Social Security & Medicare Notes

Social Security phase out side tracked, not dead

There hasn't been a lot of public activity on the Social Security phase out front recently. Josh Marshall has referred us to Iowa's Daily Nonpareil online. Karl Rove told employees of Ameritrade:

"Over the years, Social Security has been a huge success, but the system has grown "creaky with age," said Karl Rove, deputy White House chief of staff on Friday.

Unless changes are made, it's only going to get worse and in a hurry, he said Friday in Bellevue, Neb.

"In 2008, we'll see the system go south," Rove said at the Ameritrade Holding Corp. facility at the Southroads Mall. "We've got to solve the problem now."

This was the last public sighting of Karl Rove. He was speaking to employees of Ameritrade Holding co. with "no reporters and not open to the public. The questions were pre-screened and I think limited to questions about Social Security" according to Josh Marshall.

It would be hard to find a more favorable audience for a message that the flow of money into Social Security should be redirected to investments handled by stock brokers. It is like telling tobacco company executives that smoking is good for you.

The only real problem with the Social Security System is Republican efforts to destroy it because they don't believe it should exist. The 70 year succesful history of the finest single program the federal government has ever established merely infuriates them. They latch onto the minor tweaks the system may need in the future as proof that the program is doomed, and then they present their ideology and scare statements to audiences of stock brokers who will become much more wealthy if they can prevail over the good sense of the American people.

America knows never to trust a tobacco company executive when they speak glowlingly of the positive aspects of smoking and down rate its negative aspects. When Republicans speak of the problems in Social Security and the necessity of replacing the system, ignoring the cost of such replacement and the history of success of the program they rate the same skepticism that the tobacco company executives received as they stood in front of the U.S. Senate and claimed they did not know of any health dangers in smoking. Let's not forget that the tobacco company executives were Republicans also.

Besides, Karl Rove committed treason when he exposed a CIA officer. Why should anyone trust a traitor to America? He and the Republican Party generally are flawed carriers of any message to change Social Security.

posted by Richard @ 3:20 PM