How about nationalizing everything and giving everybody the next couple years off?

Whats really bizarre is that there is a host of programs the Democrats could put a populist color on and call their own - school choice, healthcare choice, programs to increase home ownership in the lower class...you can go on and on and the Democrats just don't get it.

Well, lets correct that, the smarter Democrats do get it, but the collection of special interests who own the Democratic Party don't want it to be gotten.

I quite agree.

Democrats should BE the school choice party. They should be the biggest boosters of privatizing Social Security, too: it's what Roosevelt had in mind all along, and it would actually give the working poor something they've never had, namely capital, something they own, an actual measurable piece of the American pie.

They could be the party of fiscal responsibility. They coudl grab and run with the homeland security ball, since still not enough attention is being paid there. They could be the ones to tackle our illegal immigrant problems. They could propose medical insurance reforms that make it easier for people to afford insurance without making the mistake of going single payer (I mean, here's a thought: make each entire state a single medical group, and make all insurance companies treat it that way. Voucherize for people under a certain income.)

Of course, if they were just to propose them now, President Bush might sign on to some of them. Which means they wouldn't have an issue. That's the unpleasantness of politics: good ideas get wasted in the search for weapons to use against your opponent.

What "should" the Democrats say about globalization? Many people assume that the exportation of jobs to foreign countries is why the job market is still lagging. Whether it is right or wrong isn't really important, since the Democrats will latch onto the lack of jobs for 2004.

Dean,

True enough, there is always a bit of "me, too" when a really good idea comes down the pike - but there is also a danger of a bit too much "me, too"; tends to become a "why should I vote for the light version, when the real thing is also on the ballot?". Be that as it may, if the core special interests of the Democrats had any sense, they'd just modify some of these proposals.

You know, demand that school choice come along with a ten percent increase in education spending on all public schools; demand that privatization of SS come with a decline in benefits to more wealthy recipients. The merits of the changes are not as important as the fact as not being seen against change, which is becoming more and more the Democrats signature...'cept in areas where the broad mass of the people are less keen for change (gay marriage, eg).

There are, as you are definitively aware, a host of genuine criticisms which can be levelled against President Bush on the war - as just one for-instance, the poor medical care discovered recently at one military hospital; smart Democrats would have been on that like white on rice - smarter Democrats would complain that we haven't expanded the size of the military, and the smartest Democrats would be complaining that we haven't moved on Syria, that major haven of terrorists.

> an actual measurable piece of the American pie.

That bit seems to be missing from almost every report on "privatization" of Social Security. Comment generally focuses on the risks of the stock market. Well, yeah, but there would be nothing to keep someone from investing in US T-bills or Savings Bonds. Safe as you can get.

BUT BUT BUT, even such a risk-averse saver would actually own something at the end, something that could be passed to the next generation. With Social Security, all we have in the end is Ted Kennedy's sickly smile and sweaty handshake.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a perpetual state of watching Soilent Green, "SOLIENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!" when the subject of Social Security comes up.

"Privatization" is a ruse. Unless, what you really mean, is to "end it."

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SOCIAL SECURITY!

Phew.. Better now.

It's a tax. You get taxed under a different label (called FICA) and people think it's not a tax, "IT IS A TAX!" Then, other people (same year, different people) get a check with the label "Social Security." "IT IS WELFARE!"

Call it what you want, but it is taxing Peter and paying Paul. Every year what is taken in is paid out (some years more is paid out than taken in). It is a Ponzi/Pyramid scheme and we've run out of suckers to fund the bottom. There is no "lockbox." Well, there is, but the lockbox is full of IOUs. There's NO money there. It's all gone. Spent. Finished. Empty.

There is nothing to fix. It was all smoke and mirrors from the get go. There is no money anywhere except that which we agree to tax ourselves and pay out to others.

We don't need to talk about privatization, or lock boxes, or any of that other bullshit intended to disguise the real issue (IT IS A TAX and WELFARE scheme). We need to figure out how to end it. Pay off those who have nothing but welfare to see them through their old age, and the rest of us have to pay for that, and other people (depending on their age) better start saving really, really quickly, because you are NOT going to get any social security welfare checks.

Sorry, Dean... this one makes me craz(ier than usual).

Mrs. du Toit,

Social Security is one of the most successful government programs in the history of human civilization. How many people in congress are advocating ending it? I bet it's less than one percent. And what of the issue of welfare? Don't we care about the welfare of our fellow citizens? If I hope someone "fares well" isn't that a good thing? Hey, if you want to get into the welfare debate, how about adding student loans, the GI Bill, VA loans, veteran's pensions to the whole lot of what you deem as welfare. You know, we as soldiers don't pay a dime into our retirement and yet after 20 years we get 50% of our base pay each month. Oh, it goes up with the cost of living each year....do you want to end that welfare program as well? I wish we could all be rich, but most of us are just trying to raise our families and make ends meet.

Tim the Soldier

Dean,

What I meant to say was this: if we are going to give credit to the Bush adminstration for boosting the economy that's fine with me, but it's only fair to stop giving Reagan ANY credit for the economic success under the Clinton adminstration. It's boring not to mention incorrect to think that Reagan's policies enabled our nation to prosper in the 90s. Of course, if you still believe that economies takes years to develop, any prosperity we have during the current administration has to be related to and credit given to the 1993 budget which was passed without a single republican vote.

Personally, presidents get too much credit and blame for what happens with the economy. I don't care who's in office just as long as he or she doesn't eff things up. We've been lucky so far. I think only Nixon and Carter FAILED in office since FDR.

Tim the Soldier

we as soldiers don't pay a dime into our retirement

Which seems to suggest, at first blush, that military retirement comes out of the general fund.

Tim, if that's so then when you pay income taxes you are paying into your retirement.

Mrs. du Toit:

When Franklin Roosevelt crafted the Social Security system, he publicly stated that the intention was to move the system into a mostly- or entirely-private system using private market equities, within about ten years of its inception. The controversial part was that transition period, in which people would begin collecting their pensions as if they'd been paying in their whole lives even though they started receiving benefits immediately. But the idea was to bring all Americans of any and every class into a pension system that, at the time, only a minority of workers had access to.

Now, we can argue over whether or not, philosophically, this was the right thing to do. The fact is that over the generations the vast majority of Americans have made it very clear that they expect some kind of retirement system to exist and they expect the government to be a part of it.

We can argue philosophically over whether it's right to force people to pay into a retirement system, whether we should just expect them to do it themselves or go to hell if they don't. But a far smarter thing to do, in my view, is to go ahead and finish Roosevelt's original vision, and transition the system out of the "take our children's money and leave them with the burden" that it is now, and make it something real, something people own, something people have real control over.

The benefits are substantial, in several areas. First and foremost, to me, it puts my son and my future grandchildren in a position where they aren't crippled with the burden of providing for me. It also gives all Americans, at every level, who have ever worked, a piece of the American pie--OWNERSHIP OF SOMETHING.

I've come as I've gotten older to believe that the free market system is the best system ever devised for freeing humanity and for generating prosperity for everyone, regardless of class. In our free market system, the rich have always gotten richer, but so have the poor. But what better way to get young people, and people stuck in low income brackets, to start appreciating the benefits of the free market system than by seeing to it that most or all of them actual own things like stocks, bonds, and so on? The simple act of working at a job buys you into that if the system is privatized.

Yes, we could get into a sort of Randian argument that "if they don't save for themselves they deserve nothing," but that's a fool's game. Better, therefore, to move it to a system in which all people begin to see themselves as participating in this free market system of ours.

Dean, ALL of that would be true, and it is in princple (yes, people do believe there should be some sort of mandatory retirement program), if (IF!) the government was simply mismanaging the Social Security fund. What I mean by mismanaging is that they weren't getting the return on investment that the private sector achieves.

Then, when we talked about privitization, we'd be focusing on handing over the cash (stored in a trust fund) to a private entity (or entities) to manage.

But THAT is impossible. There is NO FUND. There is NO cash.

It isn't a matter of the government simply mismanaging the fund, they SPENT the fund--every year since the program's inception. So it makes no sense to talk about privatizing a fund that does not exist.

That's the point--not why it was started, or whether or not we should have a retirement fund of some sort, the fact is we DO NOT HAVE A FUND now or ever.

If we want to start one, that's a different topic, but we first have to untangle these misconceptions that there is this pot of gold somewhere to pay off those who feel they've paid into something (and get something in return for it), when in fact, they did not. Our parents and grandparents allowed, just as we are allowing, the money to be spent every single year. They chose to wear the "It's FICA not a Tax" blinders, just as many today do. The IOUs are growing, but there is STILL no cash earning any interest.

At some point, there has to be some acceptance of that reality.

They spent it. We're spending it. Now what?

Dean, forgive the self link, but I wrote about this a long time ago (with pretty graphics and everything): Social Insecurity

Well, what you're saying is quite true. There is no fund.

Thus what we are going to need to do to transition into privatization is bite the bullet, write off the deplorable expropriation of the fund by previous Congresses, and begin restructuring so that can't be done anymore.

Bush's proposal in 2000 was the one I liked best: Give workers the option of putting at least a portion of their current FICA "contribution" into a private account instead of the general fund. Use general receipts to pay for any shortfalls in the genderal fund. Arguably, these are just repayments of money that was supposed to be set aside anyway, but was spent instead.

It's going to be difficult and expensive and it's going to take time. The money was promised to these retirees for what was portrayed to them as a pension system. Thus, rather than just eliminate it and abrogate that promise, let's undo the massive damage we've done, pay back the expropriated funds, and move the system to the private one that it was always meant to be--and one that does not rob from our children.

Dean, they weren't hog tied and gagged. They KNEW that the money that was being collected for their retirement was being spent (just as we are aware). They KNEW that at some point, some future generation was going to have to make good on the IOUs THEY left behind. They bear some of the responsibility for this. No citizen, unless they're mentally retarded, can use the excuse "well, that isn't what the government promised me." WE are the government.

We may have to pay off SOME of their IOUs, but you can be damn sure I'm not willing to live on catfood, while working 80 hours a week, so they can afford their condos in Florida. Everyone, them and the generation paying off their debts, has to come to their senses.

Mrs. du Toit,

My understanding of the actual Social Security law is that the government is required to spend any excess taken in any given year - the law, I believe, states that non-disbursed funds are to be turned into Treasury notes; the notes stay with SS, the cash goes into the general fund, and then gets spent. My presumption is that it was set this way because in the early aftermath of the Crash, no one wanted to have the funds placed into private securities.

Social Security was always, of course, a bit of a scam - a way of instituting Bismark's German pension plan in the United States while shying away from calling it a government subsidy - it was "insurance", "pay as you go", etc...of course, since they started cutting checks before they collected any funds, it was welfare from the get-go.

It worked, of course, because there were so many more workers than retirees (ah, for the days of 60 year average life expectancy!). Its a pointless program today - actually making life worse for everyone because money which could be better put to work in private investment is tied up in government bonds and monthly checks to retirees. On the other hand, we know our fellow man, don't we? We know that if there was no mechanism for retirement, then at least a large plurality of the people would never provide for such and would thus wind up on our welfare roles at 65 anyways. So, some sort of government-orchestrated retirement program is a necessity.

So, a sort of "enforced" private SS - ensure that the requisite money is taken out and placed into 401k-type accounts; people can manage or not manage as they see fit; people who don't want to bother with managing can place their money in bonds, others can choose stocks or a mix. In the end, much more money is placed in the private economy, national wealth increases and the American people have their own funds to see them through retirement.

My understanding of the actual Social Security law is that the government is required to spend any excess taken in any given year - the law, I believe, states that non-disbursed funds are to be turned into Treasury notes; the notes stay with SS, the cash goes into the general fund, and then gets spent.

In 2003 the projection was $750B to be collected. $462B is being paid out directly to current SS recipients. The other $288B is being paid out to other entitlements--but that isn't even enough. The total entitlement budget for 2003 is $1.1T. We're in the hole (before we even begin reparing anything or starting a real fund) in the amount of $250B. That $250B is being also being funded from the General Fund (it ALL goes into and out of the General Fund).

In order to derive any benefit from bonds, we'd have to cash them in. The interest being paid out on these IOUs...err... BONDS is what makes up the $.1Trillion being paid towards the debt...errr... bond recipients. There is nothing behind those bonds except an IOU...err.. promise.

1.7 million new jobs, you said?

Let's see now. Ten kids on the counter. One handling the french fries. Two at the microwave ovens assembling burgers. One emptying trash. One suit (who can speak Spanish) supervising. Wow! That's more than 10,000 new greaseburger franchises!

(Anyday now, America will be like Bombay. Lots of economic activity there, including people whose profession it is to walk the main streets with little sticks which have fuzzballs attached to the ends, so they can clean wax out of peoples' ears.)

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

What a leftist-sounding post from you, Arnold. I wouldn't for a moment believe you of all people believe it's the government's responsibility to force-feed sufficient education into the skulls of hourly-wage workers to move them beyond from the deep fat fryer.

You're so bluntly intolerant of other posters' horsesh*t. Surely you aren't more forgiving of your own.

Arnold,

Oh, puhleese! Drop the "burger flipper" jobs thingy - thats so Mondale/80's.

Figure by now that people would see that we're vastly richer as a nation and as individuals than we were when half the work-force worked in factories (you wanna work in a steel mill circa 1940?).

Sowell wrote about the issue of the myth of "the poor" and how temporary those entry level jobs really are, in his book, Cosmic Justice.

He explained it in more summarized form in, THE VISION OF THE ANOINTED.

And there is nothing stopping anyone from going door-to-door selling their services as gardners, painters, or any other self-made business. It doesn't take much to start a business--'cept hard work. After a couple years you can even hire other people to work for you, thus becoming one of those eeeevil Capitalists who stimulate the economy.

Come on, Dean. You and I both know that Hobbs is desperately trying to find a way, any way, to make the employment numbers look good. Yes, the number of jobs in the economy has grown by 1.6 million, or around a 1% increase.

At the same time, unemployment has increased by almost 50%. There are millions of people looking for work now that weren't looking for work January 1, 2000. Are these not real people? The economy needs to generate around 100,000 jobs a month just to stay with the population. 36 months in office = 3.6 million jobs just to stay even. Bush is 2 million jobs short of that growth number.

Your argument amounts to, "if the population weren't growing, we would have plenty of jobs". Well, the population isn't going to stop growing. What's more, population growth is not a NEW phenomenon. Is this another anti-immigration argument in disguise?

Focusing on the simple absolute increase in jobs available, especially when you do not caveat that with noting the relatively large number of people who have simply stopped looking for work out of frustration (who are not included), is misdirection.

Do you truly believe that the job situation is BETTER now, than it was in 2000? This is what you have written. I am sure the average voter in this election who does not have a job will be happy to hear that he is better off.

Jonathan,

I made my undeniably smartass comment above, not because I believe in leftist tripe about government's role in creating jobs, but because I think the government ought not be involved in any form of job creation, period. And for equally good reason, no US government ought to take credit for job creation in the private economy, or take the blame when economic times are bad. Just as there is separation of religion and state in this country, there ought to separation of economy and state.

No, I don't think there's anything wrong with kids getting jobs at the local McJunkfood. But that hardly constitutes a basis for a healthy economy.

In any case, the only new construction I see around Wisconsin are prisons, fortress-like federal buildings, expensive new county courthouses (to replace the perfectly good ones built a hundred years ago) and even more expensive high school resorts (to replace the perfectly good ones built 50 years ago). That plus even more Walmarts. That hardly constitutes industrial development.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

There's my old Arnold.

The sun is rising in the East again. All is right with the world.

Ross:

You and I both know that Hobbs is desperately trying to find a way, any way, to make the employment numbers look good.

Well, it's not that desperate. The numbers look pretty good to me.

Even those people who say that Presidents have a measure of control over the economy admit that the control is indirect and slow-moving. No one thinks that the President has a big level called "JOBS" that he can move into positive or negative levels at will.

Thus, under the "Presidential potency" theory, the bad jobs numbers under Bush are the residual effects of Clinton's policies, not Bush's.

In reality, I think two major factors in this term's economy overshadow all others: the dot-com bust and September 11. This makes all the Democratic hate-mongering all the more odious. Had Bush in fact presided over the worst economy since the Depression, a lot of people would have been willing to cut him slack given the national crises we've had to face. Certainly FDR got, and gets, a lot more consideration than that for less cause.

In fairness, I'm not sure that Bush's economic policies have spurred the recovery any more than I am sure that Clinton's policies started the downturn, or the boom that preceded it. But a lot of people are operating as if the "Presidential potency" theory makes Bush look bad, when it in fact does the opposite.

Oh, a few more things, Ross:

...especially when you do not caveat that with noting the relatively large number of people who have simply stopped looking for work out of frustration (who are not included)...

Cite?

It seems a little odd that people would "give up" on getting employed. How are they eating? Have they all committed suicide? Or are they all on welfare? If any of these are true, can you post statistics showing the sharp upswings in suicides or welfare cases, or whatever statistic you'd expect to rise to accomodate all these cases of frustration?

I am sure the average voter in this election who does not have a job will be happy to hear that he is better off.

The average voter right now is not unemployed, at least as it's understood by the statisticians. This has been true since the Depression at least.

Of course, unemployed voters are likely to not feel much better off. Were the voter rolls purged of employed voters, I'm sure this would be quite significant.

Does the average voter feel better off? Not likely, but I doubt even Reagan could have pulled that feat off in the wake of September 11. As a voter, I feel pretty satisfied with "much better off than I could have been", with an understanding that a Gore presidency wouldn't have likely made much difference.