Clinton More Radical Than Bush?

[Dr. Shane]

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One of the options would have allowed workers to divert 5 percentage points of their payroll taxes to personal accounts -- the first such proposal by a government commission.

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Social Security rehab died first under Clinton

Clinton was talking about 5% and Bush is only talking about 4%.

Hmmmmm, where were the Democrats when Clinton was talking about privitization? Oh, yea, now I remember... Monica <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

[Dr. Shane]

Why are Democrats now so opposed to the plan Bill Clinton favored?

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Shaw said he is convinced that if it weren't for the impeachment, Social Security reform "would have been done during his administration. I strongly believe Bill Clinton wanted this to be his legacy."

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They wanted it to be Clinton's legacy and not Bush's!!!

[bevin]

Why don't you quote the whole article?

Quote:

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Clinton appointed [:"red"]a bipartisan commission[/], which delivered in 1997 [:"red"]three options[/] to save the giant retirement program. They included a now-familiar list of possible benefit cuts, from changing indexing formulas to raising the retirement age.

[:"red"]One of the options[/] would have allowed workers to divert 5 percentage points of their payroll taxes to personal accounts -- the first such proposal by a government commission.

Clinton started campaigning for changes, [:"red"]without saying what he endorsed[/]. "I don't want to dodge any of that," he said, but "if I advocate a specific plan right now, then all the debate will be about that. The first thing we've got to do is get the American people solidly lined up behind change."

So he traveled the country in 1998, giving speeches, radio addresses, and holding town hall meetings with young workers and retirees.

He warned that it is better to "fix the roof when the sun is shining," and ran through the familiar arithmetic of the declining number of workers supporting every retiree. He urged finding ways to allow poorer workers to build wealth so they could "own a share of our nation's prosperity."

[:"red"]He pleaded for bipartisanship[/], promising that all ideas were on the table.

But he said there were really only three options: "We can raise payroll taxes again, which no one wants to do because the payroll tax is regressive ... We can cut benefits ... or we can work together to try to find some way to increase the rate of return."

On Dec. 8, Clinton convened a White House summit to reach "[:"red"]historic bipartisan legislation[/] to save Social Security for the 21st century." [:"red"]Eleven days later, the House, with Republicans in the majority, voted to impeach him.[/]

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Oh, I'm sorry. Of course you don't want to quote it. The article doesn't support the false impression you are trying to create.

/Bevin

[Stan]

this whole sections need to stop personal attacks. Talk about issues.

Thanks

Stan

[Dr. Shane]

My title is toungue-in-cheek. I was being sacastic. I don't really believe that Clinton was more radical than Bush.

Clinton's effort was bi-partisan and Bush is trying to make his effort bi-partisan. Republicans supported Clinton. It is too bad that Democrats arn't supporting Bush in the same way.

[Nicodema]

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Hmmmmm, where were the Democrats when Clinton was talking about privitization? Oh, yea, now I remember... Monica

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Whuzzat? I thought it was the right-wingers who were all over Monicagate while the rest of us were trying to get REAL things done for this country. Hmmm, such disparities of perception here!

[Neil D]

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Whuzzat? I thought it was the right-wingers who were all over Monicagate while the rest of us were trying to get REAL things done for this country. Hmmm, such disparities of perception here!

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Nico, it's the same ol' arguement where the neo-cons are living in the past, blaming Clinton for todays problems. My goodness, it's been 5 YEARE since Clinton LEFT office and neo-cons can not get past it. The republicans have a majority in the house and senate and they still can not get thier agendas passed. And they are fighting among themselves and blaming the democrates all the while...

Can't we just let the past lay peacefully in the past and live in the present??? :eyesroll:

[Dr. Shane]

If someone is speeding on their way to take a test and get pulled over by the police, do we blame the police because they arrive too late to take the test? No, the police is only enforcing the law. Likewise, Clinton's problems were of his own making, just as Tom Delay's problems seem to be right now. Let's not blame Republicans for Clinton's problems or Demorcrats for Tom Delay's problems.

However that is really sidetracking the issue. The point is that Clinton and the Democrats wanted to do pretty much the same thing as Bush now wants to do. There are few variations between the two plans. However the Democrats were on board with Clinton that Social Security was in danger and something should be done sooner rather than later. Now they are trying to tell the country that there is no crisis. How is it that there was an impending crisis when Clinton was president but seven years later, with nothing done, there is no reason to take action? It seems superficial. It seems like the Democrats just don't want a Republican to get credit for saving Social Security. I can see no other reason for them opposing now what they favored during Clinton's term.

[Nicodema]

Shane maybe they just don't trust the way in which the Repubs. want to do it. Have you compared the two programs re: similarities and differences in how to proceed and what changes to be made? What it "seems like" and what it is might be two different things here -- again, sparked by differences in perception.

[Bravus]

I think the full quote that bevin (?) included above suggests that private investment accounts was one of three proposals that was on the table, whereas in Bush's approach it's the only thing on the table. That's a fundamental difference in approach, so to say the Clinton Dems wanted to do *the same thing* as Bush is not quite true. they may well have ended up choosing - or rather, letting the people choose - one of the other two options, or another option.

[Nicodema]

If we are moving to private investment accounts NOW, when I am 40 and have paid into the system since age 19, then I want what I have paid into the system returned to me so I can open my private investment account with it. Even if I can't touch a penny till I'm 65. What's fair is fair. I paid into this system for 21 years so the (excuse me please) selfish sell-out "me generation" could trade up, trade up, trade up, trade me out of the housing market so THEY could have nice cushy homes to retire in while *I* paid for their benefits. I only want what is fair -- my investment returned to me with 0% interest (I'm not asking for any ROI, just the principle itself) so I can open my private investment account when Bush changes the whole shebang.

And I mean it.

[Dr. Shane]

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private investment accounts was one of three proposals that was on the table, whereas in Bush's approach it's the only thing on the table.

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No, this is wrong. Bush specifically stated in the state of the union, and many times since, that everything is on the table. Bush's rhetoric is the same as Clinton's was. They are even using the same terms. One major difference, which Democrats are not focusing on, is that in Clinton's plan all the earnings from funds invested in the stock market would be returned to the Social Security fund and in Bush's proposal those earnings are placed in a private account for the individual. In Bush's proposal those funds would be the individual's to leave in his/her will if they die before retireing. However since everything is on the table, Bush, of course, will consider what Clinton was proposing if the Democrats push in that direction. But again, the Democrats don't seem to be looking to solve any problems. They seem just to be wanting to make sure that Bush isn't able to solve any.

Yet Clinton was right when he stated that we have three options. 1 Raise taxes 2. Decrease benefits 3. Increase the rate of return. The most desirable is the third option and that means investing part of the Social Security dollars in the private sector.

[bevin]

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Increase the rate of return. The most desirable is the third option and that means investing part of the Social Security dollars in the private sector.

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Possibly.

Explain why private accounts, with stock brokers taking a cut, achieves this result, but having the government buy exactly the same bits of paper without a stock broker taking a cut does not.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Actually a broker would have been involved with the Clinton plan too. The difference is only who gets the earnings (government or individual). A broker is going to be needed with either plan. Someone is going to have to purchase the stocks and that person is a broker. It is like a banker. The government also has bank accounts and there are bankers that get rich off the government.

[bevin]

With the volume of trades the government would need to do, there is no reason to go through a fancy brand-name stock-brokerage. Instead they could do their own very-low-load mutual fund.

Nor would there be any huge gains from highly detailed and technical trading. The volume would be so high that, almost be definition, the result would reflect a mutual fund that tracks the DJIA or something similar.

So, back to the question, why does 'private accounts' solve the rate-of-return problem any better than having the government buy the same items?

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

You are jumping ahead to the conclusion. Remember that all is on the table. The government may be able to do its own trading if there were a way established to prevent coruption and create efficiency. The private sector is normally more efficient than the government so creating a government-run brokerage administration could become a nightmare. It may well be cheaper to pay various private firms that could do the job more efficiently for less money. (Remember the government could build its own hiways too but has found it cheaper and more efficient to contract the work to the private sector.) Those are details that can be worked out.

However the Democrats are in opposition to the whole idea. Why? Why do they oppose it now under the Bush Administration when they didn't under the Clinton Administration? The only reason I can come to is that they don't want Bush to get the credit.

[bevin]

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Why do they oppose it now under the Bush Administration when they didn't under the Clinton Administration?

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You can read more about it here...

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050129-095130-1559r.htm

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While the budget surplus clearly played a major role in the individual accounts countenanced by the working group, it must also be acknowledged that any of the three "policy space" options would have represented an opening bid by the Clinton administration, subject to negotiation with and revision by the Republican Congress. [:"red"]"In the end," however, "President Clinton decided to pursue Social Security reform based on bolstering the Social Security trust fund rather than on creating individual accounts," the authors recalled. [/] Cryptically, Messrs. Elmendorf, Liebman and Wilcox concluded: "This decision may have been influenced by the changing political dynamic in late 1998, as the possibility that the president would be impeached came clearly into view. Whether the president would have pursued a different approach in the absence of impeachment will never be known."

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Specifically the Democrats are opposing now what they decided was the wrong way to go then. And 'then' was before the big stock market crash.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

What happened to Clinton's Social Security overhall was Monica Lewinsky. It is as simple as that.

Never in the history of the United States has a budget surplus lasted for a long period of time. Planning on the surplus to save Social Security would have been as foolish as a Cuban going to sea in a bathtub. The stock market goes up and down and the crash in 1929 was more devestating that the recent one starting in 1997.

The Democrat leadership is transparent. They just don't want a Republican to be the one that solves Social Security. They are more concerned about aquiring power again than the welfare of the American people. That is a sad state.

[Dr. Shane]

Also remember that op-ed pieces are nearly always filled with spin. The Washinton Times is normally a little conservative so spin would tend to lean that way - but not always.

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In other words, the grossly irresponsible president's decisions to engage in sexual relations with a White House intern and then to repeatedly lie about it forced him to embrace his liberal Democratic base (and their aversion to individual retirement accounts). In the end, it probably cost Mr. Clinton what the authors call "the Rooseveltian legacy," which would have "come from putting Social Security on secure ground for the coming century."

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What happened is that there was a group of radical liberal Democrats that didn't like Clinton's plan and it appears that Clinton had to embrace them throughout his impeachment and so he had to give up saving Social Security.

[bevin]

Quote:

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The Washinton Times is normally a little conservative so spin would tend to lean that way - but not always.

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ROFLOL - you are so desperate to claim that anything that disagrees with your position is spin...

Any more jokes about why you think up is down? It is clear that the Democrates had NOT embraced Bush's solution then, and (like most of the country) don't embrace it now.

Furthermore Bush's plan is nonsense. There is no reason to believe that private a/c's managed by individuals will have a higher rate of return than when managed by a government fund. The sums involved are so vast that the only important number is the cost of running the fund.

Also, as I have explained repeatedly before, it is not actually possible to safely invest large sums because there is no guarantee you can cash out OF ANYTHING. We always have, and always will, depend on the service providers to take care of us.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

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you are so desperate to claim that anything that disagrees with your position is spin...

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I don't disagree with the Washington Times OP-Ed piece. I pointed out that it is slightly slanted to the conservative side. I was being consistant. If I am going to point out when the media is slanted to the left, I thought I should do the same when it goes to the right. It is no secret that the Washington Post is liberal (very liberal) and the Washington Times is more conservative.

There is no significant difference between Clinton's plan and Bush's. The Op-Ed piece you posted did shine the light on why Democrats today are opposing it. When Clinton was President the radical Left didn't have as much power as they do today. Clinton was much closer to the center (he was pro-life before running for President). The radical left was opposed to Clinton's plan and now, when they are in control of the Democrat Party, they are opposed to Bush's plan. Clinton had to abandon his plan becuase during impeachment he needed the support of the radical left.

So there it is. The radical left hasn't changed. They have just gained more power in the Democrat Party.