"(Republican) Senator seeks Social Security 'lockbox'"uh,that sounds

[Algorem]

familiar...no,can't remember where I've heard that before.

Senator seeks Social Security 'lockbox'
Voinovich: Private accounts 'not going anywhere'

By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:34 PM ET Sept. 19, 2005

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7BCF11E9C5-A7A7-487E-B029-91ADD1B0A370%7D&siteid=google

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Republican Sen. George Voinovich on Monday unveiled legislation to create a "lockbox" that would forbid the federal government from using Social Security revenues for any purpose other than paying benefits.

The Ohio lawmaker's proposed "Truth in Budgeting Act" would also prevent the government from raiding any trust fund to spend money on other programs.

Voinovich said that the measure would force policy-makers to make choices between significant spending cuts, higher taxes or increased borrowing. Such a choice would be likely to force Washington to take steps to put its fiscal house in order, he added.

The senator also said that Congress has borrowed more than $3.5 trillion from government trust funds to use on general spending, including $1.9 trillion from Social Security and more than $695 billion from the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund...


http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1127208665165580.xml&coll=2

Voinovich wants Social Security surpluses under lock and key

Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Elizabeth Auster
Plain Dealer Bureau

Washington - U.S. Sen. George Voinovich said Monday that President Bush's drive to overhaul Social Security is dead for now and that Congress should focus instead on protecting the retirement program's surpluses.

"The Social Security thing in my opinion is not going anywhere. I think that with all the other problems that we are confronted with today, this is going to take a back seat," the Ohio Republican said.

Voinovich, a self-described fiscal hawk, applauded Bush for calling attention to Social Security's precarious long-term finances. But he said Bush's approach has faltered not only because of Congress' focus on Hurricane Katrina, but also because of a key political misstep.

"It may have been doomed from the beginning because of the fact that it wasn't done on a bipartisan basis," he said...

[Tesla]

1. Is Mr. "V", Bi????

Partisan???
Oh maybe he is SICK of seeing these things ruin our country!

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Lockbox, lockbox? Gee, can't the Republicans be original?

They're stealing all of the Dem's best ideas. Nation building as political diplomacy, lockboxes, what's next?

[Justyce]

6. I guess they'll think it's a

good idea now that it's coming from a repub after laughing it off coming from a dem... just like everything else.

[FreedomAngel82]

15. Of course

I was thinking about this last night and I think we'll be seeing them steal a lot of democratic ideas. *Sigh*

[WePurrsevere]

3. Politicians should never have touched this money in the first place,

it does not truly belong to them but to the people who pay into it and count on it for when they retire or become disabled. :grr:

For some reason I was under the impression that it was locked up years ago but the gov opened it up so they could steal .. umm... "borrow" it?

[mrcheerful]

8. Actually .........

Nixon was the first one to use SS money to help support his war with Vietnam. He saw that not only was SS a vast resource untaped but it was also growing by leaps and bounds through interest. Its funny how even today SS is still running in the black, SS has never spent more then it took in since it was started. Shhhhhhhhhh state secret Georgie boy don't want let out.

[WePurrsevere]

12. True before that it was hands off. For some reason I thought it was

a policy or law but perhaps it was more of an unspoken "gentlemen's agreement". It figures it would take Nixon to not uphold that.

It truly is amazing... and the darn politicians would leave their money grubbing hands off of it and perhaps raised or eliminated the cap there would not be any problem ("emergency" pfft) at all with Social Security. IMO it doesn't need to be "fixed" as much as it needs to be LEFT ALONE and used ONLY for the purposes it is intended for.*

(*or as I always told my daughters as they were growing up...
"Just because you can... doesn't mean you should.")

[Arkansas Granny]

4. The hypocrisy is stunning. How can any Republican use that

term with a straight face.

[rkc3]

5. I say let's back him on it. And throughout the process, remind these

assholes that it was a Democrat who put the idea on the table.

[Arkansas Granny]

10. Good advice.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Locking the Box after the - ahem - horse is gone out

Hahahaha...oh....remember Al Gore...LOCKBOX! Oh hahahgahaha. Lockbox! Remember SNL with the lockbox! Lockbox! Oh that crazy Al Gore with his "lockbox"!

:sarcasm:

Yeah. Who's laughing now, motherfuckers. After they've looted billions from the federal treasury and manufactured a fake social security crisis, complete with touring Santorums. Now, now, they start saying...hmmm, mightn't it be a good idea to set up some kind of lockbox for the SSA funds? Uh, yeah, assholes. It was a good idea in 2000, too, but y'all were too busy laughing it up and selling us the damaged goods of the Bush family to notice. Eight years of incompetence and nightmare.

I'll tell you this, and I believe it in my core. We'd have those two towers still standing in Lower Manhattan if the media hadn't allowed the theft of the 2000 election. I'll say it now like I said it then: The American people got it right in 2000. We elected the qualified candidate, despite the most stunbning media campaign against any candidate in American history. We the people, of the United States of America, picked the right horse, as a collective. And it was stolen from us by a pack of scoundrels who don't think the people are fit to choose their governments, a pack of fuhrerprinzip lunatics and incompetents. With disastrous consequences.

[Pierogi_Pincher]

16. What you expressed....

<snip>
"I'll tell you this, and I believe it in my core. We'd have those two towers still standing in Lower Manhattan if the media hadn't allowed the theft of the 2000 election. I'll say it now like I said it then: The American people got it right in 2000. We elected the qualified candidate, despite the most stunbning media campaign against any candidate in American history. We the people, of the United States of America, picked the right horse, as a collective. And it was stolen from us by a pack of scoundrels who don't think the people are fit to choose their governments...<snip>."

...is what unnervingly came to my mind and spirit without Gore as our Leader when 11 September happened. I said aloud to family, "What IF Al Gore was President, would the attacks still have been carried out?".

[AzDar]

9. This brings to mind the "Bankruptcy Reform" (aka Consumer

Sodomization Bill)...so locking up SS would "force the government to
put it's fiscal house in order"? Oh Jeebus, the HYPOCRISY!
Shrub's administration has put us in record-level debt, with no end in sight,while at the same time signing Draconian, disastrous, legislation that he says " promotes personal fiscal responsibility" or some other such nonsense?
My head hurts.

[yellowcanine]

11. Would that be a regular lockbox or a fuzzy (math) lockbox?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[zbdent]

13. DO NOT TRUST THIS MAN!

Period.

[FreedomAngel82]

14. Nahhh

I've never heard of that before! These republicans are so out of touch and now they're scrambling around for re-election(s) and are taking democratic plans. The guy running for Virginia governor took a John Kerry plan and now this guy! AHH!!!!

[Toots]

17. it wasn't done on a bipartisan basis,

Sure puts the LIE to the Uniter meme. Nothing more divisive than completely disregarding the other half of American's viewpoint, not even allowing their ideas in the room.

[FVZA_Colonel]

18. This is... delicious.

I cannot wait for someone to start championing this over at Free Republic, only to have someone else pop up and say it was Al Gore that first thought of this.

[adaada]

19. Wait. What's that I hear? The winds of change?

I think Mr. Voinovich is hearing them too, and that's a good thing for the Democrats and for our country.

GWB should be hearing gale-force winds of change just about now. Photo-ops aren't gonna save him.

[Raiden]

20. How fucking pathetic

Gore was slaughtered in the media for seeking a lockbox. Now that a Republi-con is seeking it, he's a real problem solver. The hypocrisy is disgusting.