Is the Democratic Party Dead?

[regulator 0]

The Democrats lost on every front in this Deficit Crisis but Social Security. Republicans expect to get SS in the next round.

Every generation of political leaders have raided the surplus money from the Social Security Trust fund for over a half a century now. The fed even pays a 6% interest on this ‘DEBT.’ ..this money has been ‘BORROWED’ as in ‘gov’t-will-pay-it-back.’ .. Social Security has been loaning us money, not taking it. This $14 trillion deficit has nothing to do with Social Security. ..Apparently, the feds are STILL paying 6% interest on SS $4 trillion in IOU’s. That alone should come to about $350 billion a year in interest payments.

And don’t forget about the years of surplus revenues still coming in from Social Security taxes.. the SS Trust fund should be closer to $25 trillion within 20 years. That is $5 trillion more than needed to cover ‘unfunded liabilities.’ In other words, SS is actually completely funded if we just stop raiding the funds from today onwards.

Democrats seem to have lost the argument for the liberal agenda. This led to losing the public mandate in last Nov. elections. Today was the final act of this. Democrats therefore lost the policy initiative and naturally, the political play as well. This Republican and Democrat Deficit match is becoming the end game of the Tea Party against the entirety of the Democratic ideology. Laurels of the Democrats old moral mandates had become a powerful political machine. The power and politics have taken the focus. Their ideological fight has been almost entirely neglected. That liberal machine is now crumbling. Democrats only measure of influence is in how much was ‘not lost’ rather than gained. The remaining hold outs like Social Security are likely to be swept away during the second trial of this deficit debate. This will replay in just weeks from now.

Democrats are down playing this political slap down. The President has reverted into supra-spin mode about the positives of this deal leaving him crossing over into a front man for the conservative’s view of this latest outcome. It’s all good.

How did this happened? Republicans have been focused into a simple and effective public stance: cut taxes, reduce costs and scrap benefits. This commitment of purpose is credited to the Tea Party. They found more than validation. This startling victory heralds the Tea Party as the official economic policy of America. A new day has arrived in Washington.

While kudos are passed around by supporters, the opposition is left snickering about an over reaching Neo-con plot that has left Democrats all but irrelevant as a political force on the economic front. This resentment personifies the problem with Democrats. The issue is not the Republicans. Democrats never made their case. Fairness is not an economic policy and therefore it cannot stand in an economic forum. As such, the only way out is to rephrase the debate. The problem is that Democrats are not sure what that would be and hence the quiet protest, but as of today, no series counter argument.

What would a ‘serious’ counter argument be?

This is about more than political posture. Rather, it about identifying what has been left out of debate. Re-phrasing the debate re-sets the options we have to work with in tackling the debt. There are other options out there. What are they?

Here are some examples from the absurd to the simple that reveals how much is missing from today’s political debates.

Remove Republicans from all federal benefits until taxes are raised.

Cut off all Federal Benefits to Republicans. Once Conservatives agree to more taxes, they can be reinstated. Sound flippant? Well, yes, but it personifies how today’s ‘reforms’ sound to Democrats.

When Republicans talk of cutting spending, Democrats hear them saying to dump seniors, children, students, moms, the poor and all the other social victims Democrats think we have in the US. ‘Dump Democrats’ is what liberals hear. There is truth to it, but Democrats seem to have just one response. ‘That’s not fair.’ Complaining about fairness sounds winy to conservatives. The response of course is that life is not fair. Grow up, get use to it and do something about it. From this perspective, conservatives have a point.

The problem than is not Republicans, but the Democrats. They have failed to make a stronger case against budget cuts. A natural counter point: There’s plenty of revenue to cover all of America’s Democrats. We can cover all these benefits at the tax rates Republicans want. We simply don’t have enough revenue to cover Republican’s federal benefits too. If Republicans want to enjoy Social Security and all the rest, they have to raise taxes or go without these until revenues pick up. We should be generating more revenue given all the tax breaks Republicans pushed through – at least, if you believe in the tax-cut-to-growth paradigm.

How this works is pretty simple. If you’re a Republican politician, you automatically lose all federal funding from office and travel, to health care and campaign tax deductibility. If you’re a Republican senior citizen, you get no Social Security check and the same again if you’re a student of a Republican household. The list goes on to include everyone from ex-Republican Presidents on down to the poor going in for medical treatments.

Sound absurd? Well, yes it is by some measures. However, this better personifies the Democrats communication gap. Democrats see program cuts as a Republican move to punish Democrat constituents. Removing all the country’s Republicans from all Federal programs would demonstrate the point. And of course, cuts costs too. Yet, this does not get to the Democrats economic point about program cuts or the benefits ‘liberals’ are trying to save. Making that case is what Democrats should be doing. However, offering to removing all federal services from Republicans makes for great headlines. Lol.

Democrats look at social services the way Republicans look at tax cuts. Republicans see tax cuts as a simple and obvious upgrade to business performance. Democrats see social services as a simple and obvious upgrade to people’s economic performance. Democrats see people as something like a corporate entity that provides an economic service that can be enhanced once equipped with education, health, transportation, housing etc. Democrats see benefit cuts as an economic impairment to such performance. Oddly, Democrats rarely make the economic case for their programs and instead talk about ‘fairness’ in response to Republican calls for budgetary discipline.

Talking fairness makes Democrats sound out of touch with budgetary reality. Republicans come off looking more responsible. Democrats blame over reaching conservatives, but really, they just have made a better case and hence, they are winning the mandate and power. They will continue to do so until Democrats present an economic case for their programs the way Republicans have for tax cuts for business. Republicans don’t see these stimulus measures as ‘costs’ but rather as an investment that generates more money. Democrats have to show their program costs as an investment that raises more revenue too. How?

It’s easy to do. Why Democrats struggle making their case is almost plain silly. Take Social Security. It’s a great example. In the last hundred years, life spans went from 58 years to 85. We just added 30 years to the average American’s life. India is only now making it into their 60’s. The US on the other hand has expanded our American life span by 50% = three whole decades. That’s huge. It’s miraculous to me. It’s what you hear of Gods and Angels doing.

Here’s what’s more interesting. Today’s seniors actually spend less ‘sick’ time incapacitated over their counter parts from a hundred years ago. Top this off with the extra 2 to 3 decades of added work we get from them. A century ago, we didn’t have lots of 60 year olds running around working. We didn’t even have that many 50 year olds. For the most part, they were all dead. Today, 70 and even 80 year olds are ‘working.’ Make that 90 in some cases. Some say it’s because of the recession. I call it a miracle. So we have doubled their working years from 30 years to 60, without adding much to their ‘sick days.’ Wow.

Does this cost us more money?

Of course.

Are we getting a whole lot more money from today’s seniors than we did a hundred years ago?

You bet we do.

How much more productive are today’s seniors over their counter part of a hundred years ago?

Let’s count all the economic activity we get as compared to the cost for things like Social Security.

Are we getting our money’s worth?

My first impression is a resounding yes.

We hear conservatives complaining how Social Security was suppose to be temporary but kept getting extended. And we now have seniors living longer. They make this sound like a bad thing. It’s an odd complaint. They sound awful.

Yes, ‘we’ pay more, but how much more do we get in return?

This side of the equation has never been developed. This is what the Democrats are suppose to be doing. They don’t. And no, this has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with great returns for small investments. It’s great economics. Democrats have failed to make the case. That is the Democrats fault, not the Republicans.

We have great returns. OK, fine.

What about budgeting?

Can we really afford this when we are facing such large deficits?

Can we really afford Social Security?

Democrats have once again dropped the ball in answering this simple question.

Let’s take a look at this budgeting side.

Social Security still runs a ‘surplus’ in revenue by about $75 billion a year - if I remember correctly. Social Security has no net cost to today’s budget. So why all the ruckus about Social Security?

We hear the horror stories how Social Security has $20 trillion in ‘unfunded’ liabilities. The surplus tax revenue was originally projected to run for another 10 to 15 years. Social Security is going to run out of money in the next 3 to 5 years so scream the conservatives.

Now for the $4 trillion dollar questions: what happened to Social Security’s $4 trillion in IOU’s?

Every generation of political leaders have raided the surplus money from the Social Security Trust fund for over a half a century now. The fed even pays a 6% interest on this ‘DEBT.’ These interest payments and surplus revenues would have ballooned into $15 trillion* if it was simply allowed to sit in the ‘trust’ (as it was originally intended). Instead, this money has been ‘BORROWED’ as in ‘gov’t-will-pay-it-back.’ This is another way of saying that today’s seniors loaned us about $15 trillion from their Social Security fund. Yes, WE borrowed $15 trillion worth of money from our seniors Social Security trust fund.

(*Rough estimate. Surpluses varied so requires a year by year break down of revenue to get a more accurate picture. We suspect it to be higher than these figures used here.)

Well, this paints a very different picture. Social Security has been loaning us money. This $14 trillion deficit has nothing to do with Social Security. Hmmmm. Now that’s an interesting little anecdote.

And of course, let’s not forget about this 6% interest. Apparently, the feds are STILL paying 6% interest on SS $4 trillion in IOU’s. That should come to about $350 billion a year in interest payments. The SS should have about $10 trillion over the next decade (at compound interest rates).

And don’t forget about the years of surplus revenues we still have coming in from Social Security taxes. Throw those into the mix and the SS Trust fund should be closer to $25 trillion within 20 years. $5 trillion more than needed to cover ‘unfunded liabilities.’ In other words, SS is actually completely funded if we just stop raiding the funds from today onwards. Forget about the $15 trillion seniors already loaned us. That was free money. A donation to the younger generation. Thank you Grandma.

What do seniors get for their money? BLAME. We have neo-cons pointing the finger at grandma saying she is reason for these deficits. ‘Adding insult to injury’ comes to mind here. Somehow, our seniors have never made an issue of this mugging nor even this blame game where they are held up as the scapegoat to be sacrificed in this alter of political slight of hand. They are true ladies and gentlemen.



Resolution tow: Stop stealing from Grandma’s SS fund.


Democrats never made this case? Why? Don’t blame the Republicans.

Social Security is an easy one. How about Medicare & Medical? Both of these programs are also self sustaining. The taxes collected for these programs covers their cost and in some years even had surplus revenue as well. Once again, this $14 trillion deficit has nothing to do with these programs. Conservatives of course again talk about the ‘unfunded liabilities.’ Maybe some adjustments need to be made to the program.

I got a simple and effective idea reading an article from the Wall Street Journal: ‘The Story of Dick Cheney’s Heart.’ (7/9/11) They offered a big revelation there: ‘Heart disease accounts for about a third of what Medicare spends merely on hospitals, not counting drugs or other charges.’ Heart disease also remains one of the fastest growing areas of medical inflation.

The simple solution maybe to have all heart related treatment partitioned off into its own separate health insurance plan. Medicare would now cover everything but heart related disease. Those that can afford the added premium, they get the service or a separate public option is created for those that can’t. In this way, we have just shaved off more than 35% of Medicare’s cost. All of Medicare’s other services are provided in full while reducing the overall budget. Whatever reforms we do decide to chose, the point remains, ‘THIS’ deficit has nothing to do with Medicare or Medical.

This brings us to the $14 trillion dollar question. We see that entitlement programs like SS and Medicare did not cause this $14 trillion in deficits. If entitlements did not cause this deficit, what did? Well, now we have a discussion.

Between $2 to $4 trillion went to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another $3 to $5 trillion went to bail out banks. And the remaining $2 to $4 were in ‘tax cuts for the rich.’ Depending upon which figures you want to use, $6 to $12 trillion of this entire deficit is from war, banking and tax breaks for the rich. The conservatives are now reaching in to take money from grandma’s Social Security savings to cover banks, rich folks and oil led war games in the Middle East. The $15 trillion politicians stole from Social Security was not enough. Now we have to steal more to cover wars and banks. This time there is no more ‘surplus’ and so they are actually talking about taking Grandma’s rent, food, medicine and, well, her life and all that ‘extra’ lifespan. Remember that big complain about seniors living longer? Well, these cuts can finally begin to correct this ‘problem’ too.

Let’s say America did not spend a dime on any entitlement programs over the last 10 years. We would still have a $10 trillion deficit from war, bank bailouts and tax cuts. You can hear Democrats crying foul and ‘unfair’ once more, but there’s something more important. It’s really about getting to the heart of the problem. Than we can solve the actual problem itself. These deficits were not caused by entitlement programs nor are they the answer to them.

Raghu-nomics looked at this riddle and found that the war and housing crisis nullified the economic stimulus of Bush’s tax cuts. The country therefore never received the anticipated returns from these tax cuts. The war sapped a great deal of the stimulus benefits of the tax cuts while the housing collapse cut short the time needed to cash in on the benefits of these tax cuts. In other words, a couple more years and the added economic growth would have generated the kinds of new tax revenue’s projected by conservatives. It could have happened sooner without the war sucking out so much of the man and capital from the markets. Pres. Bush’s tax cut actually provided us a workable economic model, but one that could not succeed in that time frame with a war going. So conservatives were both right and wrong about their tax cuts. Unfortunately, conservatives want grandma to pay for this mistake. Yes, unfair, but more importantly, stealing even more from SS is just bad economic policy. They are taking from a great program that works wonders for a failed program of tax cuts and failing banks. This is the definition of ‘throwing good money after bad money.’

Maybe the final irony is that many Tea Party members are actually Libertarian. Some consider Libertarians to be a nice word for anarchist. Anarchist are not looking for smart gov’t or great budgeting. Nor are they after reducing gov’t. They are here to end gov’t. They want gov’t out of everything but basic national defense and domestic protection: police. In other words, they want to end Social Security, Medicare, Medical and all the rest. These programs are treated as intrusive, oppressive and everything else sinister. Well, we now have the perfect solution. We can end it for Republicans much as they demand. They even get to have all those tax cuts they insist upon. They forfeit all their federal benefits until we have the revenues to match. That would be more honest like the Republican governors returning federal stimulus money. Meanwhile, Democrats get to have all the benefits they believe in and do so within the budget confines the Tea Party demands. You see, everyone is happy. Now, that my friends, is a counter argument. Democrats should try it some time.

http://www.examiner.com/republican-in-phoenix/is-the-democratic-party-dead#ixzz1U0ZnnNKp

[kelpdiver 2]

While they successfully stopped anything from happening this year, they still haven't found leadership. Next year they may nominate such winners as Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin.

[masterblaster72 0]

You might want to ask that question about the Republicans, who dug themselves a political ditch by bringing us to the edge of economic ruin in their unswerving endeavor to protect the ultra-rich.

Democrats are going to make a meal of that one. Not that they're worthy of being re-elected either; if this whole mess proved anything, it's that politicians from both sides need to be elected out of office in a clean sweep next election cycle.

Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

[rushmc 23]

The only losers are us,

the ruling class found a way to keep their power and make many feel good about it

Dem or Republicans? I makes no difference. They won and made us think (some of us anyway) that one side lost

Supporting my point

http://news.yahoo.com/us-aaa-rating-still-under-threat-204040123.html

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Heatmiser 0]

Quote

The only losers are us,

the ruling class found a way to keep their power and make many feel good about it

Dem or Republicans? I makes no difference. They won and made us think (some of us anyway) that one side lost

Supporting my point

http://news.yahoo.com/us-aaa-rating-still-under-threat-204040123.html

Agreed. Until we can figure out to not spend more than we have, we are FUCKED.

What you say is reflective of your knowledge...HOW ya say it is reflective of your experience. Airtwardo

Someone's going to be spanked! Hopefully, it will be me. Skymama

[lawrocket 3]

Quote

Agreed. Until we can figure out to not spend more than we have, we are FUCKED.

This requires fundamental change to:
(1) Medicare; and
(2) Social Security

It requires spending cuts to:
(1) Defense;
(2) Unemployment/Welfare; and
(3) Medicaid and SCHIP

The above five categories represent over 75% of the federal budget. In 2007, the GAO estimated that spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and INTEREST on debt service will take all federal revenues by 2030. That means no defense, transportation, energy, environment, labor, etc. Just the entitlements.

These are the programs that the Democrats have said cannot be touched even though spending on them will subsume over a third of GDP.


The Dems, however, are alive and doing quite well. I suspect that they will do better in the future because as the percentage of population that has grown to rely on the programs increases, the more resistance there will be to cutting those programs. Any effort to cut entitlements will be viewed as an assault on the legacy of the Democratic Party. And as people begin to see their benefits being cut they will side with the party that says it is fighting for them.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Channman 2]

Democratic Party dead?...that's like asking if communism and or socialism is dead. They are all alive and kicking the shit out of freedom.