What's the REAL reason for bringing up Social Security now?

[oldtime dfl_er]

Is it a giant red herring, to distract us from Iraq?
Is it a bargaining chip (as in, Okay I'll give up social security reform if you'll let me invade IRAN)?
Is it just a way for his buddies in the banking and securities businesses to make millions?
Or what?

www.cafepress.com/showtheworld

[babylonsister]

1. Distraction from any kind of

health care reform, or distraction from unemployment numbers?:shrug:

[tk2kewl]

2. It has been on the neocon hit-list for a LONG time

and they think this is their opportunity to torpedo it.

[Larkspur]

3. Wall Street is one of Bush's donors and they want their filthy hands on

those billions of dollars of SS funds.

Also, the Republicans have been trying to kill SS since FDR created it. The Grover Norquists feel that Bush's post re-election period is the best time to kill SS.

[chelsea0011]

7. And which Funds will get these huge plums????

Follow the donations.

[chelsea0011]

4. EGO!!!!!!!!!This guy is a sociopath. He has to make his place in history.

He saved us from recession with tax breaks for the wealthy, he lead us through 9-11, brought freedom to Iraq, reformed Medicare, gave out kids education beyond anyones dreams, and now he saved SS for generations to come. Of course, he only did these things in his brain. He hasn't done any of it in the real world.

[BlueInRed]

5. To dismantle the great achievement of FDR and undermine

the idea the govt is responsible for taking care of its people. This has been on the list for awhile, but never seemed achievable till now. Remember SNL and the Lockbox. It's been discussed for a long time.

[AirAmFan]

19. BINGO! 'When the privatized account reaches $225K, the FDR Dem...

becomes a Reagan Republican." That's a paraphrase of the argument Grover Norquist made for privatizing CALPERS, the California state employee pension fund. The idea is that Americans are too stupid to look up the monthly benefit their likely privatized account total at retirement would buy in a table of single premium annuities, and compare it to the GUARANTEED monthly benefit they have now, according to the statements SSA mails them every year.

Also, Alan Greenspan, Daniel J.B. Mitchell, and other extreme-right-wingers in charge of our pursestrings are fearful of the "socialism" that might ensue after 2018 under the current benefit structure. For ideological reasons, they want to avoid the situation where Congress repays what it has borrowed from positive FICA cash flow over the past 20 years and SSA might manage trillions of dollars in actual cash.

Finally, Wall Street looks forward to "management fees" that would ultimately reach 20 percent of FICA, according to Prof Peter Diamond of MIT, the world's foremost expert on the economics of privatizing Social Security. Rethuglicans know that a percentage of that loot would come back to them in the form of bribes and tribute--I mean campaign "contributions".

See also http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=227x259 and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1551877 .

[Just Me]

6. Hurry up and flood Wall Street before the "crash". n/t

[GOPFighter]

8. The corporations want to own and control everything

Social Security funds represent billions of dollars they can't touch now. Thewy want that money!

The ultimate goal is to have corporations control the government, and squeeze every penny of profit they can out of the taxpayers.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. seen that defecit lately?

shrubu is looking for any way to stem the tide. He needs to look responsible to some tiny degree.
He also needs to get some money to his Wall Street buddies.

[ferg]

10. it's their last chance

Each year social security gets stronger, so the bogey-man of the boomer retirement gets weaker and weaker. This weeks report updated the 2018 date to 2020.

In another few years, it'll be obvious that social security can weather the boomer retirement with only minor tweaks necessary (e.g. less than 10% benefit cuts/tax increases, probably much less.) So there will no longer be any excuse to destroy it.

[ContraBass Black]

11. So that they can gut it, and then watch it die.

[havocmom]

12. The real reason? Mental illness in the board rooms of America.

Those guys cannot stand the thought that there is $$ out there they can't have. They want it all. The more they get the more they want. They create nothing. They do not concern themselves with producing goods and services, only selling stock to get more $$. They throw people out of work then can't figure out why people don't buy their stocks... Pensions obligations are unfunded. They have taken about as much as the average citizen can invest and they still need MORE.

They are vampires and nothing will cure their lust for $$. They are killing the whole world and it is not enough. They are mentally ill.

[robbedvoter]

13. It's actually a way to make money out of people's savings.

2 things are important to BFEE: making money and killing.

[prairierose]

14. I think it's a combination of things...

1. if they dismantle SS, they will never have to worrry about paying back the trillions of dollars they have stolen from the trust fund.

2. A very nice little chunk of change for the boys on Wall Street & in the banking industry, where they can legally rip off more little old ladies.

3. part of the dominionist agenda of destroying social programs and bringing them under the control of "churches"; of course that is only the death cult "churches" If you are poor, it means that you are not in "God's" favor & so you should just die anyway.

These people have no shame.

:grr:

[Melynn]

15. Payback to Wall Street/Banks

In the first term, Bush took care of the military/industrial complex with the war in Iraq.
In the second term, Bush is going to take of his buddies in the finance/banking sector with "Social Security reform".

At the end of S.S. reform, the system will be bankrupt and the Wall Street will have all of it's money.

[Red State Blues]

16. I agree with many of the opinions here but would add

that it also would serve as a way to artificially prop up the stock market as the baby boomers start to move their money out of the market and into safer investments.

[oldtime dfl_er]

17. sometimes I just want to scream

HOW MUCH MONEY IS ENOUGH? at some point it becomes more about the control of the money (ie POWER) than about the amount of money itself.

what kind of world do they envision, say, 50 years from now? A world where an elite few have everything and everyone else is pondscum? I mean, honestly, the more I think about it the more I think there is no wisdom left in the world -- only evil.


www.cafepress.com/showtheworld

[leftofthedial]

18. it's a target on their hit list

but they are using it a distraction for neocon world conquest II

[Selatius]

20. Because the Democrats have never been weaker in the last 60 damn yrs.

That's why.

[FrenchieCat]

21. It's all about the "timing" and voter memories and the memory hole.....

They have to propose these reforms waaaaaayyyyyy before the 2006 elections...so if something gets passed at some point, they can brag about it in the 2006 elections...unless it's bad reform...then they can hope that voters forget. If reform doesn't pass, they can hope that the memory hole of voters is deep and that they'll forget that they even tried to pass reforms.

But then of course, if they need to have voters further forget any unsuccessful SS reforms, they can always use the good ol' terra attack alerts or have a foreign policy "crisis" for good measure right before the '06 elections. The terra alerts will start coming after most primaries have selected candidates....so that they can make sure that Dems ran a line-up of Dems who's message was about the economy during primaries.....and then, Wham.....the Terra alerts will start...and the Repugs will go on about how good they are about the issue of National Security....and the voters will eat it up...and history will repeat itself.

It worked in 2002 and 2004.....so no reason the repugs are going to let go of their terror card now or in the near future.

Yes, they are thinking that much ahead.....and so am I.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

22. Drowning in a bathtub.

[AmandaRuth]

23. I have a friend who is convinced this is all about transferring power

to the churches. Myself, I think this about destroying anything that the repukes view as socialism.

[Haymare22]

24. A distraction from....

All the freakin money stolen from defense, Irag etc etc.