Marginalized Republican Party? Sounds Good to me.
Christine Whitman, former EPA administrator (one of many who have resigned under Bush), is apparently putting out a book about retaking the Republican Party for moderates. In the book, she will reportedly discuss how she was constantly at odds with the Bush administration.
Her book,
It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America, warns about the danger of the Republican Party swinging too far to the right. She says, "A clear and present danger Republicans face today is that the party will now move so far to the right that it ends up alienating centrist voters and marginalizing itself."
Sounds like a good plan to me! I say, let the Republican Party continue swinging so wildly to the right that sane Americans will be forced to take a more moderate approach. How does the Democratic Party grow? Just let the Republicans screw up enough.
Mr. President, Your Credit is Bad
Adding to record deficits, the Bush administration plans to borrow money to privatize social security. The money borrowed could
top $1 trillion. All this so that younger workers (have they ever said who counts as a younger worker?) could divert 4 percent of their payroll taxes---up to a measly $1,000. At the same time, the forecasted debt that the taxpayers would get stuck with for this plan equals $4.7 trillion. Does that make sense to you?
There's a really great article on Social Security over at
Mother Jones, which I couldn't find in the archives for some reason so I'm posting it here:
2:54 PM
More Social Security gimmickry
From the looks of things, the Bush administration's latest Social Security proposal is: Use some fancy accounting methods, wave your hands, confuse a lot of people, and pretend everything's okay:
Republican budget writers say they may have found a way to cut the federal deficit even if they borrow hundreds of billions more to overhaul the Social Security system: Don't count all that new borrowing.
As they lay the groundwork for what will probably be a controversial fight over Social Security, Republican lawmakers and the Bush administration are examining a number of accounting strategies that would allow the expensive transition to a partially privatized Social Security system without -- at least on paper -- expanding the country's record annual budget deficits. The strategies include, for example, moving the costs of Social Security reform "off-budget" so they are not counted against the government's yearly shortfall.
Since the administration insists on being as obscure as possible—and I don't think the Post explains the issue well—here's a quick primer to what's going on. The Social Security Trust Fund, where all our payroll taxes go, is currently taking in more in taxes than it pays out—so it runs a modest surplus. Over the years, the federal government has been raiding this Trust Fund surplus, so as to mask the size of its own federal deficit.
That means that once the Trust Fund starts paying out more benefits than it takes in in taxes—somewhere around 2017—it will have to start asking the federal government for all that surplus money back. Since the government would never simply stop taking care of seniors, it will give that money back, at which point the federal deficit will suddenly look like it's "jumped". In reality, though, nothing has changed here. (The government will just borrow from someone else to pay what it owes Social Security.) But then at some point even further down the road—say, 2040—the Trust Fund will have spent all its surplus, and then it will have to start borrowing, at which point we really are increasing the deficit.
Now in the Post article, Glenn Hubbard is proposing that the federal government repay all that borrowed Social Security surplus back now rather than in 2017, so that we get that apparent "jump" in the deficit out of the way. Nothing tricky there. The problem is that if you also want to privatize Social Security, and have workers divert their taxes into personal accounts, then the actual Social Security deficit comes much, much sooner. As we've pointed out, people who are around 40-50 right now would probably lose much of what they put into the system during their lifetime.
Social Security can get around this new dilemma simply by borrowing more money to pay those 40 and 50-year-olds, but then, alas, it's increasing the actual deficits even further. And when prominent economists are already predicting "Economic Armageddon" because of current deficits, that makes people a bit jumpy. So here's where the "creative accounting" comes in—the Bush administration will argue that by borrowing now, they're actually reducing our long-term deficits, since it can cut benefits far, far in the future for people who have been saving in private accounts for a long time. Et voila! Short-term deficits don't matter!
The assumptions in all this are that a) bond markets don't freak out and raise interest rates, b) we'll actually find people to lend us all that money, and c) that Americans will get enough of a return in their private accounts to offset their benefit cuts far in the future. Sound familiar? It was exactly these sorts of assumptions that led the Reagan administration in the '80s to claim that their deficits would pay for themselves. It's sort of like saying that spending on education or health care shouldn't be counted since they're investments that pay for themselves in the long term. And funny, I don't think Republicans would've bought that argument if John Kerry had made it.
- Bradford Plumer
Pakistani president denounces war on terror
The Guardian today reported that the Pakistani President has denounced the war on terror. President, Pervez Musharraff, admits that the Pakistani forces lost track of Osama Bin Laden but says the US should share the blame for not putting enough forces on the ground. He goes further to state that the war on terror has created a more dangerous world and has failed to combat the underlying causes of terrorism.
So much for Bush's coalition of the willing.
