The United States under George W. Bush has as its great foreign policy goal the spread of freedom and democracy to the four corners of the globe. Since we found none of the weapons of mass destruction that were the reason for overthrowing the regime in Baghdad, the spread of democracy has become the ex post facto rationale for the Iraq War while the United Nations resolutions that we unilaterally enforced to save that world body turned out not to have been a big deal after all.
The cost of the Iraq War alone now exceeds $200 billion and will certainly more than double before we can walk away. As we approach the $10,000.00 spending mark for every man woman and child in Iraq to prosecute the war and enforce the peace, it is clear that this is a financially disastrous as well as a debilitating military quagmire in which we are caught.
This says nothing about the hidden and deferred costs of the war such as restocking arms and armaments used up in the desert sand, the cost of veterans’ compensation and hospitalization for our dead and broken bodies, the cost of expanding the army to its newly increased quota, the additional cost of recruiting as bonuses have to double and triple and as more recruiters must be assigned.
The cost of the War is also degrading our other armed forces and home defenses as we put off the purchase of new weapons systems, retire the Navy carrier USS John F. Kennedy, and as we fail to find the money to adequately protect our major ports and cities.
Naturally, as the cost of the war is kept off budget, the deficit grows accordingly and our dependence on countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan to fund it grows each day.
Even if a few of President Bush’s ideas for Social Security were found by the Congress to have merit, there is no way these reforms can be implemented in any but a token manner as the amount of debt that would have to be taken on by the nation is simply too onerous.
Our budget and trade deficits are burgeoning even as the incomes of ordinary Americans stagnate while our plutocrats grow richer and more callous. But all of our major present problems can be traced to the Iraq War.
The president is a master of three card monte in which he is the supreme tosser. His aids; the ropers, Cheney, Rice and a host of neocons continue to draw marks in. But as more and more citizens see through the game, it always gets back to the same queen, Iraq, which he hides with every trick at his disposal.
Even as administration apologists scream that liberal media is undercutting them, they stock the press with ringers and ropers – using tax money in many cases. But every day more voters see that there is no real plan for anything except getting through the day to maintain power.
We’ve been badly used by these neoconservative incompetents.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, February 28, 2005
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Look At It This Way
Let’s look at Iraq from a different perspective. How long will we be there? Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld – rightly, in my judgment - says that no one can accurately predict how long the coalition forces will be required to stay. That said, a number of variables have not been considered, at least publicly.
The President has said that we’ll stay only as long as we’re needed and no longer. He’s also said that if the legitimate Iraqi government asks us to leave, the United States will honor the decision. That sounds very good, even hopeful, but there are things in the background that have not been fully vetted for the public.
One of the most important reasons for our intercession in Iraq - as compared for example: to our reticence in Sudan – was the oil. When the constitutional government of Iraq is up and running next year, there is likely to be great pressure from the population and many power centers for the coalition to be sent home. That seems normal enough. But one thing I’ve learned about government – we could call it a law of nature – is that those in power do everything they can to remain in power. That goes for democracies, plutocracies, tyrannies, monarchies, and any other form or philosophy of government that one can conceive.
A year from now the newly formed government in Iraq will be hearing from all sides that they should kick us out of the country. Fair enough. That government will also find – I’m absolutely certain – that there is great interest in how the nation’s oil will be controlled and the income from it distributed. That means that major players not in power would like to be and that should be no surprise to anyone. What does that mean for the coalition? A long stay in Iraq would be my guess.
The new government will not ask us to leave until and unless it is certain of its ability to maintain power. The lives and riches of literally tens of thousands of people will depend on the government's ability to maintain its grip on power and on the spigot of the great national natural resource, oil. It is the simply the nature of human beings to act this way. The government will have Iraqis – encouraged by the tribal and political structure from within the country and by foreign powers – conspiring to overthrow it and to redistribute power and riches in a different manner. The rule of law and that beautiful new constitution be damned.
The whiff of conspiracies designed to kick the legitimate government from power and to seize the wealth of the nation will force the government to act with an abundance of caution as it relates to the protecting coalition. That critics of the Bush Administration scream for and will raise their voices still higher for a timetable means little. We have chosen to ride this tiger, and we will have to remain mounted until the new government in Baghdad is supremely confident of its ability to maintain itself.
I have opposed this war since it was but a gleam in the eyes of these foolish neoconservatives, but all with an ounce of realism about them must see that there is no choice but for the coalition to stay. It is sad that the government of the U.S. did not think this through, but we’re going to continue suffering casualties and pouring treasure into the desert sand for a very long time, and none of this will raise our standing in the Muslim world.
There were no weapons of mass destruction. Reprehensible as the government of Saddam was, it posed no threat to our national security. The war on terror has worsened as a result of this fiasco. None the less, we must no go on indefinitely.
Despite the president’s great skill at diverting us from reality, Iraq is and will remain our greatest problem for the indefinite future. Sadly, it is keeping us from dealing with terror and economic problems of great concern.
It is a terribly sad situation that these neocons have gotten us into
Blog on!
Wild Bill
The President has said that we’ll stay only as long as we’re needed and no longer. He’s also said that if the legitimate Iraqi government asks us to leave, the United States will honor the decision. That sounds very good, even hopeful, but there are things in the background that have not been fully vetted for the public.
One of the most important reasons for our intercession in Iraq - as compared for example: to our reticence in Sudan – was the oil. When the constitutional government of Iraq is up and running next year, there is likely to be great pressure from the population and many power centers for the coalition to be sent home. That seems normal enough. But one thing I’ve learned about government – we could call it a law of nature – is that those in power do everything they can to remain in power. That goes for democracies, plutocracies, tyrannies, monarchies, and any other form or philosophy of government that one can conceive.
A year from now the newly formed government in Iraq will be hearing from all sides that they should kick us out of the country. Fair enough. That government will also find – I’m absolutely certain – that there is great interest in how the nation’s oil will be controlled and the income from it distributed. That means that major players not in power would like to be and that should be no surprise to anyone. What does that mean for the coalition? A long stay in Iraq would be my guess.
The new government will not ask us to leave until and unless it is certain of its ability to maintain power. The lives and riches of literally tens of thousands of people will depend on the government's ability to maintain its grip on power and on the spigot of the great national natural resource, oil. It is the simply the nature of human beings to act this way. The government will have Iraqis – encouraged by the tribal and political structure from within the country and by foreign powers – conspiring to overthrow it and to redistribute power and riches in a different manner. The rule of law and that beautiful new constitution be damned.
The whiff of conspiracies designed to kick the legitimate government from power and to seize the wealth of the nation will force the government to act with an abundance of caution as it relates to the protecting coalition. That critics of the Bush Administration scream for and will raise their voices still higher for a timetable means little. We have chosen to ride this tiger, and we will have to remain mounted until the new government in Baghdad is supremely confident of its ability to maintain itself.
I have opposed this war since it was but a gleam in the eyes of these foolish neoconservatives, but all with an ounce of realism about them must see that there is no choice but for the coalition to stay. It is sad that the government of the U.S. did not think this through, but we’re going to continue suffering casualties and pouring treasure into the desert sand for a very long time, and none of this will raise our standing in the Muslim world.
There were no weapons of mass destruction. Reprehensible as the government of Saddam was, it posed no threat to our national security. The war on terror has worsened as a result of this fiasco. None the less, we must no go on indefinitely.
Despite the president’s great skill at diverting us from reality, Iraq is and will remain our greatest problem for the indefinite future. Sadly, it is keeping us from dealing with terror and economic problems of great concern.
It is a terribly sad situation that these neocons have gotten us into
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, February 21, 2005
Middle East Peace
I’ve been beating up something awful on the Used Car Salesman in Chief, but sometimes even Wild Bill has to step back and offer a tip of the cap to the man. I thought President George W. Bush’s policy toward Israel and the Palestinians was, for virtually his entire presidency, a disaster. I am convinced that I was wrong in that assessment.
An acolyte of Samuel Huntington, I was of the view that it was up to the U.S. to rein in its client state, Israel, and, on the other hand, to defend it against its enemies. I was a victim of stodgy thinking on the part of previous presidents. (In his defense, Wild Bill like so many others is never wrong except when he has been victimized.)
From Truman to Clinton and with virtually every other president in between, our policy has been to walk the line between being protector of Israel and an honest broker with her Arab neighbors. It’s gotten us, Israel, and the Palestinians nowhere.
President Bush, like many a parent of fighting children, decided that both sides in this issue were too bellicose and too sure of both the backing of their friends and that the U.S. would never let them fight it out to exhaustion. They and Wild Bill were wrong. All that shuttle diplomacy over fifty years, all those walks in the woods at Camp David, all that hand wringing by American presidents, all of the foreign aid, none of it gained peace for the combatants.
George W. Bush’s policy of hands off benign neglect has worked. Of all the things Wild Bill has ever said about this president from calling him wrong in Iraq to ridiculous on Social Security it’s been a long time since he hasn’t regarded George Bush as a lot smarter than the Democrats and the media have ever given him credit. And in this case, Mr. Bush was brilliant.
A high percentage of Israelis and Jews around the world came to the conclusion that the long time policy of Israel toward the Palestinians had a fatal flaw. That no matter how many settlements were seeded on the West bank and Gaza, demography would inevitably make it impossible for Israel to sustain its long held views toward these outposts. But it was not going to be an American president who was going to impress this upon the Israelis or their government. It would be done by home boys or nobody.
Obviously, a goodly number of Israelis have understood this for years, but as it took a Richard Nixon, the great anti communist, to cut the Gordian knot of establishing relations with Red China so it would take a powerhouse from Likud to show the way in Israel. Ariel Sharon is that man. Only a leader with a life long record of toughness on the question could have performed this great task.
So, after four years of both sides throwing everything they had into the fray, they have concluded that peace may be the only or at least the best option. Wild Bill, not being anywhere near an expert on the nuances of the issues separating the sides, will wind down here. The pain of the pullback from Gaza will be intense. The same goes for what lies ahead for many of the settlements on the West Bank.
The Palestinians have had four years to examine their policy and it too is laden with pain. But after all the suffering, an independent Palestine that includes recovery of much of its pre 1967 land and some reasonable access to Jerusalem looks mighty good. The almost impossible decision on the right of return for Palestinians has not been settled publicly, still nobody’s screaming, “Stop!”
Two men are to be given credit for the journey and the twists and turns that got us here, George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon. Wild Bill on this Presidents Day Holiday takes a respite from his job of beating up the president on his flawed policies in Iraq and on the Domestic scene, and, as Herblock of the Washington Post did for Richard Nixon, and give him a clean shave and a pat on the back. He’s right!
An acolyte of Samuel Huntington, I was of the view that it was up to the U.S. to rein in its client state, Israel, and, on the other hand, to defend it against its enemies. I was a victim of stodgy thinking on the part of previous presidents. (In his defense, Wild Bill like so many others is never wrong except when he has been victimized.)
From Truman to Clinton and with virtually every other president in between, our policy has been to walk the line between being protector of Israel and an honest broker with her Arab neighbors. It’s gotten us, Israel, and the Palestinians nowhere.
President Bush, like many a parent of fighting children, decided that both sides in this issue were too bellicose and too sure of both the backing of their friends and that the U.S. would never let them fight it out to exhaustion. They and Wild Bill were wrong. All that shuttle diplomacy over fifty years, all those walks in the woods at Camp David, all that hand wringing by American presidents, all of the foreign aid, none of it gained peace for the combatants.
George W. Bush’s policy of hands off benign neglect has worked. Of all the things Wild Bill has ever said about this president from calling him wrong in Iraq to ridiculous on Social Security it’s been a long time since he hasn’t regarded George Bush as a lot smarter than the Democrats and the media have ever given him credit. And in this case, Mr. Bush was brilliant.
A high percentage of Israelis and Jews around the world came to the conclusion that the long time policy of Israel toward the Palestinians had a fatal flaw. That no matter how many settlements were seeded on the West bank and Gaza, demography would inevitably make it impossible for Israel to sustain its long held views toward these outposts. But it was not going to be an American president who was going to impress this upon the Israelis or their government. It would be done by home boys or nobody.
Obviously, a goodly number of Israelis have understood this for years, but as it took a Richard Nixon, the great anti communist, to cut the Gordian knot of establishing relations with Red China so it would take a powerhouse from Likud to show the way in Israel. Ariel Sharon is that man. Only a leader with a life long record of toughness on the question could have performed this great task.
So, after four years of both sides throwing everything they had into the fray, they have concluded that peace may be the only or at least the best option. Wild Bill, not being anywhere near an expert on the nuances of the issues separating the sides, will wind down here. The pain of the pullback from Gaza will be intense. The same goes for what lies ahead for many of the settlements on the West Bank.
The Palestinians have had four years to examine their policy and it too is laden with pain. But after all the suffering, an independent Palestine that includes recovery of much of its pre 1967 land and some reasonable access to Jerusalem looks mighty good. The almost impossible decision on the right of return for Palestinians has not been settled publicly, still nobody’s screaming, “Stop!”
Two men are to be given credit for the journey and the twists and turns that got us here, George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon. Wild Bill on this Presidents Day Holiday takes a respite from his job of beating up the president on his flawed policies in Iraq and on the Domestic scene, and, as Herblock of the Washington Post did for Richard Nixon, and give him a clean shave and a pat on the back. He’s right!
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Pool
Judgment has been rendered; the New Deal and The Great Society are unsustainable and they must go. The corporate and financial leadership has decided that if America is to be competitive, the social safety net must have bigger holes. Social Security, health care, pension benefits, everything must be on the table.
In the March 10, 2005 edition of the New York Review of Books, Paul Krugman in his brilliant essay and book review, America’s Senior Moment, mounts a great defense against the leadership’s judgment but it may not penetrate the national psyche (See http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17771).
The leadership has looked at our major competitors, The European Union, Japan, Russia, and China, and concluded that America must become leaner and meaner if it is to maintain its economic leadership. The Used Car Salesman in Chief, now that his military adventure in Iraq has come unglued, has found the great purpose of his second term and, I might add, his medium. He roars about the country selling his great vision of the ownership society that will be bought with borrowed money.
It has been determined by the leadership that the cradle to the grave benefits programs of European countries and Japan are not the way to go. While Krugman dramatically destroys many of the assumptions of the leadership’s new ideal in America, I fear that few are really listening to anyone but the car salesman.
I shouldn’t put this all on Mr. Bush. In the nineteen seventies under Jimmy Carter, it was decided that federal and military pensions were unsustainable, and both program were changed. The Federal Civil Service defined benefits program was cut by almost fifty percent, and employees hired after its adoption live in a hybrid world of reduced benefits and defined contributions. These are generous, but the government’s obligation is significantly reduced.
Similarly during President Carter’s administration, deregulation of major industries, including airlines, undermined the benefits programs of workers in these industries. Over the years since Carter, many other defined benefits programs in American industries have been under funded and are unable to meet their obligations.
So The Car Salesman in Chief has proclaimed Social Security to be in crisis, and he has stated that he has a plan to correct the situation, but, of course, no plan has emerged – nothing, it’s all problem and no solution, except that we must have private accounts and borrow trillions of dollars to get them up and running. As our Harold Hill traverses the boonies selling his trombones and cornets to save us from today’s version of `pool’, there is little but hot air to determine the necessity of the effort. But we’ve got to buy it.
As we enter into trade agreements that undermine the wages of American workers and that ship their jobs to low wage countries, we learn that our economy is doing great and will get better if we only we will continue to strip it of manufacturing jobs and capacity and still more robust when we reform – scuttle - the remnants of the New Deal and The Great Society.
It is amazing that this pitch is working more effectively in Red States than in Blue ones. Many Red States are far more dependent on New Deal and Great Society programs, yet these folks cheer loudest as our Harold Hill points to the future when we’ll all be playing Sousa on our new trombones and cornets. Franklin Roosevelt with Social Security and farm subsidy programs saved America, including – perhaps even especially – those states colored scarlet, and perpetrated a peaceful revolution that saved the American capitalism in the 1930s. But we don’t need these programs any longer, so preacheth Harold.
Wild Bill feels he’s watching a surreal version of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in which the Salesman is playing Lenny and assuring George that there’ll be bunnies and kittens. Well we all know how Lenny solved George’s problems. I don’t mind snake oil, but it really is those on the bottom who will be most adversely impacted. And they’re screaming for the changes at full throat.
Oh well, it’s Happy Hour.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
In the March 10, 2005 edition of the New York Review of Books, Paul Krugman in his brilliant essay and book review, America’s Senior Moment, mounts a great defense against the leadership’s judgment but it may not penetrate the national psyche (See http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17771).
The leadership has looked at our major competitors, The European Union, Japan, Russia, and China, and concluded that America must become leaner and meaner if it is to maintain its economic leadership. The Used Car Salesman in Chief, now that his military adventure in Iraq has come unglued, has found the great purpose of his second term and, I might add, his medium. He roars about the country selling his great vision of the ownership society that will be bought with borrowed money.
It has been determined by the leadership that the cradle to the grave benefits programs of European countries and Japan are not the way to go. While Krugman dramatically destroys many of the assumptions of the leadership’s new ideal in America, I fear that few are really listening to anyone but the car salesman.
I shouldn’t put this all on Mr. Bush. In the nineteen seventies under Jimmy Carter, it was decided that federal and military pensions were unsustainable, and both program were changed. The Federal Civil Service defined benefits program was cut by almost fifty percent, and employees hired after its adoption live in a hybrid world of reduced benefits and defined contributions. These are generous, but the government’s obligation is significantly reduced.
Similarly during President Carter’s administration, deregulation of major industries, including airlines, undermined the benefits programs of workers in these industries. Over the years since Carter, many other defined benefits programs in American industries have been under funded and are unable to meet their obligations.
So The Car Salesman in Chief has proclaimed Social Security to be in crisis, and he has stated that he has a plan to correct the situation, but, of course, no plan has emerged – nothing, it’s all problem and no solution, except that we must have private accounts and borrow trillions of dollars to get them up and running. As our Harold Hill traverses the boonies selling his trombones and cornets to save us from today’s version of `pool’, there is little but hot air to determine the necessity of the effort. But we’ve got to buy it.
As we enter into trade agreements that undermine the wages of American workers and that ship their jobs to low wage countries, we learn that our economy is doing great and will get better if we only we will continue to strip it of manufacturing jobs and capacity and still more robust when we reform – scuttle - the remnants of the New Deal and The Great Society.
It is amazing that this pitch is working more effectively in Red States than in Blue ones. Many Red States are far more dependent on New Deal and Great Society programs, yet these folks cheer loudest as our Harold Hill points to the future when we’ll all be playing Sousa on our new trombones and cornets. Franklin Roosevelt with Social Security and farm subsidy programs saved America, including – perhaps even especially – those states colored scarlet, and perpetrated a peaceful revolution that saved the American capitalism in the 1930s. But we don’t need these programs any longer, so preacheth Harold.
Wild Bill feels he’s watching a surreal version of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in which the Salesman is playing Lenny and assuring George that there’ll be bunnies and kittens. Well we all know how Lenny solved George’s problems. I don’t mind snake oil, but it really is those on the bottom who will be most adversely impacted. And they’re screaming for the changes at full throat.
Oh well, it’s Happy Hour.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Saturday, February 19, 2005
It's Granny! She's Got Her Bag!
It seems that everybody’s down on Grandma, at least all the free market Republicans. She’s accused of chewing up resources that could be better used by younger more productive people. Not only does she gobble up Social Security payments, she practically inhales Medicare and may even someday be faced with sucking up Medicaid. The question seems to be heading toward, “Why doesn’t the old fart make like an Eskimo and drift away on an ice flow?”
Since I live with one of these grandmas, I feel obligated to mount a defense for the old bats and try to offer reasons why that kind might not be so bad to keep around, at least for a while. As you young folks go about reforming Social Security try not to think only negative thoughts about the oldsters. Remember you may well be a granny or grampa one day too, unless, of course, they take you to the vet’s and put you to sleep.
As the president keeps reminding us, most workers contribute more than 6% of their wages into the system for well over forty years, and their employers are dunned a like amount. The government borrows from the fund at the low rate of T-Bills thus saving taxpayers a goodly sum over the period. Now, instead of investing program funds at a better rate itself, the president proposes to let individuals make such investment while it borrows trillions to prop up the system.
Obviously, tax liability on 85% percent of Social Security payments provides significant income to the feds at least from all those rich seniors which are the ones that everyone complains about.
Another factor that is lost in the discussion on Social Security, federal, and private defined benefit pension programs is that at least when Grandma was young, it was a social good to provide job openings for younger generations of workers by buying out the incumbents. You may recall from reading about the Civil War that doddering clerks were unable to keep up with the burgeoning paper work due to their physical and mental incapacity and decline. They had no choice but to work until they fell face first on their desks. In actuality, that’s the way it was everywhere until the New Deal. We’re rethinking that one, and Granny will have to soldier on into the sunset.
Many of the elderly contribute to the present boom by providing off books services to workers in the form of baby sitting and other minor work that maintain the productivity of the working generation. Wild Bill opines that more of that goes on at the lower income levels where it is more desperately needed. Obviously, that service ranges from almost nothing to practically supporting the whole operation while the productive generation puts food on the table. Also because of many a Granny, the lucky minority also puts money in 401Ks and contributes their 6% to granny’s current Social Security check.
Next time you’re in the hospital – naturally, we hope it’s only to visit the sick – look around and note that many of the unpaid volunteers are a little older than you. When Granny’s broke, health care costs will have to rise as she will require a wage to do that job. Grannies also read to your kids at school. I guess we’ll have to budget an aid for that job when Granny has to bag groceries. That reminds me, a lot of old folks are working for pay – and paying all kinds of taxes – even as this is written.
Seniors pay a great deal more in local taxes than they take in the form of services. While this can be written off their federal liability, their net property tax is far greater than their local benefits. Also many millions of home owning seniors who are exempt from federal taxes because of low income pay a local tax tariff. This eases the burden on workers who – if they have children – are heavily subsidized as they prepare for the burden of paying for college. Naturally, seniors continue to support state schools if they pay state taxes and millions of them do.
But by far the biggest subsidy that goes to the elderly is in the form of health care, including nursing home care. This federal subsidy in the form of Medicare and Medicaid – which spills over to become a state problem as well - is terribly expensive. But there are mitigations to these benefits as well. For earlier generations, many were sandwiched by two other generations needing their physical and financial support. Much about what the president rails about came about because a lot of folks didn’t want to be saddled with Grandma just hanging around the house.
These are hidden subsidies for the working middle class as well as for the direct beneficiaries. People today have enough trouble raising and caring for junior without the added burden of putting old Mom up in the closet.
The social compact works in many ways and to attack it frontally sometimes opens up things that are not usually taken into account. Times have changed since the majority of grannies lived in the back bedroom of the middle aged, so as you think about cutting Grandma off the federal teat, remember she may have to come live with you. Not to worry, you’ll treasure those memories when you move in with your own little junior.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Since I live with one of these grandmas, I feel obligated to mount a defense for the old bats and try to offer reasons why that kind might not be so bad to keep around, at least for a while. As you young folks go about reforming Social Security try not to think only negative thoughts about the oldsters. Remember you may well be a granny or grampa one day too, unless, of course, they take you to the vet’s and put you to sleep.
As the president keeps reminding us, most workers contribute more than 6% of their wages into the system for well over forty years, and their employers are dunned a like amount. The government borrows from the fund at the low rate of T-Bills thus saving taxpayers a goodly sum over the period. Now, instead of investing program funds at a better rate itself, the president proposes to let individuals make such investment while it borrows trillions to prop up the system.
Obviously, tax liability on 85% percent of Social Security payments provides significant income to the feds at least from all those rich seniors which are the ones that everyone complains about.
Another factor that is lost in the discussion on Social Security, federal, and private defined benefit pension programs is that at least when Grandma was young, it was a social good to provide job openings for younger generations of workers by buying out the incumbents. You may recall from reading about the Civil War that doddering clerks were unable to keep up with the burgeoning paper work due to their physical and mental incapacity and decline. They had no choice but to work until they fell face first on their desks. In actuality, that’s the way it was everywhere until the New Deal. We’re rethinking that one, and Granny will have to soldier on into the sunset.
Many of the elderly contribute to the present boom by providing off books services to workers in the form of baby sitting and other minor work that maintain the productivity of the working generation. Wild Bill opines that more of that goes on at the lower income levels where it is more desperately needed. Obviously, that service ranges from almost nothing to practically supporting the whole operation while the productive generation puts food on the table. Also because of many a Granny, the lucky minority also puts money in 401Ks and contributes their 6% to granny’s current Social Security check.
Next time you’re in the hospital – naturally, we hope it’s only to visit the sick – look around and note that many of the unpaid volunteers are a little older than you. When Granny’s broke, health care costs will have to rise as she will require a wage to do that job. Grannies also read to your kids at school. I guess we’ll have to budget an aid for that job when Granny has to bag groceries. That reminds me, a lot of old folks are working for pay – and paying all kinds of taxes – even as this is written.
Seniors pay a great deal more in local taxes than they take in the form of services. While this can be written off their federal liability, their net property tax is far greater than their local benefits. Also many millions of home owning seniors who are exempt from federal taxes because of low income pay a local tax tariff. This eases the burden on workers who – if they have children – are heavily subsidized as they prepare for the burden of paying for college. Naturally, seniors continue to support state schools if they pay state taxes and millions of them do.
But by far the biggest subsidy that goes to the elderly is in the form of health care, including nursing home care. This federal subsidy in the form of Medicare and Medicaid – which spills over to become a state problem as well - is terribly expensive. But there are mitigations to these benefits as well. For earlier generations, many were sandwiched by two other generations needing their physical and financial support. Much about what the president rails about came about because a lot of folks didn’t want to be saddled with Grandma just hanging around the house.
These are hidden subsidies for the working middle class as well as for the direct beneficiaries. People today have enough trouble raising and caring for junior without the added burden of putting old Mom up in the closet.
The social compact works in many ways and to attack it frontally sometimes opens up things that are not usually taken into account. Times have changed since the majority of grannies lived in the back bedroom of the middle aged, so as you think about cutting Grandma off the federal teat, remember she may have to come live with you. Not to worry, you’ll treasure those memories when you move in with your own little junior.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Dollars in the Sand
Not counting the human cost for our troops, our allies, or for Iraqis, the administration has asked for a supplemental appropriation for Iraq that amounts to $4.3 billion per week. This does not include the war in Afghanistan, homeland security or anything else in the supplemental such as tsunami relief.
So $614 million per day, $25.6 million per hour, or $460,000 per minute - your choice on units of time - are being poured into the sand in Iraq. Extrapolate that over truly difficult potential adversaries such as Iran or North Korea and it is easy to see why we must realign ourselves with our friends.
After all the sloganeering about freedom and that the Iraqis are better off without Saddam, we need some accounting for this fiasco.
So $614 million per day, $25.6 million per hour, or $460,000 per minute - your choice on units of time - are being poured into the sand in Iraq. Extrapolate that over truly difficult potential adversaries such as Iran or North Korea and it is easy to see why we must realign ourselves with our friends.
After all the sloganeering about freedom and that the Iraqis are better off without Saddam, we need some accounting for this fiasco.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Question Authority
Before the world of blogging opened before him, Wild Bill was an inveterate writer of letters to editors – and a damn successful one with numerous letters appearing in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and many other smaller papers. But it was such a pain to have to boil one’s thoughts down to the very small number of words under the tiny maximums permitted. And, of course, about ninety percent of them didn’t make it while the stupid rants of lesser lights filled space that could have been used to educate and entertain the readers.
But blogging changed everything. Bloggers could say what they wanted at any length they chose. The only limit was their perception of the patience of the readers they’d lured to their sites. Since last August, I haven’t written a single letter to an editor, relying on my blog to serve as bait for as many readers as possible. I’ve been lucky, and the number who tune in on my pieces increases slightly with each posting.
But under prodding from a few wise guy friends and relatives, my weakness was exploited and I sent a poison pen missile to the local section of the Washington Post about a proposal by the Fairfax County, VA Park Authority to single out seniors for a rate increase to play golf. It was fun, my old mean streak shown like a beacon.
Wild Bill’s not the even handed angel he portrays when his personal ox is gored. Here’s his little dab of spilled bile.
“To the Editor:
The Fairfax County Park Authority has looked into the future and completely misread it. Instead of seeing the need for more open space that might be used by its citizens for recreation, it has determined that the best course of action is to identify one of the groups most in need of such facilities and the one most likely to use them in off peak hours – seniors – and to price out the poorest among them. Naturally, they expect these same seniors – the largest growing group of taxpayers in the county by the Authority’s own reckoning – to support Park Authority bonds.
The proposed increase in fees for seniors on county golf courses makes no sense. I’m in my seventies and play golf at Pinecrest, Burke Lake, Greendale, the two courses at Twin Lakes, and on semi-public facilities throughout the region about once a week during the fair weather months, so I’m subsidized to the tune of about $100.00 per year under present policy.
The Authority is correct in its assumption that seniors will grow both in number and as a percentage of the county’s residents, but for them to work backward from that to the solution that poorer seniors must be driven from these courses by draconian price increases defies logic, especially since – at least as it relates to Pinecrest, Greendale, and Burke Lake, the facilities most often cited in the media – the authority has its facts wrong. The idea that seniors are overwhelming these courses is simply not true.
No serious affluent golfer of any age would play these courses on a regular basis. Anyone with means and serious intent is a member of a country club or plays the rapidly proliferating semi-private courses throughout the region that compete aggressively for off peak affluent players. Most of the golfers playing Burke Lake, Pinecrest and Greendale are far from wealthy, and I invite the members of the Authority to check these parking lots for BMWs and Mercedes.
That senior charges should increase while junior golfers retain their present rates is rank age discrimination and defies logic. The increase for seniors is designed to head off an avalanche of golfers, while the junior fees are set to encourage growth of play to develop the customers of tomorrow. In view of the new holes coming on line in Lorton, are there really going to be too many off-peak players?
Taxes on senior owned property increases far faster than their retirement income and they are under great cost pressure. Yet they are called upon – begged – to support school and park bonds. While the Authority judges seniors to be daft, if the proposed rate increase for seniors stands, older members of the community would be foolish to support any future park bond issues.
Seniors are generous in support of children through our votes and our taxes. So to demonstrate where the county’s priorities lie, the Authority proposes to remove one of the small subsidies from seniors who pay far more taxes than they get in services and continue to subsidize school age youngsters to play golf. Seniors pay taxes, do not require new roads, don’t attend school, and don’t play subsidized golf on the weekends so, “Off with their heads!” This seems a poor way to preserve the social compact within the county.
Obviously, the intent of the new rate schedule is to ration play by cost, to increase income, and to reduce wear and tear on the facilities. I won’t argue with those goals but would point out that an independent study will almost certainly show that virtually all prime tee times on the three courses above and both Twin Lakes courses are reserved long before play begins. It is obvious that an economic model that does not result in some open spots indicates a rate schedule that is too low. Therefore, it is clear that the Park Authority is trying to balance its budget on golfers who play on off peak hours.
The proposed rate increase is based on faulty analysis, is discriminatory, and will result in bad public policy. See you at the polls!
Sincerely,”
Life’s too much fun not to question authority.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
But blogging changed everything. Bloggers could say what they wanted at any length they chose. The only limit was their perception of the patience of the readers they’d lured to their sites. Since last August, I haven’t written a single letter to an editor, relying on my blog to serve as bait for as many readers as possible. I’ve been lucky, and the number who tune in on my pieces increases slightly with each posting.
But under prodding from a few wise guy friends and relatives, my weakness was exploited and I sent a poison pen missile to the local section of the Washington Post about a proposal by the Fairfax County, VA Park Authority to single out seniors for a rate increase to play golf. It was fun, my old mean streak shown like a beacon.
Wild Bill’s not the even handed angel he portrays when his personal ox is gored. Here’s his little dab of spilled bile.
“To the Editor:
The Fairfax County Park Authority has looked into the future and completely misread it. Instead of seeing the need for more open space that might be used by its citizens for recreation, it has determined that the best course of action is to identify one of the groups most in need of such facilities and the one most likely to use them in off peak hours – seniors – and to price out the poorest among them. Naturally, they expect these same seniors – the largest growing group of taxpayers in the county by the Authority’s own reckoning – to support Park Authority bonds.
The proposed increase in fees for seniors on county golf courses makes no sense. I’m in my seventies and play golf at Pinecrest, Burke Lake, Greendale, the two courses at Twin Lakes, and on semi-public facilities throughout the region about once a week during the fair weather months, so I’m subsidized to the tune of about $100.00 per year under present policy.
The Authority is correct in its assumption that seniors will grow both in number and as a percentage of the county’s residents, but for them to work backward from that to the solution that poorer seniors must be driven from these courses by draconian price increases defies logic, especially since – at least as it relates to Pinecrest, Greendale, and Burke Lake, the facilities most often cited in the media – the authority has its facts wrong. The idea that seniors are overwhelming these courses is simply not true.
No serious affluent golfer of any age would play these courses on a regular basis. Anyone with means and serious intent is a member of a country club or plays the rapidly proliferating semi-private courses throughout the region that compete aggressively for off peak affluent players. Most of the golfers playing Burke Lake, Pinecrest and Greendale are far from wealthy, and I invite the members of the Authority to check these parking lots for BMWs and Mercedes.
That senior charges should increase while junior golfers retain their present rates is rank age discrimination and defies logic. The increase for seniors is designed to head off an avalanche of golfers, while the junior fees are set to encourage growth of play to develop the customers of tomorrow. In view of the new holes coming on line in Lorton, are there really going to be too many off-peak players?
Taxes on senior owned property increases far faster than their retirement income and they are under great cost pressure. Yet they are called upon – begged – to support school and park bonds. While the Authority judges seniors to be daft, if the proposed rate increase for seniors stands, older members of the community would be foolish to support any future park bond issues.
Seniors are generous in support of children through our votes and our taxes. So to demonstrate where the county’s priorities lie, the Authority proposes to remove one of the small subsidies from seniors who pay far more taxes than they get in services and continue to subsidize school age youngsters to play golf. Seniors pay taxes, do not require new roads, don’t attend school, and don’t play subsidized golf on the weekends so, “Off with their heads!” This seems a poor way to preserve the social compact within the county.
Obviously, the intent of the new rate schedule is to ration play by cost, to increase income, and to reduce wear and tear on the facilities. I won’t argue with those goals but would point out that an independent study will almost certainly show that virtually all prime tee times on the three courses above and both Twin Lakes courses are reserved long before play begins. It is obvious that an economic model that does not result in some open spots indicates a rate schedule that is too low. Therefore, it is clear that the Park Authority is trying to balance its budget on golfers who play on off peak hours.
The proposed rate increase is based on faulty analysis, is discriminatory, and will result in bad public policy. See you at the polls!
Sincerely,”
Life’s too much fun not to question authority.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, February 14, 2005
Not in Our Stars But In Ourselves
Human beings can rationalize anything, and for most the answers are always simple.
I was saddened to read of the Neo Nazi demonstration in Dresden. Anyone who has studied World War II or read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut has empathized with the residents of that great old city and felt despair at the sight of the bodies and the ruins. Now the Neo Nazis have found in this tragedy the victimhood needed to dilute blame for the Holocaust.
They have found common cause with residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in blaming the allies, especially the United States, for what happened in February 1945. Fortunately, most Germans reject that notion and accept national guilt for crimes of the Third Reich.
It is so easy to blame others for our difficulties. If only the Kulaks would give in the new Soviet man could appear. Twenty million deaths later, the Soviets were no closer to a stateless society than when the purge began. Germany’s economic problems of the twenties and thirties were the fault of the Jews.
There seem to be four great answers to political and economic difficulties: it’s somebody else’s fault; it must be collectivized; the state must control the economy; and the market will make us free. Men and women of my era have seen each of these answers come a cropper.
Despite the greatest failure of collectivism of all time, there is never a shortage of those screaming for nationalization of industries and for the reeducation of the rest of us. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are not alone in calling for redistribution as the answer to a nation’s needs.
Even as Hitler’s Germany was being consumed in its own excesses, strong men from the right were being born and preparing to cure the ills of such disparate societies as Chile, Iraq and a host of other states.
Even as communism fades in China, the regime saves itself by taking on the qualities of gangsterism so representative of National Socialism.
While here in the U.S. as the memory of the Great Depression fades from our national memory, many are intent on dismantling the tools that saved us from the excesses of the market. Laissez faire policies that brought us robber barons in the nineteenth century are being recycled in our own time to create a capitalist class of great wealth even as the national standard of living stagnates.
Words like business cycle and crash have been banished from our lexicon. Ownership has new meaning as we happily ignore or forget that everyone was welcome to participate in the market run up of the nineteen-twenties.
Progressives of both of our political parties saw a role for government in a capitalist society. But now the watch word from one side is that liberals want to socialize and impoverish and from the other that capitalist excess has already crossed the line to right wing excess.
The answers are harder than the slogans that parties proclaim. But those who seem to understand this are marginalized. We centrists must never give up. It is up to us to demand that the rules of reason and law must not disappear.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
I was saddened to read of the Neo Nazi demonstration in Dresden. Anyone who has studied World War II or read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut has empathized with the residents of that great old city and felt despair at the sight of the bodies and the ruins. Now the Neo Nazis have found in this tragedy the victimhood needed to dilute blame for the Holocaust.
They have found common cause with residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in blaming the allies, especially the United States, for what happened in February 1945. Fortunately, most Germans reject that notion and accept national guilt for crimes of the Third Reich.
It is so easy to blame others for our difficulties. If only the Kulaks would give in the new Soviet man could appear. Twenty million deaths later, the Soviets were no closer to a stateless society than when the purge began. Germany’s economic problems of the twenties and thirties were the fault of the Jews.
There seem to be four great answers to political and economic difficulties: it’s somebody else’s fault; it must be collectivized; the state must control the economy; and the market will make us free. Men and women of my era have seen each of these answers come a cropper.
Despite the greatest failure of collectivism of all time, there is never a shortage of those screaming for nationalization of industries and for the reeducation of the rest of us. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are not alone in calling for redistribution as the answer to a nation’s needs.
Even as Hitler’s Germany was being consumed in its own excesses, strong men from the right were being born and preparing to cure the ills of such disparate societies as Chile, Iraq and a host of other states.
Even as communism fades in China, the regime saves itself by taking on the qualities of gangsterism so representative of National Socialism.
While here in the U.S. as the memory of the Great Depression fades from our national memory, many are intent on dismantling the tools that saved us from the excesses of the market. Laissez faire policies that brought us robber barons in the nineteenth century are being recycled in our own time to create a capitalist class of great wealth even as the national standard of living stagnates.
Words like business cycle and crash have been banished from our lexicon. Ownership has new meaning as we happily ignore or forget that everyone was welcome to participate in the market run up of the nineteen-twenties.
Progressives of both of our political parties saw a role for government in a capitalist society. But now the watch word from one side is that liberals want to socialize and impoverish and from the other that capitalist excess has already crossed the line to right wing excess.
The answers are harder than the slogans that parties proclaim. But those who seem to understand this are marginalized. We centrists must never give up. It is up to us to demand that the rules of reason and law must not disappear.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Rainbow Over The Potomac
There is hope! Wild Bill is clean and sober and sees a rainbow through his window.
While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was giving the Europeans a taste of good old American common sense and a bit of a schoolmarm tongue lashing that they just have to put all those bad feelings about Iraq behind them and get with the program, we have to realize dear readers that the scolding was for consumption in the American hinterland. And Rush and Sean and Ann and G. Gordon and all the rest will use Condi’s words as bedtime stories of the faithful.
Red staters will cheer as Condi tells “old Europe” just what must be done to spread the Bush doctrine of freedom throughout the world and why they better leap to our side. The message for consumers in Fargo and Lincoln is that Jacques Chirac should simply ignore the past and get on with life.
But there is another message being sent to the international community, a serious and somber one. Yesterday, in watching Donald Rumsfeld interact with both wounded Americans and Iraqi police recruits, I was struck by how old and weary he appeared. The always ebullient Rummy just plodded through his obligatory hand holding and moved on to the next bed. Reading Doonsebury this morning – I get my Sunday comics a day early – I was stunned to see that Gary Trudeau had picked up on this even earlier than me.
When Rumsfeld returned to Europe for a conference on security in Munich, it was clear that Rummy speaks for a badly chastened administration. He openly acknowledged that the U.S. will be unable to sustain the war on terror without outside help. Bloomberg reports that for Rumsfeld, force is, “always the last resort.” And that in the fight against terror there will be a need for contributions from “many governments.”
“It must be clear that one nation can’t defeat the extremists alone,” Rumsfeld said. “Neither can any one nation successfully combat the asymmetrical threats of this new era. It will take the cooperation of many nations to stop the proliferation of dangerous weapons.” This is hardly the Rummy of two years ago when “Mission Accomplished” was the marquee headline.
Beneath the surface of the bold and brave rhetoric of the president and the Secretary of State there is a realization that there are limits to American power and that we were wrong in Iraq. What we need now is cover from our real allies as we are forced to withdraw from Baghdad. Rummy was almost begging for it, and I think that Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac are clever enough to provide it.
So while we bask in the glow of the January 30 elections in Iraq, we are preparing those who supported the adventure for the idea that the Iraqis will have to sink or swim on their own. We can cover them for a while with troops and aid, but it will be up to them to survive on their own. Democracy and freedom are great words for Inaugural Addresses, but when the rubber hits the road in Baghdad, the government and constitution in place will bear only slight resemblance to our own. The government may well have the consent of the governed, however, and that’s the best we can do..
So while Condi gives the French what for and as Rush and the rest rail at the United Nations, reality is setting in at the Pentagon and – you may be sure – in other buildings in Washington. There is hope for the nation this morning.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was giving the Europeans a taste of good old American common sense and a bit of a schoolmarm tongue lashing that they just have to put all those bad feelings about Iraq behind them and get with the program, we have to realize dear readers that the scolding was for consumption in the American hinterland. And Rush and Sean and Ann and G. Gordon and all the rest will use Condi’s words as bedtime stories of the faithful.
Red staters will cheer as Condi tells “old Europe” just what must be done to spread the Bush doctrine of freedom throughout the world and why they better leap to our side. The message for consumers in Fargo and Lincoln is that Jacques Chirac should simply ignore the past and get on with life.
But there is another message being sent to the international community, a serious and somber one. Yesterday, in watching Donald Rumsfeld interact with both wounded Americans and Iraqi police recruits, I was struck by how old and weary he appeared. The always ebullient Rummy just plodded through his obligatory hand holding and moved on to the next bed. Reading Doonsebury this morning – I get my Sunday comics a day early – I was stunned to see that Gary Trudeau had picked up on this even earlier than me.
When Rumsfeld returned to Europe for a conference on security in Munich, it was clear that Rummy speaks for a badly chastened administration. He openly acknowledged that the U.S. will be unable to sustain the war on terror without outside help. Bloomberg reports that for Rumsfeld, force is, “always the last resort.” And that in the fight against terror there will be a need for contributions from “many governments.”
“It must be clear that one nation can’t defeat the extremists alone,” Rumsfeld said. “Neither can any one nation successfully combat the asymmetrical threats of this new era. It will take the cooperation of many nations to stop the proliferation of dangerous weapons.” This is hardly the Rummy of two years ago when “Mission Accomplished” was the marquee headline.
Beneath the surface of the bold and brave rhetoric of the president and the Secretary of State there is a realization that there are limits to American power and that we were wrong in Iraq. What we need now is cover from our real allies as we are forced to withdraw from Baghdad. Rummy was almost begging for it, and I think that Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac are clever enough to provide it.
So while we bask in the glow of the January 30 elections in Iraq, we are preparing those who supported the adventure for the idea that the Iraqis will have to sink or swim on their own. We can cover them for a while with troops and aid, but it will be up to them to survive on their own. Democracy and freedom are great words for Inaugural Addresses, but when the rubber hits the road in Baghdad, the government and constitution in place will bear only slight resemblance to our own. The government may well have the consent of the governed, however, and that’s the best we can do..
So while Condi gives the French what for and as Rush and the rest rail at the United Nations, reality is setting in at the Pentagon and – you may be sure – in other buildings in Washington. There is hope for the nation this morning.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Friday, February 11, 2005
Investing Social Security Funds in Equities
One of my loyal readers wants to know why I'm opposed to investing Social Security payments in equities and bonds? I'm not. I'm opposed to personal accounts. By ridiculing that notion so vigorously, I suppose it was natural for readers to jump to that conclusion.
I have no trouble with the government investing the fund into something other than Treasury Notes. The Congress would have to keep in mind that risks are out there and that members would be responsible for setting up a program that costs relatively little to administer and that is nimble enough to cut losses.
My basic complaint with Mr. Bush's program is that it will create winners and losers and exacerbate class complaints. I would bet on the nation and its economy and have the profits used to shore up and extend the present level benefits far into the future. It too will take massive borrowing, but if it saves the system and makes long term fiscal sense, why not?
My first move, however, would be to raise the regressive tax that limits Social Security payments to the first $80,000.00 of income. That's a supposed sticking point with the president. Tough luck for him!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
I have no trouble with the government investing the fund into something other than Treasury Notes. The Congress would have to keep in mind that risks are out there and that members would be responsible for setting up a program that costs relatively little to administer and that is nimble enough to cut losses.
My basic complaint with Mr. Bush's program is that it will create winners and losers and exacerbate class complaints. I would bet on the nation and its economy and have the profits used to shore up and extend the present level benefits far into the future. It too will take massive borrowing, but if it saves the system and makes long term fiscal sense, why not?
My first move, however, would be to raise the regressive tax that limits Social Security payments to the first $80,000.00 of income. That's a supposed sticking point with the president. Tough luck for him!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Happy Retirement
As the administration’s proposals for Social Security are exposed to scrutiny, a new concern rears its ugly head - at least for me - the possible adverse impact on the social compact between the generations. To develop support for his program, the president may well exacerbate the conflict between the generations – the opposite of the stated intention.
All those receiving Social Security payments and those close to retirement would, under the president’s plan, be exempt from the provisions that he supports – good politics. That, however, does not settle the war between the generations but merely postpones it – in this case until those under age fifty begin to retire in fifteen or twenty years.
The president and the Congress can exempt present and near retirees from the provisions of the new legislation, but they cannot guarantee that the exemption will remain in place.
In 1972, large numbers of the so-called “Notch” generation were significantly and adversely impacted by a change in Social Security benefits. That grouping of cohorts born between 1917 and 1921 were inadvertently impacted by legislation in 1972 that caused a number of anomalies in benefits. Many of that age grouping who retired young (age 62) did relatively better than those who worked many years beyond the age of minimum retirement.
The “Notch” generation – those remaining are now all well into their eighties – fought to no avail over many years for equity and for a revisit of the calculation of benefits they received. This relatively small number of recipients that thought it had been unfairly treated by the government – and it cannot be said with certainty that they were not but it was certainly without intent – was able to secure support in Congress for a long struggle in which they ultimately failed.
The benefits cut off proposed by the president just about splits the Baby Boom generation down the middle, the older half would be treated as all today’s recipients are and the younger would get some yet to be explained transitional set of benefits. Young workers coming into the system after enactment would be covered by the provisions of the new program.
Today’s mantra is that anyone on Social Security today and those near retirement age would have nothing to worry about. Really? As those favored under the president’s proposal begin to die off, the massive number of the Baby Boomers and those behind them in the queue for benefits will have an opportunity to see the new program unfold. Obviously, as the program comes on line, it will become more and more apparent that the program works pretty much as expected, more generously than expected, or, obviously, less generously.
Clearly, the millions of young retirees (today’s 55 to 65 group) and those younger will have ample time to asses if the deal is equitable. If not, any promises made to today’s retirees and near retirees will be subject to great political pressure either to bring the new group up equivalently – impossible – or to adversely impact those on the Social Security rolls at that time. That could include reducing cost of living benefits or any number of other ways of assuring equity.
The president and the Congress will make promises, but they won’t be around when the rubber hits the road. While it is easy for us older folks to buy into the system, most of the effects will be felt only after we’re dead, younger people both retired and within ten years of retirement today had better consider that as the benefits of those paid under the old system will be paid to a smaller number of beneficiaries over time while those looking at lesser benefits will be a constantly increasing percentage of the electorate, so all promises made in 2005 may be revisited in the future.
We’re I in my forties or fifties, I’d be looking for ways to shore up the present system rather than buying the pig in a poke of personal accounts.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
All those receiving Social Security payments and those close to retirement would, under the president’s plan, be exempt from the provisions that he supports – good politics. That, however, does not settle the war between the generations but merely postpones it – in this case until those under age fifty begin to retire in fifteen or twenty years.
The president and the Congress can exempt present and near retirees from the provisions of the new legislation, but they cannot guarantee that the exemption will remain in place.
In 1972, large numbers of the so-called “Notch” generation were significantly and adversely impacted by a change in Social Security benefits. That grouping of cohorts born between 1917 and 1921 were inadvertently impacted by legislation in 1972 that caused a number of anomalies in benefits. Many of that age grouping who retired young (age 62) did relatively better than those who worked many years beyond the age of minimum retirement.
The “Notch” generation – those remaining are now all well into their eighties – fought to no avail over many years for equity and for a revisit of the calculation of benefits they received. This relatively small number of recipients that thought it had been unfairly treated by the government – and it cannot be said with certainty that they were not but it was certainly without intent – was able to secure support in Congress for a long struggle in which they ultimately failed.
The benefits cut off proposed by the president just about splits the Baby Boom generation down the middle, the older half would be treated as all today’s recipients are and the younger would get some yet to be explained transitional set of benefits. Young workers coming into the system after enactment would be covered by the provisions of the new program.
Today’s mantra is that anyone on Social Security today and those near retirement age would have nothing to worry about. Really? As those favored under the president’s proposal begin to die off, the massive number of the Baby Boomers and those behind them in the queue for benefits will have an opportunity to see the new program unfold. Obviously, as the program comes on line, it will become more and more apparent that the program works pretty much as expected, more generously than expected, or, obviously, less generously.
Clearly, the millions of young retirees (today’s 55 to 65 group) and those younger will have ample time to asses if the deal is equitable. If not, any promises made to today’s retirees and near retirees will be subject to great political pressure either to bring the new group up equivalently – impossible – or to adversely impact those on the Social Security rolls at that time. That could include reducing cost of living benefits or any number of other ways of assuring equity.
The president and the Congress will make promises, but they won’t be around when the rubber hits the road. While it is easy for us older folks to buy into the system, most of the effects will be felt only after we’re dead, younger people both retired and within ten years of retirement today had better consider that as the benefits of those paid under the old system will be paid to a smaller number of beneficiaries over time while those looking at lesser benefits will be a constantly increasing percentage of the electorate, so all promises made in 2005 may be revisited in the future.
We’re I in my forties or fifties, I’d be looking for ways to shore up the present system rather than buying the pig in a poke of personal accounts.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Feelin' Blue
Today’s a bad day for Wild Bill. He‘s seeing red and feeling blue.
Frankly, when the president goes out in the boon docks to sell that hokum of his on Social Security and Iraq, I feel bad. I was born during the Great Depression and came of age during the Cold War and believe deeply that he is wrong on both issues.
If there were two things that I thought might survive those bad old times, they were Social Security and collective security among the nations of the world. Obviously, I was wrong and the heroes of my youth, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and even Richard Nixon are gone and forgotten, about as relevant as passe heroes of my own youth like Franklin Pierce and William McKinley.
Clearly the reasons for passing Social Security have been forgotten. So too it is with collective security. The reasons the United Nations was deemed essential have been dumped as the venality of a few is allowed to obscure the goals and objectives of the institution.
But that isn’t what makes me sad; it’s the reaction of those good ol’ boys from North Dakota, Nebraska and wherever the hell else Bush roams among the buffalo. Those good folks lapped it up like a litter of kittens after a saucer of milk. How about that? Bush's approval ratings are rising like my blood pressure.
They’re so damned dependent on Social Security, farm subsidies, Amtrak and every other damn federal program and still they’re buying into that ownership society. Hot damn! Those boys and girls are gonna be so rich they won’t know what to do with their money.
So I’m spending my days drowning my sorrow and writing my latest Country and Western song, Cheers of Red Make My Tears of Blue. I can hardly wait for it to hit the charts so I can join the ownership society.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Frankly, when the president goes out in the boon docks to sell that hokum of his on Social Security and Iraq, I feel bad. I was born during the Great Depression and came of age during the Cold War and believe deeply that he is wrong on both issues.
If there were two things that I thought might survive those bad old times, they were Social Security and collective security among the nations of the world. Obviously, I was wrong and the heroes of my youth, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and even Richard Nixon are gone and forgotten, about as relevant as passe heroes of my own youth like Franklin Pierce and William McKinley.
Clearly the reasons for passing Social Security have been forgotten. So too it is with collective security. The reasons the United Nations was deemed essential have been dumped as the venality of a few is allowed to obscure the goals and objectives of the institution.
But that isn’t what makes me sad; it’s the reaction of those good ol’ boys from North Dakota, Nebraska and wherever the hell else Bush roams among the buffalo. Those good folks lapped it up like a litter of kittens after a saucer of milk. How about that? Bush's approval ratings are rising like my blood pressure.
They’re so damned dependent on Social Security, farm subsidies, Amtrak and every other damn federal program and still they’re buying into that ownership society. Hot damn! Those boys and girls are gonna be so rich they won’t know what to do with their money.
So I’m spending my days drowning my sorrow and writing my latest Country and Western song, Cheers of Red Make My Tears of Blue. I can hardly wait for it to hit the charts so I can join the ownership society.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Thursday, February 03, 2005
State of the Union
President Bush’s performance last night in the State of the Union Address was very formidable. He has definitely grown in office and no longer looks like a man dependent on his underlings. The giants of the first administration, such as Cheney and Rumsfeld, looked oddly smaller and older while the power and vigor of the president shone through.
Thus Bush began his quest for support for his two major issues – the Iraq War and Social Security Reform – with a leg up in the public mind, if not in the Congress. The speech brilliantly written and almost flawlessly delivered was deficient on those two issues to the point of obfuscation.
That Iraqis voted in large number last Sunday was a triumph of the human spirit. It doesn’t mean that democracy can be permanently imposed on that country at the point of an American gun. We’re going to have to go home someday. Nor does it hide the fact that our new rationale for the attack – extension of freedom around the world – is a giant leap away from traditional views of the American presidency and the Constitution itself. That the Bush Doctrine on display in the Inaugural Address which had to be interpreted by so many, including George H.W. Bush, as not nearly so bellicose as it was believed by those who heard it, was in my judgment an ex post facto rationale for the war itself.
With regard to Social Security reform, the president left the Republican majority with the unenviable task of writing the legislation and of explaining it to the voters. Mr. Bush recited many of the proposals that leading commentators have made but didn’t say he favored any of them. The Republicans are going to have to write the legislation and suffer the slings and arrows of the Democrats along the way – or were those catcalls I heard from the Democrat side really cheers?
10.0 for delivery and 2.0 for content does not sound like a guaranteed winner to me. The president failed to adequately address the fiscal problems of Medicare and Medicaid, far more important drains on our treasury than Social Security. I guess what I’m saying is that the president’s performance was a tour de force of style over substance. A gentleman’s C just won’t do for issues of this magnitude.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Thus Bush began his quest for support for his two major issues – the Iraq War and Social Security Reform – with a leg up in the public mind, if not in the Congress. The speech brilliantly written and almost flawlessly delivered was deficient on those two issues to the point of obfuscation.
That Iraqis voted in large number last Sunday was a triumph of the human spirit. It doesn’t mean that democracy can be permanently imposed on that country at the point of an American gun. We’re going to have to go home someday. Nor does it hide the fact that our new rationale for the attack – extension of freedom around the world – is a giant leap away from traditional views of the American presidency and the Constitution itself. That the Bush Doctrine on display in the Inaugural Address which had to be interpreted by so many, including George H.W. Bush, as not nearly so bellicose as it was believed by those who heard it, was in my judgment an ex post facto rationale for the war itself.
With regard to Social Security reform, the president left the Republican majority with the unenviable task of writing the legislation and of explaining it to the voters. Mr. Bush recited many of the proposals that leading commentators have made but didn’t say he favored any of them. The Republicans are going to have to write the legislation and suffer the slings and arrows of the Democrats along the way – or were those catcalls I heard from the Democrat side really cheers?
10.0 for delivery and 2.0 for content does not sound like a guaranteed winner to me. The president failed to adequately address the fiscal problems of Medicare and Medicaid, far more important drains on our treasury than Social Security. I guess what I’m saying is that the president’s performance was a tour de force of style over substance. A gentleman’s C just won’t do for issues of this magnitude.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
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