Kerry offers coolheaded words on Social Sec Reform.
Of course that's retired Dem. Senator Bob Kerry. Anyway, his words on why the current Democratic foot dragging over the mere idea that Social Security "might" need reformed is bad for all of us are worth a read. I'm in agreement with Bob, SSI needs work and we're better off if both sides work together. Unfortunately right now it's one side that wants to work on it and the other that is in LaLa land. Just last week I her Minority Leader Harry Reid say that SSI/Medicaid/Medicare was stronger that ever and could go in "indefinitely" just as it is.
posted by Dublin Saab @ 10:33 PM
5 Comments:
I was at a low-key conservative blog yesterday, where the host cleverly (or, in the manner of shooting fish in a barrell, I'm not sure) presented a Clinton 1998 SOTU in which he said...almost exactly the same speech W just gave on SS. I'm all with righty on this. If it was then, why is it not true with a GOP Prez? Oh, yeah, 'cuz my party sucks ass and can't agree with anything unless they came up with it. Hell, they don't agree with things they have come up with. It's like being Lions fan in the paper-bag-on-the-head days before Barry sanders. I deeply distrust the GOP's domestic agenda and cannot in any real way support it. The problem is that no one has a plan B to offer right now. (Helloooo!! DNC!! Are you listening? I WANT TO VOTE FOR YOU GUYS!! Please give me a reason to do so.)
I am not at all sold on the economic wisdom of the Bush plan. I've read some economists come out plainly against it (and some for, you know how it goes). But you can't cheer one and boo the other when two differrent presidents tell you the same freakin' thing. It's beyond childish; it's beyond the arrogant assumption that the MSM won't call you out; it's an insult to every television watching American. Now, tell them they have short memories and that they're stupid all you want. Sometimes I agree with that. But for the love of God, when they were sitting in the same chair when you said it was the sun, don't call it the moon. To my estranged friends the Dems: desperation has a smell, and that smell is death. Grab a whiff now, or you'll be doing it again at midterms.
I read Kerry's piece in the matter--pretty good advice, really. But hey, he's a cornfield Dem, the people that used to run the party. They need to do so again, before the Pelosi insurrection drives away so many voters that the Republican Senate majority grows massive enough to impeach presidents at will and amend the Constitution. If we ever reach that point, I start considering moonbat DU ideas like emigrating.
Calm down. If the Dems get that weak there won't be any Dem presidents to worry about getting impeached and last I checked they still need the states to ratify an amdendment... which is not so easily done. But speaking of moving I just hear Germany hit 11% unemployment. Man those guys on the left sure know how to run an economy!
Actually, in the event I were to do a temp move (still a possibility after school is done, but for recreational rather than political reasons) I'd be looking at Austalia/New Zealand, where it seems to be fairly easy to find a job. However, that said, the problem with Europe's unemployment is that with generous and extended unemployment privileges and lots of cheap Turkish labor, the locals simply don't apply for service jobs. The abundant foreign labor means that there is no pressure driving service wages higher, and hence no incentive for those comfortably on the dole to try very hard to find a job. The Ireland experience taught me well. I worked like a slave 50+ hours a week to make 130-150 pounds under the table. A guy on the dole got 90, supplemented handsomely by the thriving Irish (and Spanish, and French, etc.)panhandling market. So essentially the guy on the dole got paid the same as me, without the troublesome inconvenience of gainful employment. Does all of this fully explain 11% German unemployment (which actually isn't that bad by Eurostandards)? No, but the well-meaning nanny state (and I mean that much less pejoratively than everyone else) helps itself in no way by offering disincentives to work.
I suspect, though, that Europe's relative lack of industriousness has deeper roots. Their cultural elite from the Middle Ages onward, the landed aristocracy, viewed work as a curse reserved for people of common blood. It was not only unnecessary for people of wealth, but deeply unfashionable and stigmatized. One wouldn't have done it even if one desired, just to avoid scandal. Conversely, while the "Puritan work ethic" is partly a cultural myth, it does in some ways inform the American view of work. The very tradesmen who invented the modern capitalist economy in Europe are the people who settled New England. We don't have the unconscious negative associations regarding work that Europeans do. Or something like that.
I found a new toy for my blog. Tell me what you think.
Shouldn't you now be Clintonville Saab?
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