Pirate's Cove

Another Saturday, another day for, well, can you really call him President at this point? The position was established to be the head of government of the United States of America, representing all Americans, not to act as chairman of a political party. Anyhow, Chump has scary news!

Reviving a scare tactic that Democrats have used before, President Obama said in his radio address Saturday that “some Republican leaders in Congress” want to privatize Social Security.

The specter of a threat to the program that provides retirement income to senior citizens is a preview of an attack that Democrats intend to make this fall, as they hope to blunt what appears to be a Republican surge in congressional elections.

So, let’s see: the Democrat campaign themes, as defined by Obama, are Ground Zero mosque good, running against George Bush, don’t talk about Democrat “accomplishments“, push amnesty, and, scare people about things the GOP is not even discussing at the moment. Sounds like a winning plan. Time for Obama to head to the Gulf for a mini-cation, before heading to Martha’s Vineyard for the full 10 day vacation. It’s good to be the king.

“I’d have thought that debate would’ve been put to rest once and for all by the financial crisis we’ve just experienced,” Obama said of privatizing Social Security. “I’d have thought, after being reminded how quickly the stock market can tumble, after seeing the wealth people worked a lifetime to earn wiped out in a matter of days, that no one would want to place bets with Social Security on Wall Street.”

Except that a) only a small portion of SS would be placed in the market, b) they would be in long term investments, and c) recessions generally do not last this long. Competent leadership and wise policies lead to a turn around of a downturn. Instead, we have Obama and Co. making this recession the longest since the Great Depression.

But GOP leaders are not pressing for privatization. The idea proved so unpopular when President George W. Bush proposed it in 2004 that Congress, then led by Republicans, never took it up. The concept lives on in a budget proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), the senior Republican on the House Budget Committee, but only a handful of GOP lawmakers have signed on to that measure. And, in the aftermath of the worst shock to the financial system since the Great Depression, many Republican lawmakers would just as soon see the idea forgotten.

I wonder what Ryan’s plan has to say about Social Security?

• Preserves the existing Social Security program for those 55 or older.
• Offers workers under 55 the option of investing over one third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts, similar to the Thrift Savings Plan available to Federal employees. Includes a property right so they can pass on these assets to their heirs, and a guarantee that individuals will not lose a dollar they contribute to their accounts, even after inflation.
• Makes the program permanently solvent – according to the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] – by combining a more realistic measure of growth in Social Security’s initial benefits, with an eventual modernization of the retirement age.

Wait, what was the middle part? Eh. Details schmetails, Obama has a scare story to tell. Well, he actually does have one, but, he doesn’t want to talk about his own economy killing policies.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU