True - he had the fortune of running against someone even less charismatic in Dukakis. Then when he faced the charismatic Clinton, he lost. I guess I should have stipulated that Warren could be president if she were fortunate enough to run against someone even less charismatic than her. It just doesn't seem likely. She's too much analytical professor; not enough feel-your-pain.
I find it amusing that the Democrats' decade-long cries of a GOP attack against SS was merely cover for their own attack against SS. Gore said W would get rid of SS; Kerry said W wanted to get rid of SS. The neoliberal agenda is strong with Obama.
Social safety nets are required as a cost of the increased productivity gained from labor and capital globalization. We're the richest we've ever been, but the wealth is not being distributed equitably. The wealthy became wealthier as the middle and working class felt the squeeze from global competition. The windfalls have made it into the hands of American society, yet the average US citizen is no better than they were prior to globalization. This video is interesting as well. <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QPKKQnijnsM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The elderly are the wealthiest. They have worked the longest, saved the most and invested the most. Seniors are well covered. Why increase their social safety net at the expense of everyone else's?
I find it amusing that you think Obama offering an olive branch to the GOP by incorporating one of their policy requests despite his own party's large-scale opposition is somehow a Democratic attack on SS.
Yeah, I second this. There simply is not enough money. Take that money and spend it on something that circulates in the economy faster, and more directly.
Today's baby boomers benefited from the most equitable period of economic growth (post WWII economy) and the strongest public and private retirement programs in history. Yet many of the same baby boomers who benefited tremendously when government invested heavily in them are now perfectly willing to slash and burn everything in order to preserve Social Security and Medicare. Not to mention, we spent decades raiding the Social Security trust fund and the baby boomers just twiddled their thumbs and encouraged it because they hadn't started collecting benefits yet. Now that they're collecting benefits, they'll fight to the death to preserve the difference, even if it means destroying social spending that benefits the poor and middle class. The baby boomers were the last generation to significantly benefit from strong pension programs and yet they proceeded to underfund them for decades and now everyone else is stuck carrying the bills.
I am not excusing the GOP union of misgivings. Jackson, a Democrat, even had the specie circular despite the notion Democrats favor credit expansion. It caused an austerity recession a year later under his last Vice President, Martin Van Buren. Maybe Obama wants to work everyone to death by confiscating their wages like the Germans did in the early-1920s.
I don't think that's really the full story. People used to have pensions. People could retire on pensions and social security. This is really another example of how companies put more and more on the federal government in order to increase their own profitability while at the same time decrying the growth of the federal government.
It isn't a cut. It is a reduction in growth. Healthcare costs should be far more relevant to medicare, ACA, etc.
I disagree. Social Security was meant to be a large share of individual income, for the elderly. Otherwise there would never have been a social security program of the current design.
