Minnesota Sen. Mark Dayton announced today he will not run for reelection in 2006. Jeff Bingaman will, it is said, soon annouce he will not run. Maria Cantwell is deeply in debt. Three Democrat Senators from very red states are up in 2006: Ben Nelson (NE); Bill Nelson (FL); and Kent Conrad (ND). If they run in 2006 and win, five Democratic Senators (Byrd, Kennedy, Sarbanes, Akaka, & Kohl) will by over 76 when their term expires. 2006 will be worse for Democrats than 2004. George Soros, Steve Bing, Fred Eychaner and Haim Saban better start writing $5 million dollar plus checks to the DNC right now.
it's more or less assured that we'll get the senate... but this is nothing new... we've known this for about 4 years. The democrats are going through a continuous collapse. They will continue to collapse until they recognize the changed nature of the political field. Currently they're fighting like WWI generals... just trying to brute force powerful tactical advantages with their superior resources. Even with control of congress, the dems have had nearly 70 years to dig into our various institutions... it will take decades more to regain parity. However, the recent appointment of Howard Dean is a good sign. He's all spirit and no brains. Bill Clinton had the right idea... but his legacy is dead. Dean will charge the dem forces into set up after setup... It's as pathetic as it is fortuitous. How can you not believe in providence with so many unlikely things happening all at once? I'm constantly amazed by how lucky we are... Now, of course some dems are going to respond with "you end is nigh" type stuff or "you're destroying the country"... To the first, I've got the machine gun ready; you just make your cavalry charge. To the second, we're only dooming your vision of the future; With it's death ours is given life. To whether ours is successful or not, only time can judge. Love and peace, Karmashock.
The elderly Democrat Senators remind me of the Four Horsemen who blocked FDR's New Deal. Not for long but for a while. We are in interesting times. FDR cloaked the New Deal in American tradition: faith, family, charity. Outward appearances stayed the same but it was a radical change. Now the New Deal is our traditon and to effect radical change, programs must be cloaked in it (privatizing Social Security for instance).
The system is unsustainable and the economics are literally feudisitic. Its a system designed by an economic retard... I honestly don't know how it got through... it makes far too many assumptions and does nothing to attach itself to the compounding nature of our economic growth.
My dad told me Social Security wasn't an easy sell. FDR sent out legions of propagandists who assured factory workers their SS number was only for "their" account which they owned and would never be used for anything else. The con that the employer pays half of SS taxes was brilliant. I'm convinced the New Deal was designed to prolong the depression (to move power to DC) and that SS was created to ensure the Democratic Party be a majority party for generations. If it wasn't planned that way, the result was the same as if it had been.
Maybe Social Security should stay secure. The stock market has been known to crash now and then. Before Social Security 50% percent of the elderly were living in poverty (and many died because of it), now it's only 12%.
It is not secure. Three questions: If investing in the market is so bad, why don't the nearly 7 million unionized government workers who pay no SS tax but have every dime in the private markets, lobby Congress to let them into Social Security? Why are those government unions among the major forces lobbying to keep private sector workers from investing even a fraction of their SS taxes in the market? If the markets do tank, if corporate America goes belly up, where will the money come from to pay Social Security taxes for beneficaries? Give us one 30 year time frame in which anyone who invested regularly in a broad index of blue chip stocks. top rated corporate bonds and government securities lost money.
spidergoat...oops clicked post, not preview. More than three questions and a few typos. But I have more of both.
1. Investing in the stock market isn't a bad idea, it can be profitable, but that isn't the purpose of Social Security. SS is a safety net for the general public. Employers are not required to provide a retirement plan. The Federal government does, however, provide a retirement plan to Federal workers. 2. A. Social Security privatization will affect federal employees in SSAs in two main ways. First, the privatization of the program they administer so efficiently (at a cost of less than 1% of benefits paid compared to about 15% of benefits paid in the private insurance industry) will likely mean the eventual outsourcing to private firms of federal jobs. B. Social Security privatization will also undermine the retirement income security for all federal employees enrolled in the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). Social Security benefits constitute one of the three components of retirement income under FERS, and the promise of guaranteed Social Security benefits was a primary element of the calculation when FERS was established to replace the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). Brining federal employees into Social Security was part of the “solution” to the projected financial shortfalls addressed by Alan Greenspan’s Social Security Commission in the early 1980’s. FERS was designed specifically to provide federal employees with retirement benefits that would be equivalent to those under CSRS. With a privatized Social Security system that cuts benefits anywhere from 15 to 50% depending upon age, that promise will have been broken. 3. In 1983, a Social Security Commission (chaired by current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan) recommended and Congress passed increases in Social Security taxes paid by employers and workers in order to build up a surplus in Social Security revenue specifically in order to save for the surge in costs associated with the eventual retirement of the baby boom generation. This surplus is today worth $2 trillion and continues to grow each year because Social Security taxes continue exceed benefits paid. These surpluses are deposited in the Old Age and Survivors/Disability (OASD) Trust Fund whose monies are invested in federal government bonds called Treasury bonds. These bonds are backed "by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury.” They are the safest investment the world has ever known. The U.S. government is obligated to repay the bonds held by this Social Security Trust Fund at the bondholder’s request, in exactly the same way that it is obligated to pay the holder of any other Treasury bond. To pay off these bonds, the government must find money from some source – either through individual or corporate income taxes, or the issuance of new debt (bonds) that it may sell to the public (including individuals, foreign governments, pension plans, etc.). Workers’ Social Security taxes were used to buy the bonds in the Trust Fund, and there is absolutely no reason to expect that our government would not honor its debt to them. 4. Social Security doesn't pay out only on retirement, but for other reasons, which might occur before your investments mature in 30 years. I think if you invested in the years from 1899-1929, you wouldn't have much to retire on. The stock market may be statistically a good investment, but it is not secure, it's a gamble. quoted from: http://www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=SocialSecurity&Fuse=document&DocumentID=585
Legions of propagandists? Sounds like the present administration with at least 3 taxpayer funded dittoheads. Wasn't it Bush who borrowed from the SS trust fund? Wasn't it the democrats like Al Gore who suggested a "lock box" approach?
Democrats have sealed their fate by electing Howard Dean as Chairman of the DNC. I love it though because he will make for some very entertaining moments. The DNC has proven they have not learned their lessons from the last election. They are showing they still believe they lost because they were not liberal enough. I hope for America’s sake that the Democrats keep on doing exactly what they are now. What is bad for the Democrats is good for America, and what is good for Democrats is bad for America. Democrats have brought this fact upon themselves. As long as this remains a fact they will remain the minority party and will continue their downward slide to irrelevancy on the national scene.
Yes, they did it good with Dean. He hit the ground running too. Saturday he was in Orlando, Florida at the very height of the tourist season. Spoke at a Democratic Party Caucus. Orlando Sentinel has an article on what the "Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transsexual Caucus of the Florida Democratic Party" had to say about the event and Dean HERE We all knew Dean would pay dividends but this soon? Karl Rove must be sitting back in a lounge chair with his feet up, swirling Maker's Mark mixed with branch water in a glass and thinking, "The plan worked"
You all are just scared. Dean is an effective grassroots organizer, but presents less of a fake TV presidential image than is required these days to win. He will energize the party, rather than sell out. As usual, all the GOP can do is assault his personality. Bush is sinking himself in a web of lies. 52 warnings from the FAA, and he says he would have "moved heaven and Earth" to protect us? 9/11 was the result of willfull negligence because the neo-cons needed a new Pearl Harbor to justify Iraq.
Please, please keep Howard Deaning on us. Fight the fights that lost you the lost three elections. Don't forget to say you "really" didn't lose, Bush is an stupid, America is a dictatorship, America is fascist, "Bush lied, Men Died", "No blood for Oil!", America is an Empire, "Free Mumia!", "Let every vote count!", "Condi Rice is Bush's Parrot", "Cheney is Bush's Brain", Halliburtion, Halliburton, Halliburtion. . . "Dos las' dree elections, they was rigged." "Dean be da Man! Hes hit da ground running. H git'em dose Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transsexual Caucus of the Florida Democratic Party types rit on board da Howard Dean Cannonball Express fast!" "Choo-choo...choo--choo...puff-puff..."
We refuse to be Republican-lite. If the Supreme Court didn't hand Bush his first term on a platter, we would never be in this mess. 2006 will be an important election. Without his boys in the house, Bush would be going the way of Nixon. You can make fun, but it's all true.
Oh but you have no choice. That is what being a minority party is all about. Republicans suffered it for over 50 years. If the minority does not go along, it gets nothing. But if it does, the base grumbles that there is "no difference" between the parties and doesn't show up to vote. The country is moving toward an ownership society, towars less Federal control over state matters. The base of the DNC are government employees. They can fight on a state level but not much they can do about the GOP contracting their jobs and their union away. At will employment is an eye-opener to the Democrats who work in AFSCME, NTEU, SEU and other government unions. THEN it becomes clear to them why conservatives are the way they are. All it takes is a person to file one quarterly tax return and that person usually because a Republican.
If ownership society means that those that own the most make the laws, then things are heading in that direction. States rights are a joke to the cons, they want a federal law against abortion, a federal law against gay marriage, they persue federal drug laws even when state have decided to be in favor of medical pot. They are increasing the size of government like never before- creating two new agencies, they aren't fiscally conservative, they are sending our government into bankruptcy because they don't want to tax the rich, creating at the same time a "crisis" in social security. Did the Republicans become democratic during the Clinton years? I don't think so, they learned how to exploit evangelicals, and Rove refined his palette of dirty tricks. They learned how to market their message, while doing something different behind everyone's back. We do have a choice, Limbaugh is wrong like always, it's a harder path to take that the Democrats are on, not to lie, to tell the truth, and to admit when we don't know. But there are very obvious things that we do know; Bush's policies make us unsafe, poor, and in the case of many of our soldiers, dead, for no other reason than to make him and his kind rich and powerful.
The only reason conservatives want a Federal law against gay marriage is because courts have usurped the power of the legislature. Conservatives do not want a federal law prohibiting abortion . They want Roe vs Wade repealed. Big difference. Conservatives are forced to go Federal because that is where the power to take back power to the proper branches lies. That may change fast. A couple judges such as California Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown on SCOTUS and we will see the demands by conservatives for the exercise of Federal power reduced.
The courts have decided, in some cases, that taking away a civil right from a certain segment of the population is not within the power of the legislature. Of course, when the courts are in their favor, as in the 2000 election, they have no problem. It's the same with Federal power, when THEY have the power, it's no problem, but when the dems have the power, it's state's rights they stress- pure hypocracy.
