Um, yes. Yes they could. Haven’t you been paying attention?

On top of the cuts it also calls for privatizing Social Security.

Ah, okay, note to Serious Democrats on mah teevee. Your talking point is as follows:

The Republicans’ idea of a sensible response to the banking crisis is to turn all your retirement savings over to Wall Street.

I agree, Brad. Let them go for it.

Like with Colorado Springs’ experiment, let’s watch as they get their eyes opened wide to real voter rage.

The Republicans’ idea of a sensible response to the banking crisis is to turn all your retirement savings over to Wall Street.

So? What could possibly go wrong?

WSJ – Big Slide in 401(k)s Spurs Calls for Change: “About 50 million Americans have 401(k) plans, which have $2.5 trillion in total assets, estimates the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington. In the 12 months following the stock market’s peak in October 2007, more than $1 trillion worth of stock value held in 401(k)s and other “defined-contribution” plans was wiped out, according to the Boston College research center. If individual retirement accounts, which consist largely of money rolled over from 401(k)s, are taken into account, about $2 trillion of stock value evaporated.”

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/020274.html

And then maybe, just maybe, the sight of old people dying in the streets will help Americans to understand that paying taxes for social insurance programs isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I’m pretty sure there are colossal chunks of the country — like at least a third, plus everyone in Congress and working in the national media — for whom “the sight of old people dying in the streets” would cause them to pop wood.

Oh please let them run with this.

I think I will send this link to everyone who sent me an “Obama’s gonna kill granny” e-mail.

“But the elderly aren’t fit to serve in combat!” you howl in protest.

Al Franken would disagree.

What army wouldn’t be terrified at the sight of an army of senior citizens shambling over the hill with nothing to look forward to except a return to a nursing home?

It would be almost as scary as an army of zombies.

I disagree. I think in terms of politics & passage, the single worst decision was to let Max Baucus play “fuck up the bill” by his ignoring of the Democratic majority on the Finance Committee, create a bullshit imaginary sub-committee of 3 conservative Democrats and 3 Republicans to waste 74 teabagging Obama = Hitler-Stalin days while doing nothing but attempting to shitty up the bill with more pro-insurer / pro-pharma crap and then failing to get the imagined Republican support (the excuse, rather) so that by the time it came out of committee he had facilitated literally months of screaming propaganda and he had attempted nearly everything he could to shitty up the bill in the views of its supporters.

And now Max Baucus demands that some of the biggest parts of the new, too-small anyway jobs bill be sequestered in his committee to fuck around with and shitty it up, and the Democratic leadership is going along but promises it won’t be like the last time they handed Baucus a bill to fuck up.

It would be almost as scary as an army of zombies.

scarier. Haven’t you seen Substance’s Ragin Grannies?

it’s time for you to earn your keep!

I agree. Honestly, even if you worked for 50 years or so what else are you going to do all day?

For instance, my old man retired with 1/2 pay and the bum just sits around all day reading golf magazines. Granted, he did run into burning buildings while others were running out for 30 years but c’mon. I say his time would be better well spent battling the evils of Terrusts rather than blathering on and on about his time in the Marines when he helped crush the 1970 Postal Strike.

Previous post by me, Esteev. Feel free to teach me All Internet Traditions, including, including a Name.

Haven’t you seen Substance’s Ragin Grannies?

*shudder*

Hold me, zombie.

But that’s the best part! We don’t send them into combat. Rather, we train them to perform the functions of bomb-sniffing dogs and send them out into the field to hunt for IEDs! If you old folks want free health care, it’s time for you to earn your keep!

That sounds like a reheated Bill Hicks gag.

I agree with El Cid that placing the health care bill in the hands of Max Baucus (one step removed from Joe Lieberman) from the outset was sheer stupidity.

As for Social Security privatization – Christ, these people are STUPID. All they have to do to stay in power indefinitely is accept and learn to live with Social Security and Medicare and concentrate all their fire on potential future plans, like the liberals’ “wasteful” and “socialist” universal health care plan, and they’d remain popular as hell – but no, they just can’t get enough, they have to move in against social programs that a solid three quarters of the population wants left alone and thus sink their own popularity. What a pack of idiots.

Departing from my typical bitter pessimism, I do have to admit that the potential for Republicans to push this Social Security slashing makes me smile inside.

Don’t encourage these people by suggesting the paleosoldier concept, Brad. There’s a series of novels by John Scalzi, beginning with Old Man’s War, which suggests that very thing; in the future, senior citizens are given a chance at having new, superhuman bodies if they join the space marines and don’t come back to Earth. Of course, the technology involved is well within the Clarkean indistinguishable-from-magic range, but you know that that wouldn’t stop the Ole Perfesser from heartily endorsing the concept, and Megan McArdle would chirp in that it could be a reality if only those gosh-darn libs didn’t tax the bejeepers out of biotech firms.

Clarkean indistinguishable-from-magic range

I’ve dated some women like that…

“What army wouldn’t be terrified at the sight of an army of senior citizens shambling over the hill with nothing to look forward to except a return to a nursing home?”

Way back before you kids were born, when Chrysler was in trouble and NATO’s readiness was being questioned, Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes said one of the only funny things he ever actually said, by suggesting that NATO equip its troops with Chrysler cars. The sight of 5,000 Chrysler Imperials driving across the plains of Poland would freak the Warsaw Pact countries out in a second, thus assuring the end of hostilities.

And now Max Baucus demands that some of the biggest parts of the new, too-small anyway jobs bill be sequestered in his committee to fuck around with and shitty it up, and the Democratic leadership is going along but promises it won’t be like the last time they handed Baucus a bill to fuck up.

What really kills me is that the conservadems fuck shit up, and never ever seem to learn any lessons from it. Eventually you realize they’re not stupid, and the failures are deliberate.

Silly libs. SS should be privatized because Obama has destroyed the Dow Jones! It’s down – 65% which proves that … huh? Minus 65% ? Umm, STFU thta’s why.

“What really kills me is that the conservadems fuck shit up, and never ever seem to learn any lessons from it. Eventually you realize they’re not stupid, and the failures are deliberate.”

And what really kills me is that thanks to them, we haven’t had a chance to introduce an actually liberal bill in decades. The choice between the current bill and no bill is a choice between two conservative solutions.

Send the Republicans and Blue Dogs down to an infinitesimal number like in the 1930s, and you will see more shit get done than there has in all the conservative governments in American history packed together. But you’ve gotta give liberalism a chance before it can work.

I say the Republicans aren’t going far enough. Let’s REALLY privatize health care. If you can’t pay your medical bills, you just go into indentured servitude — you know, be a slave to a doctor for seven years, after which, if you can afford it, you buy your freedom.

After all, it’s what the Founders did. I think Scalia and Alito would definitely approve.

Hold me, zombie.

Not too tightly please, and not so close to the punch bowl.

What really kills me is that the conservadems fuck shit up, and never ever seem to learn any lessons from it. Eventually you realize they’re not stupid, and the failures are deliberate.

Oh, I haven’t made that mistake in a decade. I get very, very tired of people ascribing criticisms to Democrats ‘failures’ due to incompetence or spinelessness or stupidity when they actually are traceable to various leaders whose policy and ideological leanings are frankly different than that of the majority of Democratic leaders and voters.

The entire purpose of many of these supposedly ‘bipartisan’ maneuvers was using a good available excuse in order to avoid the sorts of reforms most hated by the industries to be impacted.

If Democrats had 80 or 90 Senate seats and 400 members of the House, the most industry-connected and anti-reform leaders would still come up with excuses on why they had to weaken and draw out proposed reforms, just different excuses than before.

In the the block quote from Josh Marshall there may be a fundamental misrepresentation of Ryan’s plan for Social Security. He states that it is “Basically the exact plan President Bush tried in 2005.” which, as evidenced by many replies, is equivalent to handing our money over to Wall Street.

I don’t think Ryan is so stupid as to walk down the same scorched path that Bush blazed. Here is his explanation of his proposal:

“On Social Security, the Roadmap provides seniors with the option either to stay in the traditional government-run system or to enter a system of guaranteed personal accounts. Neither option is privatized. In the personal-accounts system, the accounts are managed and overseen by a government board — not a stockbroker or private investment firm. People choosing the reformed system select from a handful of low-risk, government-regulated options — just as members of Congress and federal employees do.”

He makes pains to speak of it as strictly under the government’s oversight and regulation, and equates it to the same deal that Congress and Federal employees get. If this is true then it is indeed different from Bush’s plan and won’t be as easy to attack using wall street as the foil.

I don’t think Ryan is so stupid as to walk down the same scorched path that Bush blazed.

PAUL Ryan? Are we talking about the same guy?

personally, I think even with all the fiddling around at the edges, people will generally see this as pretty much the same as Bush’s plan, and after watching their 401Ks tank, how many people will be jazzed about more ‘personal accounts’

I’ll stand by that Ryan isn’t as stupid as Bush. But you’re right that personal accounts are a tough sell no matter what the actual details are. Personally I like the idea if it’s tightly regulated like Congress’ deal. Also, I sure like the notion that the money I contribute is actually owned by me and not part of a political slush fund and ponzi finance scheme. As we will soon discover, SS isn’t viable once baby boomers retire en mass. They won’t be enough payers to cover all the payees. There is no trust fund – SS revenues are spent immediately with the Treasury swapping bogus bonds for the cash to make it look like it’s funded. Somethings gotta give.

What, did you expect them to take it out of the massive BigPharma giveaways already in place, like artificial protections against imported generics?

Not to mention banning federal negotation on price in the prescription drug money giveaway to Big Pharma.

Unless I’m missing some other proposal, the Medicare “cut” was ending a subsidy to insurance companies. The Dems were idiots not to realize the GOP would portray that as a “cut,” though. At some point, they need to learn salesmanship and how push back against bullshit. Far too many unforced errors.

“If Democrats had 80 or 90 Senate seats and 400 members of the House, the most industry-connected and anti-reform leaders would still come up with excuses on why they had to weaken and draw out proposed reforms, just different excuses than before.”

Disagree. The Lieberman/Baucus people are still a minority among the Dems, aren’t they? Sure, they’re a powerful minority, and when joined with the Republicans they outnumber the liberals in the party so they’ve been able to block any attempts at reform. But I think if we actually got to the point of 80 or 90 Senate seats and 400 members of the House (or something as equally huge), liberals would probably finally have enough of a majority to overrule Republicans AND Blue Dogs.

It’s been the most consistent problem in recent political history; how liberals can overcome the alliance between the conservatives in the other party AND the conservative minority within their own. It’s only happened in the thirties (when Congress was so slanted towards Democrats that most of the New Deal, incredibly, got passed) and for a couple years in the sixties when the liberals breached the Conservative Coalition’s stranglehold for long enough to pass the civil rights and Great Society programs that endure till today.

Of course, Roosevelt and Johnson’s liberals had a president willing to back their play instead of sitting back and letting the centrists run the show.

Is it possible to just say the elderly are now a part of the military, and let them demand full VA bennies? They wouldn’t have to do anything, and think of the advantages; Veteran’s Day would be as big as Easter, the discounts for seniors and military would stack, they’d all have new knick knacks to show off to the kids. All they’d haveta do would be to show up to orientation and then go home.

…train them to perform the functions of bomb-sniffing dogs and send them out into the field to hunt for IEDs!

That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard since–well, Ryan’s plan. Everyone knows the schnozz is the first thing to go after you turn fifty. My mom spent the last forty years of her live pulling little Tupperware containers out of the fridge, shoving them in my face and asking, “does that smell right to you?” On the other hand, an army of little old ladies doing that would make most countries sue for peace.

I think old people could still find a way to get affordable medical care even if they were tossed onto private insurance. And that way is… drum roll… enlisting in the armed forces!

Why do I picture a line of tanks rumbling over through the battle zone with turn signals blazing away?

Still, old folks in the military just might work.