Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Is Kos Drinking Social Security Kool Aid?
Continuing an old tradition from Maxspeak, let me dump on Daily Kos. I just noticed a long post there about "leadership" among Dems and Dem candidates in particular. Much of it was anti-Hillary and mostly focused on her war views. On those, I join in criticizing her. However, this "lacking leadership" is the line being handed out previously by Obama and more recently very loudly by Edwards in attacking her on not proposing changes to social security. I confess that I am not sure what Kos's views on social security are, but at least rhetorically, he, or they, are adding to the rhetoric of those who have drunk the kool aid of "Social Security is in Crisis and we must do Something!"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
sorry to keep banging this old drum.
but unless we can get the word out, the combination of big liars and big idiots will get the "mandate" to save social security. and we will be telling our grandchildren that we were right, but...
rosser understands SS, bruce webb understands SS, even coberly understands SS, and of course Dean Baker wrote the book...
what we need is someone who knows how to tell the people.
I think Markos is pretty sound on Social Security, I posted a lot at dKos in 2004-2005 and 'There is no crisis' seemed to be widely the order of the day.
People misunderstand Markos. While his views are reliably progressive, he primarily was an activist only on what is to be sure the biggest issue of the day, the war on Iraq. And while he wrote with great passion and anger on the war, much of this was the result of growing up in Central America and seeing what a hash the US made of the region., his focus has always been tactical. He always wanted to be what he is today, a political force within the Democratic Party. While he would not in my opinion ever betray the progressive movement generally he is now operating in an environment where 'compromise' is not necessary a dirty word neither in policy terms or in rhetoric.
I remember the day, probably in 2002 when he first got his call back from DNC Chair Terry McA. He was happy, he was finally making the transition from blogger to political player, and I was happy for him, all the time understanding that he was now a political operative.
In real world terms nothing can happen on Social Security in 2008, and the new Congress convenes right about the same time as the release date for the 2009 Report. It is my view that Social Security 'Crisis' will die with a whimper and not a bang, and that the last point of danger was in 2006. A Democratically controlled Congress is not going to just slap Social Security 'Reform' through. They will have hearings and probably a Commission that will extend any conceivable introduction of legislation into probably Spring 2010, at which point we should have three more Report years under our belts.
So either we will have a hard landing next year and further show that whatever problems Social Security might face, that PRAs are not the answer, or we will have real GDP growth showing that 'Crisis' is smaller and farther away. Every year that passes gives new validation to my ditty:
If Privatization is Possible, it Won't be Necessary.
If Privatization is Necessary, it Won't be Possible.
We are two weeks from having the November numbers for OAS and DI Trust Funds. By extrapolation from the October Report it would appear that we passed both Intermediate and Low Cost balance projections during November, that is even if reported productivity and GDP take the hit that Bernanke and others suggest in a very real sense the money is in the bank already. I don't have an explanation as to how and why Trust Fund revenues held up in 2005, 2006 and 2007 in the face of some disappointing economic reporting, but the proof is in the pudding.
So I am not that worried about an education program or some softening in language by Kos, the dollars are running, they are running in my direction, and by the time the legislative calender offers an opening for legislation I expect to have them pocketed.
It may well be that I have mischaracterized the views of Markos and his pals at Daily Kos. If so, I apologize.
Barkley
Post a Comment