Category: Issues of the Day

From The Washington Post:

Perhaps most provocatively, [House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill] Thomas said lawmakers should debate whether Social Security benefits should differ for men and women, because women live longer.

From the Rolling Stone interview with Paul Krugman:

But you need to have some perspective on the seriousness of this whole thing. On the day the trust fund is exhausted, Social Security revenue will cover about eighty percent of the cost of benefits. Right now — today — if you look at the U.S. government outside of Social Security, revenue covers only about sixty-eight percent of total government spending. So on the day the trust fund is exhausted, forty-seven years from now, Social Security will be in better financial shape than the rest of the U.S. government is today.
…

It’s hard to understand why anyone would want to return us to the days before the New Deal, when millions of elderly people lived in poverty. But if you really dislike the notion that the government provides a safety net for the poor, then Social Security is the prime target. The U.S. government is a big insurance company, with a side business in national security. Social Security is the biggest social-insurance program that we have. It’s been highly successful, and it’s extremely popular. It’s one of the things that makes people feel somewhat good about government — and so, therefore, it must go.

Joshua Marshall also points out:

One thing we tend to take for granted, if nothing else, is that the 43rd president is a wealthy man. After all, that’s the reward of a lifetime’s work running companies into the ground and then handing them off to your dad’s cronies.

But if you look at his most recent federal financial disclosure form from May 2004, you’ll see that a good percentage of President Bush’s personal wealth is tied up in (horribile dictu!) US Treasury notes, i.e., a worthless stack of paper/IOUs.

From Talking Points Memo by Joshua Micah Marshall:

We were curious to find out which congressional districts had the largest number of Social Security beneficiaries.

Here’s what we came up with …

FL 5 (250,771) Brown-Waite, Ginny (R)
FL 19 (184,624) Wexler, Robert (D)
FL 13 (182,035) Harris, Katherine (R)
FL 14 (181,094) Mack, Connie (R)
FL 16 (178,715) Foley, Mark (R)
AZ 2 (167,294) Franks, Trent (R)
MT (163,655) Rehberg, Dennis (R)
MI 1 (163,632) Stupak, Bart (D)
VA 9 (162,005) Boucher, Rick (D)
FL 15 (160,986) Weldon, Dave (R)

In Sunday’s The New York Times Magazine, Roger Lowenstein has an excellent survey of the history, current status and possible reforms for Social Security. This is an article you need to read if you want to be informed on this vital issue for Americans.

A couple of well-dressed young men tapped on my door this morning to bring me a moment of scriptural reading. I really wasn’t interested.

But what I didn’t understand is why they walked past the newspaper in the driveway without bringing it up to the door. Random acts of kindness and all.

Read the story at Functional Ambivalent about the one Kenyan who died in the tsunami. He was on his first visit to the beach.

Lee, official brother of NewMexiKen, wrote his friend Dewi in Java, Indonesia, and told her some of our family had donated money to various charities working on disaster relief for the Indian Ocean nations. Her reply:

Hi Lee!

I would like to say Thank U for U n ur Family support re tsuname.As Indonesian people n as my self!.

Yes,it could happen to any countries. And i think its time for all of countries to united,hand in hand together to prevent such big disaster happening again. In Indonesia as well others.

I am glad also to know the fact that i am live here in Cianjur,far away from the sea. But the tsuname not over yet,yesterday there’s another big earth quake shaking Aceh again,Sumatra Utara n continue to yogjakarta,Banten,East Java,West Java. Who knows what will happen next! we only hope n pray this is for the last!.

My brother phoned us lastnight n the line really bad,he lives near by the sea. My mother asked him n his family to stay in Cianjur for awhile till situation really safe.

Almost all the phone line here in West java,east java,really bad sometimes like blocked,so does the cellphone receivers.

All of my friends worried plus they really hard to get through me or home phone. No Wonder!.

The weather really bad recently,dark skies n heavy rain almost everyday.If we compare to what happent to those in Aceh N Sumatra Utara,our problems is Nothing!.

So,if u panning on coming to Asia this jan-Feb,my advice is,stay out from the sea! :0)

My New Year’s Eve,i gathered at home with family,cancelled plan with friends.My father lead the prayers for those in Aceh N Sumatra Utara n for all other countries who suffered from Tidal Waves…

We spent This New Year’s Eve with prayers,alittle bit diffrent with last years.

Takecare in there

PS: If u planning on coming to Asia this jan-feb,STAY OUT FROM SEA!

Dewi’s.

From an American Family Association news release —

A pro-family group is accusing homosexual activists of using popular children’s TV characters to indoctrinate young children into their lifestyle. Specifically, the group is questioning the intention of a new children’s video featuring those characters.

SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney the Dinosaur, Arthur, Dora the Explorer, JoJo, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Big Bird, Bob the Builder — those and many others are among the characters starring in a music video remake of the 1970s song “We Are Family” that is designed to promote diversity and tolerance in the classroom. A special DVD version will be distributed to 61,000 public and private elementary schools nationwide, along with lesson plans for teachers. Distribution of the DVD is being donated by FedEx.

Ed Vitagliano, a researcher for the American Family Association, questions the motives behind the project. The problem, he says, is that it is an “open door” to a secondary discussion of homosexuality.

Link via Jesus’ General, who is carrying on a correspondence with Mr. Vitagliano.

More from Paul Krugman’s excellent column:

Here’s the truth: by law, Social Security has a budget independent of the rest of the U.S. government. That budget is currently running a surplus, thanks to an increase in the payroll tax two decades ago. As a result, Social Security has a large and growing trust fund.

When benefit payments start to exceed payroll tax revenues, Social Security will be able to draw on that trust fund. And the trust fund will last for a long time: until 2042, says the Social Security Administration; until 2052, says the Congressional Budget Office; quite possibly forever, say many economists, who point out that these projections assume that the economy will grow much more slowly in the future than it has in the past.

Altercation —

The governments of Sweden and England contributed $8.40 per citizen. The government of the wealthiest country on earth, the United States of America, originally offered twelve cents per citizen, here.

Now we’re up to a buck twenty. Japan, a country a fraction of ours and with a relatively tiny population, is giving more than is our government.

The New York Times publishes a strong, informative editorial —

For a society to be functional and humane, it’s not enough that some people have a chance to be rich in old age. Rather, all old people must have the dignity of financial security, and that requires universal coverage.

You are encouraged to read it in full.

From Gallup —

George W. Bush leads Gallup’s annual survey of the “most admired man” for the fourth year in a row. Hillary Clinton tops the most admired woman list with Oprah Winfrey close behind. Republicans overwhelmingly say the president is the most admired man, and also name first lady Laura Bush and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as the most admired women. Democrats, meanwhile, are most likely to mention Bill and Hillary Clinton as the most admired man and woman.

Josh Marshall has a must read posting on Social Security. You should read the whole thing, but here’s a key point —

After 1980 we started borrowing money big-time to finance our deficits — in large part because of tax cuts on high-income earners. However you want to slice it, we started spending substantially more than we were taking in in tax revenue.

So where’d we borrow the money?

This is from memory, so I may have the numbers a bit off. But I believe about $4 trillion of that debt was borrowed on the open market — individual Americans have them in their investment portfolios, or pension funds hold them, or the Chinese, Japanese and the Saudis and others have them in bonds.

But about $3 trillion of those dollars we needed to fund the 1980s and 1990s deficits we managed to borrow closer to home. We borrowed it from the Social Security (and a few other government) trust fund(s).

Almost the entirety of President Bush’s Social Security phase-out plan comes down to a simple proposition: finding out how not to pay it back.

Now, admittedly, this is an approach that the president is rather familiar with from his own business career at various failed energy companies. But it is, in so many words, a straight up con — one of vast scale, and one which virtually no one in the media ever frames in just these terms.

about where the Democrats should head, what they should do, etc., seems to NewMexiKen to be just so much palaver. Franklin Roosevelt gave us a platform more than 60 years ago that is just as valid today:

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

[Excerpted from Franklin Roosevelt’s January 11, 1944, State of the Union Address]

From the New York Post:

PHUKET, Thailand – Quick-thinking 10-year-old Tilly Smith is being hailed as a hero after saving her parents and dozens of fellow vacationers from the deadly tsunami – thanks to a school geography lesson.

Tilly warned the doubting adults at a resort that a massive tidal wave was about to strike – just minutes before the deadly tide rushed in and turned the resort into rubble. Tilly’s family, from Surrey, England, was enjoying a day at Maikhao Beach last Sunday when the sea rushed out and began to bubble.

The adults were curious, but Tilly froze in horror.

“Mummy, we must get off the beach now!” she told her mother. “I think there’s going to be a tsunami.”

The adults didn’t understand until Tilly added the magic words: “A tidal wave.”

Her warning spread like wildfire. Within seconds, the beach was deserted — and it turned out to be one of the only places along the shores of Phuket where no one was killed or seriously injured.

Last night, Tilly was being hailed as a savior.

Justice Thomas Reports Wealth of Gifts

In that six-year period, Thomas accepted $42,200 in gifts, making him the top recipient.

Next in that period was Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who accepted $5,825 in gifts, mostly small crystal figurines and other items.

Thomas $42,200. Next most $5,825.

What I don’t understand are these reports that some of the tourists who booked New Year’s package tours to these poor drowned places SHOWED UP ANYWAY! I mean, Jeebus Christmas, the body count’s well into six figures, and these people come to toss frisbees and drink MaiTais surrounded by mass graves. Who are the people who would do that? The rich are different from you and me, Doc. Many of them are morons.

Charles Pierce at Altercation

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Just ask Stanley Logue of San Diego.

For 45 years, the defense-industry analyst paid into the system until his retirement in 1994. But with all the recent hoopla over reform, Mr. Logue, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, decided to go back and check his own records. Would he have done better investing his money than the bureaucrats at the Social Security Administration?

He recorded all the payroll taxes he paid into the system (including the matching amount from his employer), tracked down the return the Social Security Trust Fund earned for each of the 45 years, and then compared the result with what he would have gotten had he been able to invest the same amount of payroll tax money over the same period in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (including dividends).

To his surprise, the Social Security investment won out: $261,372 versus $255,499, a difference of $5,873.

Read more. Link via Michael Froomkin.

So far the aid promised to the Asian relief effort by our government approximates the funding for the inaugural ceremonies next month.

NewMexiKen just donated $100 to the American Red Cross (via Amazon).

What about you?

How to Help (washingtonpost.com)

The Command Post – Global Recon – Earthquake: How to Help [Updated 12/30]

Three observations, also gleaned from Perfectly Legal:

While the overall annual pay increase for everyone in America averaged a nickel an hour between 1970 and 2000, chief executives won pay raises that averaged $660 per hour per year.

*****

Microsoft began with a gift from his parents, Bill. Sr. and the late Mary Gates. And in significant ways it was the taxpayers who made that gift possible. The father went to college on the GI Bill. The couple bought their first house with a VA loan. Those investments by the taxpayers paid off for the Gates family, as they did for millions of other Americans. … [T]he taxpayers also paid a salary to Mrs. Gates when she taught public school. So not only did the country’s largest fortune begin with a gift that was tax-free, but also the gift money was there because of the taxpayers.

*****

Repealing the estate tax, [Warren] Buffet said, is “the equivalent in economic terms of choosing our Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics. … Without the estate tax, you in effect will have an aristocracy of wealth, which means you pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on heredity rather than merit.”

An interesting email message from a Marine Gunnery Sergeant in Iraq.

Go read it.

A local Alabama judge presided over a drunken driving case wearing a robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on the front in gold. The lawyer for the defendant objected, on the grounds the robe might prejudice jurors against his client. Judge Ashley McKathan overruled him, saying, “you can’t divorce the law from the truth.” He said the jury probably couldn’t read the embroidered “Thou shalt not’s” on his robe, anyway. “I had a choice of several sizes of letters,” he said. “I purposely chose a size that would not be in anybody’s face.”

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