Monday - May 02, 2005

Monday Morning News Bytes

Sometimes the news bites and somedays it just bytes. Or nybbles. Either way it’s the little bits that give us the big picture .. eight bits at a time ....

• MSNBC is changing its name to “NBC News Channel”. They’re taking out the “MS” and replacing it with more “BS”.


• Terry Wilson of the Weekly Standard has the obituary for the mainstream media. Alas, poor Yorick - I news him well.


• The Republican Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is ripping PBS a new one for being so liberal and biased. Naturally, the New York Times has its knickers in a wad over the “blatant bias by Republicans”. Bias? What bias? Republicans just naturally hate liars, race-baiters, hypocrites and media outlets with a socialist agenda.


• Paris Hilton says she wants to stop being a sex-starved, drug-overdosed, party animal (and sleazy slut) and become a serious businesswoman. You assignment is to figure out what this news has to do with flying pigs.


• North Korea is now firing missiles toward Japan to intimidate that great bully, the United States. If “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il doesn’t watch his step he won’t “feel so ronery” much longer, especially after several flights of B-52’s flatten his country to the ground.


• Open warfare between the Poodle and the Hildabeast? It seems the 2008 election is already dividing the Dummycraps - what else is new, eh?


• Question: What’s worse than a Democrat without a conscience? Answer: A Republican without a spine. Both are in abundance in Washington, DC lately.


• Finally, President Bush called the Democrats’ bluff on Social Security last week. This may not be checkmate but the Donks are seeing the endgame approach ....

The Solvency Trap
President Bush calls the Democrats’ bluff on Social Security.

Monday, May 2, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Give President Bush credit for tenacity. Facing nearly total Democratic opposition and low poll numbers, he nonetheless raised the ante on Social Security last week. The President embraced “progressive indexing” of benefits, in the hope of breaking up the political logjam.

As a policy matter, this at least challenges Democrats to honor their own principles. For months they’ve been saying they really do want to do something about Social Security “solvency,” which means shoring up its inevitable financing shortfall. By adjusting the formula for future benefits based on income, Mr. Bush has now embraced the “fairness” claims that Democrats say they hold dear. So are they serious or not?

On first response, not. Democrats immediately opposed Mr. Bush’s proposal--the brainchild of Democratic financier Robert Pozen--as “big benefit cuts.” AARP lobbyist John Rother proved his organization’s lack of sincerity by calling it “an unnecessary and unfair benefit cut on the middle class.”

Sigh. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan and other Democrats once acknowledged, current policy increases real, inflation-adjusted benefits over time. That’s because benefits are tied to growth in wages, rather than to increases in prices (which rise somewhat more slowly). Though Democrats invoke FDR, this wasn’t his idea; guaranteed annual increases were introduced in 1972 as politicians of both parties competed for elderly votes. Reversing this blunder would still protect all seniors from inflation and also go a long way toward addressing Social Security’s financing shortfall.

But Mr. Bush is going further and proposing to keep wage-indexing for the bottom 30% of all workers, which means their benefits will actually increase by about 40% by the time they retire. Other workers would see more of their benefits price-indexed on a gradual basis as their income rose. And in any case, the indexing adjustment would apply only to the current program’s benefits; whatever higher returns workers get from private accounts would be theirs to keep. If Bill Clinton were the President proposing this, Democrats would be doing “fairness” cartwheels.

(thanks to Neal Boortz, Matt Drudge & James Taranto for the leads on these stories)

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/02/2005 at 09:46 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics • Hildabeast • International • Media-Bias •  
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