Social Security Lessons (Paul Krugman)

[swag]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/opinion/15krugman.html

conclusion of an article well worth reading:

But the campaign for privatization provided an object lesson in how the administration sells its policies: by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies. These were the same tactics used to sell both tax cuts and the Iraq war.

And there are two reasons to study that lesson. One is to be prepared for whatever comes next on Mr. Bush's agenda. Despite the tough talk about Iran, I don't think he can propose another war - there aren't enough troops to fight the wars we already have. But there's still room for another big domestic initiative, probably tax reform.

Forewarned is forearmed: the real goals of reform won't be as advertised, the administration will say things about the current system that aren't true, and the Treasury Department will function in a purely partisan capacity.

The other is that the public's visceral rejection of privatization, together with growing dismay over the debacle in Iraq, offers Democrats an opportunity to make an issue of the administration's pattern of deception. The question is whether they will dare to seize that opportunity, when for some of them it means admitting that they, too, were fooled.

[Inland]

1. Gotta. Read. Krugman. And Frank Rich. nt

[swag]

2. Agreed on Rich. "Facts," as they say, "is facts."

[zoeb]

3. I tell you how this administration sells it's

policies. First you spend the surplus then run up a huge deficit, go to war and spend another $300 billion and then start screaming the sky is falling when it comes to Social Security and Medicare.

And our dumbass-in-chief doesn't learn from the failures of other countries who have tried to privatize their retirement systems. All the privatization attempts lead to senior welfare programs to make up for the failures. Does the Boy King get it? Hell no! He spent 60 days on the road trying to sell a stupid,losing program that over 60 percent of americans don't freaking want or are already practicing private accounts by the way of IRAs. Hey George, you freaking idiot, pay the poor and middle classes enough to save. Try raising the minimum wage. Try to contain medical costs so people don't spend their life savings to pay for health care. Get a clue dumbass!:rant:

[wli]

4. we "viscerally rejected" CAFTA and were ignored

Why would it make a difference now?

[depakid]

5. The NY Times has lifted its ban on the word "lie!"

Krugman has publicly lamented several times that he hasn't been allowed to call Bush a liar- and was especially perturbed about an incident during the 2000 campaign where Bush's arithmatic was so blatantly false that a 6th grader could see it- yet the editors forced him to stay his hand....

I guess if a Republican lies enough- AND isn't running for office- then it's OK to call him a liar in the Times these days....

[Dudley_DUright]

6. not to mention they probably ran out of synonyms in the thesaurus

for the word "lie". I like how he mock apologizes for using the word.

In addition to misrepresenting his goals, Mr. Bush repeatedly lied about the current system. Oh, I'm sorry - was that a rude thing to say? Still, the fact is that Mr. Bush repeatedly said things that were demonstrably false and that his staff must have known were false.

Bravo Dr. Krugman :applause: