Bob Kerry's WSJ op-ed Re: just saying "no" is not politically adept

[papau]

Why does Ben Nelson not oppose Bush's Social Security policies?

In anycase, Bob Kerry's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal saying that simply saying "no" is not politically adept.

"If liberals joined this debate they would insist that the guaranteed transfer payment of Social Security remain intact. With the evidence that trade, technology and immigration are putting downward pressure on unskilled wages, they might even be able to succeed in changing the current benefit formula so that more than 50% of the first $900 of income was replaced. Perhaps they could even convince their Republican colleagues to eliminate penalties that affect stay-at-home women."

"Liberals would fight to make certain that contributions to private accounts were progressive in order to benefit lower-wage workers. They might even argue that accounts be opened at birth, thus giving Americans the longest possible time to accumulate wealth. No doubt they would insist that investment options be carefully regulated to keep administrative costs and risks as low as possible. And since liberals oftentimes understand the good that markets can do even more than some of their conservative colleagues, they could see the wisdom of changing the tax code so that no income taxes were levied on income that went into these savings accounts. All of these would practically guarantee a muscular market response that would give future Americans larger amounts of insured non-employment income to add to the $800 per month on average they receive from Social Security."