Partisan hack and slash

Houston Chronicle:

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan issued a fresh call to Congress today to move promptly to put Social Security on firm financial footing, warning that doing nothing would lead to massive budget deficits and cause the "economy to stagnate or worse."

Seriously, massive budget deficits will stagnate the economy? Then why support the President's private account plan, which causes a massive debt to maintain benefits to seniors now? What effect will that have, Mr. Greenspan?

Because "benefit cuts will almost surely be at least part of the solution," Greenspan said it is imperative for Congress to let future retirees know as soon as possible that all currently promised benefits won't be forthcoming when they retire.

There's the big pink elephant. Benefit cuts. The Bush plan is laden with them, whether you opt in or not. Because he swears he won't raise taxes, and he seems loathe to find other funding, he wants to cut your benefit. Almost with a Grinch-like glee it seems. I only hope his heart grows three sizes someday.

The Fed chief said today that unless growth in the Social Security as well as the Medicare programs is restrained, these programs will require more and more government resources. Spending on these programs will rise from about 8 percent of the total economy currently to about 13 percent by 2030, he said.

"These projections make clear that the federal budget is on an unsustainable path" in which large budget deficits will push up interest rates, Greenspan said. The government last year produced a deficit of $412 billion, a record in dollar terms.

Uh, Alan, anything else you endorsed recently that may have put the budget on it's current path? How about massive tax cuts for the wealthy when we had that Clinton surplus? How about that one?

If you repeal the tax cut on the top 1% alone, you can overcome almost all the projected Social Security shortfall. It's that simple. If Bush were serious about saving the program, he'd look at solutions that actual do just that. Instead, he runs around the country telling everyone about the magic of benefit cuts coupled with the gamble of private accounts. And the people aren't buying.

Perhaps a good way to make some money for your retirement is bet this thing never takes off.

"We need, in effect, to make the phantom 'lock-boxes' around the trust fund real," he said.

Those of us who voted for Al Gore are now going to quietly weep.