[lbo-talk] Pew: Bush approval down to 43%

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri May 20 09:06:02 PDT 2005


Carrol:
> This is probably _very_ bad news for the future of social security, for
> it means that the system can be butchered as soon as a nominally liberal
> president is elected. We can't depend on every DP president being unable
> to keep his pants buttoned. Those depending on social security will just
> have to hope that the Republicans succeed in nominating and electing a
> candidate at least as incompetent and unpopular as Bush is now.

Your wolf-in-the-sheep-skin theory may have some validity, I have to admit, but mind that Busheviks do not have to legally "reform" SS. All they need to do is to pilfer the treasury through their war adventures and tax giveaways to the rich and wait for the bottom to fall out. Once there is no money in the state coffers, the SS "reform" will be a mere formality.

For that state of affairs we should thank that brave soul in the 1960s (was it Lyndon "war-on-poverty" Johnson?) who started treating the SS revenue as a part of the state budget instead of a trust fund which could be invested instead of, say, funding tax cuts and military adventures.

Actually, Shrub announcing his willingness to "reform" SS while knowing darn well that the chances of that "reform" passing was next to zero was a very clever cover up trick. Their real strategy to "deal" with SS is defunding it by pilfering the treasury -and it is likely to succeed. But to cover up their tracks, they start a campaign to "reform it which in all likelihood will be defeated. Once that happens, the populace will rejoice that the SS has been "saved" while the Bushies will be laughing all the way to the bank. Very clever.

Wojtek

Wojtek



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