Even two weeks ago, when I got their last Social Security missive, their poll numbers were highly selective, slanted, and misleading. But they're at the point now where there's really no way left to spin the poll results other than to pretty much lie about what they say.
And referring to the recent indoctrination sessions, Mehlman wrote, "These meetings left one clear impression -- Americans want Congress to work together to strengthen Social Security for future generations."
Wow. Talk about a mandate for pillaging our future (i.e., privatizing Social Security).
I mean, sheesh, that's something I can say I agree with. But I think there are vastly less expensive, corrupt and, well, overly complex, ways to do it.
This is a great quote: "60 percent of Americans support the concept of allowing workers to have the choice of a voluntary personal retirement account."
But shockingly absent from Mehlman's missive is the fact that 100% of American workers already have that choice!
Dork.
And, OK, here's one of the bullet points that, when I read it at first, parsed completely differently from the way it was intended: "Polls show an increasing number of Americans understand the problems confronting Social Security because of the President's and Republican Congress' leadership on the issue." Mehlman actually intends to say that because of the Resident's and Republican Congress's efforts, people understand the problems confronting social security. But when I read it, it seemed to say to me that the American people understood that there are problems with Social Security because of Republican leadership.
Ahem. I cop to my own misunderstanding cos I think it's closer to the truth.
Seniors, get on board. "President Bush has said he will not change benefits for Americans born before 1950. While nothing will change for current or near retirees and they will receive their benefits on time and in full, their involvement in this debate is about the kind of Social Security system they want their children and grandchildren to have." What kind of system do you think American seniors want their descendants to have? An untried system that in the best of circumstances will pour America's hard earned cash like an unclamped firehose into the vast underground tanks that are the bank accounts of brokers and brokerage firms, and in the worst circumstances, will lose trillions of dollars to bribery, graft, corruption and the complete unbalancing of the American economy from an uncontrollable inflow of investment capital? Or something essentially the same as our current, conservatively-run system with its modest costs and grounding in the full faith and credit of the US government? What have they come to trust?
Give it up, Ken. They're too smart to buy your monorail. Try Shelbyville.
I was going to stop there till I looked back at the last two bullet points (and by now I've pretty much reprinted the entire RNC e-mail, albeit chopped into small, bite-sized pieces so as not to induce the vomiting that might result from reading the whole thing at once):
- "Social Security faces very real demographic problems that cannot be solved with band-aid solutions like tax increases. In 1950, there were 16 workers paying for every one beneficiary. Today, there are about three, and when younger workers retire, there will only be two."
- "In 2017, Social Security will begin paying out more money than it receives in payroll taxes. The longer we wait to address the issue the more costly it becomes. Elected leaders have an obligation to address the issue today and not pass it on to our children and grandchildren."
Strangely, almost since its inception it's been taking in more than it's paid out, so there's (at least in theory) some lead time, unless the government decides to start defaulting on its debt ... which would be bad. Very, very bad.
And my last point is that these population changes are cyclical. The Republican's intimation seems to be that the upcoming work force is always going to be much smaller than the generation before it. But in order for this whole thing to be as big a crisis as they imply it is, we'd have to be on track for geometrically worsening negative population growth on top of geometrically expanding life expectancy, in which case all we'd have left would be a few thousand really, really old Americans within a couple hundred years. And that's just silly.
Population rates fluctuate. Yes, the ratio will look bad here in a couple of decades, for a couple of decades.
Anyway.
The upshot of all of this is that the personal accounts part of Mehlman's e-mail is such a brief mention, and so vague, and so ill-supported, even according to their own numbers, that they realize they're losing this one badly. And if they take this tack now (encourage a bipartisan effort to 'solve Social Security', then if the Democrats come to the table with a system that actually works, while the Republicans are still in power, they will still be able to lie to the American people, saying they have all the best ideas and the Democrats are either spineless 'me-too'ers or mindless naysayers, and the unwashed masses will buy it. And keep voting for the bastards.
The solution, to my mind, is to hold off the forces of the Sith through 2006, then bring to the first session a modest change to Social Security that (through the magic of projections and compound interest) will 'fix' it. And quit letting the Republicans take credit for things that actually turn out right.
Oh, and one last thing. It has not escaped my notice that Mehlman has stopped using the word crisis. It must not have been selling well.
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