Subj : Social Security Going Bro
To   : EARL CROASMUN
From : BOB KLAHN
Date : Mon Oct 14 2013 12:15 pm

>>>> What you didn't explain is how his tax increases, whether you
>>>> call them accelerations or not, did increase social security

>>> I guess if you ignore the fact that a bipartisan commission
>>> recommended it, and Congress passed it, and the increases

>> You can get almost anything labeled 'bipartisan',

EC> Only to someone like you, who uses words as weapons rather
EC> than as descriptors. You would just as quickly call them

Or to someone like you who doesn't address the actual question,
but automatically attacks motives.

EC> Rostenkowski's tax increases or Tip O'Neil's tax increases,
EC> if you thought it would serve your purposes of the moment.

You have to reach back that far to get something to falsely
accuse with. Just demonstrates how weak your thinking is.

EC> Presidents Clinton and Reagan, unlike Obama, could
EC> negotiate and get things done.  At the time, Reagan was

Clinton and Reagan didn't face a fanatical group, financed by
billionaires, with a supreme court decision giveing corporations
the rights of people to allow unlimited political attacks
financed by those billionaires.

...

EC> Carter had left Social Security in a mess.  A bipartisan

When you show Carter did any such thing we can discuss it.

EC> Commission made recommendations, Reagan and O'Neil accepted
EC> them, and both houses of Congress passed them.  The result,
EC> in the words of one US News article: "Students of Reagan
EC> have offered praise for this agreement. Reagan biographer

They may well have. Doesn't change the fact that it did not
solve the problems, we are facing them again. It also does not,
in any way, challenge my original point, all it really did was
give the federal government more money to spend today without
raising taxes other than social security taxes, which apply to
the workers, not investors. IOW, it let the Reagan
administration hide their violation of the promise to cut taxes,
not raise them.

EC> Lou Cannon praised Reagan's Social Security commission as
EC> an example of "a compromise that did some things the
EC> Democrats wanted and some things the Republicans wanted,"

Which is irrelevant to the original point.

EC> while even the former president's critics including author
EC> Will Bunch cited the Social Security deal as a "practical"
EC> and bipartisan reform that had a "lasting positive impact"
EC> on government and public policy."

Where is the lasting impact? Why are we going through it all
over again? And how does that change the fact that the federal
government got more money to spend immediately, while putting
off repayment to the future?

EC> So, yeah, YOU can call something anything you want to.
EC> Doesn't change the facts.

It certainly does not change the facts. The fact is, the
government got more money to spend at that time, while
concealing the fact that they were breaking the promise not to
raise taxes. It was another tax increase on workers.

You didn't even argue that point.


BOB KLAHN [email protected]   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

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