon me, Hoosier Texan, but I just did a Google search for you, and I don’t find a single instance of you making critical posts on any right wing sites. You seem to devote your energies exclusively to blocking Irregular Times. What is it that they are doing here at Irregular Times that makes you so nervous.
I’ve read your many comments here for months while hanging in the background, and I have to say that I agree - your comments are consistently from an extreme right wing perspective. I’ve never seen you make a single statement that could be called anything close to liberal.
Now, looking at the facts of the case, it seems very clear to me that the Irregular Times position on Social Security is well-based on the facts, and the Republican position seems to be more talking points.
I went back and read what Hoosier Texan calls his “evidence” - it’s nothing of the sort.
I also read that article by E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post this morning, and he points out that George W. Bush has still not released a Social Security plan! He has merely put out some ideas. There is no detailed paper, no proposed bill, as is traditionally done.
If Bush wants us to approve his schemes, he had better show us the paper. I’m not signing on the dotted line if he won’t show me the contract. For that matter, I refuse to take any of his proposals seriously until he has the decency to show a written out plan with all the details.
Bush thought he could take us for a ride. He thought he could get away with anything. We’re not that stupid.
Comment by jingo — 5/3/2005 @ 9:56 am
My comments are all extreme right, huh??? I have not made any “liberal” statements? To set the record straight, I don’t make staments that reflect either as I am a burning moderate who leans right economically and left socially. You research skills are sorely lacking then:
1. I support a woman’s right to choose when she is a legal adult…no conservative would EVER make that comment.
2. I voiced my opinion on the school in NC, stating that to definately be a violation of church and state.
3. I have stated my displeasure with Texas Republican lawmakers over bills they have going. I have sent letters to my two republican reps. stating to one that she has lost my vote and warning the other one.
4. I will vote for the candidate in 2008 that supports my views the most…republican or democrat.
Now call me crazy, but that is just a SMALL sampling of opinions that I have shared here. The problem many of you here have is that you can’t tell a moderate from a conservative. Why is that?
As for your google search? I initially posted my displeasure on conservative boards long before I ever found IR…also before ever moving down to Texas either. So, all in all, your comments are bogus and your research extremely poor. Thank you.
Comment by Hoosier Texan — 5/3/2005 @ 11:04 am
Well, all we can go with is the Google search. If you have indeed been all over posting critical comments on conservative boards, then we ought to be able to find those boards and those comments. They’re nowhere to be seen. You can’t prove your assertions, and yet every time you write about something here, you’re pushing a right-wing extremist position.
Now, that’s nice you say you’re pro-choice. But, you oppose the right of a 13 year old girl who has been forced out of her home and into foster care, to be free of the burden of getting the permission of her abusive father for an abortion when she gets pregnant. That’s not an extreme position? So, you’re really pro-choice, so long as you’re not a victimized girl.
In a huge number of circumstances, you’re promoting violation of separation of church and state. When confronted with one radical example of the religious violation of the 1st amendment, you mention that it shouldn’t happen. That’s not a liberal position. That’s a merely mainstream position, and yet you think it’s wildly liberal of you.
You have differed with Texas Republicans twice, but that’s when the Republicans have been nutso extremists or corrupt. Your so-called liberal stands were really just mild statements that the law ought to be enforced.
Now you’re promising that you’ll vote for a Democrat, maybe, in the future. In the past, you’ve said that the kind of Democrat you’ll vote for is like Joseph Lieberman, who is himself a right wing extremist who marches in lock step with the Bush crew. He’s a Democrat for the sake of using the political party system to retain power. His policies are all Republican.
So this makes you not a right wing radical? Sorry. Once in a blue moon, you say a little something moderate. Then 95% of the time, you move in the pack of right wing radical policy. In my book, that makes you a right winger, not a moderate.
Comment by Odd Claude — 5/3/2005 @ 2:26 pm
Nicely said, Odd Claude.
Hoosier, saying you’re pro-choice when you oppose the idea of a girl making that sort of decision without her parents’ consent, even when her parents abused and/or neglected her, isn’t convincing.
Also, I’ve never heard a moderate or left wing Christian complain that their religion is being “buried”. In fact, with those who care more about their religious identity than their political identity, guess what? They don’t even care.
Someone in one of my classes… She’s popular, smart, and classy, though makes her own way in style. Once she’s done with college, she’s going to become a missionary.
Yup, she’s going to go to some third world country to try to help people.
How many of the Christian fundamentalists do that?
And how many just bicker and throw about hate speach that implies inferiority of one or more groups of people?
You continued support for the fundamentalists’ right to bicker against certain groups ignores the fact that religion doesn’t need government recognition.
No comments on the lack of health care, amount of accidents, amount of pollution, but so many words against people “burying” religion, terrorism, et cetera.
And then there’s your suddenly cutting off once we prove you wrong somewhere. Never ONCE have I heard you admit to being wrong, and very much hope that the American moderates aren’t like that.
You should get your priorities straight sometime. I have the truth and rights to all at the top of mine, how about you?
Comment by HareTrinity — 5/3/2005 @ 3:54 pm
Well, it’s a telling thing that there is no real rebuttal of the facts on Social Security here. It’s reverse Robin Hood - ripping off working people to help fatten the bank accounts of the wealthiest Americans. It’s disgusting.
Comment by Odd Claude — 5/3/2005 @ 6:17 pm
You have never proved me wrong on anything…just another blind liberal, go figure.
Comment by Hoosier Texan — 5/3/2005 @ 10:31 pm
You’re also rather anti-liberal for a “moderate”, aren’t you?
What did we not prove you wrong on? Your behaviour very consistently suggests that you’re Republican. No question about it. It’s probably why no one questions you on Republican websites.
Comment by HareTrinity — 5/4/2005 @ 5:08 am
Yes I am and I am anti-conservative as well. I HATE Rush Lim-blow-hard and Ann “pie in my face” Coulter.
Comment by Hoosier Texan — 5/4/2005 @ 8:33 am
Y’know, hating the extremists of things doesn’t mean you’re not that way inclined at all.
I support animal rights, women’s rights, civil rights and gay rights, but not the radical view of any of them.
Comment by HareTrinity — 5/4/2005 @ 8:39 am
Oh, jeez, and PETA gets on my nerves, but that doesn’t make me less liberal. Any person with enough brain cells to figure out how to get around the internet and write coherent sentences should hate Rush and Ann.
Comment by random42 — 5/4/2005 @ 11:16 am
Hoosier Texan, I’m coming to Irregular Times for the first time this afternoon, but just from reading your comments on the most recent articles here, I can tell the following things:
- You’re self obsessed.
- You think that just by asserting something to be true, you can convince people that it is true.
- You’re a right winger.
From what I’ve seen, the people who frequent this web site are mostly quite sensible, and I’ve already seen you proven wrong on many occasions.
To the issue at hand, which Hoosier Texan seems intent on distracting people from:
George W. Bush cannot understand the value of Social Security, because he was born third generation filthy rich. He will never need Social Security, in spite of the fact that he’s spent the majority of his adult life in fake jobs set up as money laundering conduits by his father’s friends.
To attack Social Security like Bush and the Republicans are doing is to attack the value of work in America itself. History will look upon this as a time of fascist right wing insanity and cruelty.
Comment by Iris — 5/4/2005 @ 3:57 pm
And Odd Claude, you’re right. As much as Republicans like Hoosier Texan try to blow smoke screens, they can never rebut the strong arguments that good liberals like the people at America make against Bush’s attacks on Social Security.
Comment by Iris — 5/4/2005 @ 3:58 pm
Iris; welcome to Irregular Times. Always nice to have fresh views and such, especially with repeated debates like this one where, for most of us, it’s got very old…
Comment by HareTrinity — 5/5/2005 @ 4:44 am
I wish I hadn’t accidentally come across this ranting, but since I’m here I might as well make a comment. jclifford is a moron. Why can’t left wingers grasp the fact that allowing individuals to invest into their own retirement plan doesn’t make it mandatory for all people in Social Security. Why is it that when Bill Clinton was President, Democrats rallied around the the need for Social Security Reform but now claim that it no longer needs reform. They remind me of ostriches, sticking their heads in the sand and hoping the problem will disappear.
Comment by American Crusader — 12/15/2005 @ 1:02 pm