And you win today's "Stating the Obvious Booby Prize". Of course they are different people. But what amuses me is how all these whacky justifcations for Bush's plan are ginned up. It is like watching the Keystone Kops as they fall all over each other trying to show how rotten this plan is even though it isn't all that different from other plans they have supported or positions they have taken.

I don’t think you get it. The Bush plan would reduce benefits for everyone making over $20K per year.

Oh I got it right away. I read Krugman, Furman, and others on this and noted that number right off the bat. If this is all you have to contribute, thanks for stopping by and being irrelevant. Sheesh.

I perfectly well do get it, praktike, and so does he. First off, I believe that Social Security benefits should be high enough so that even people making under $20K per year should not be living in poverty in their retirement and having to eat cat food. Do you disagree? Do you believe that it's currently happening?

Secondly, current benefits increase for everyone over the rate of inflation. This would reduce the rate to closer to the rate of inflation for those over $20K, and to the rate of inflation for those near the cap.

Thirdly, changing demographics-- including an increasing lifespan and decrease in the number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime-- have made the assumptions of the program no longer work. Some changes must be made, whether higher taxes, reduced benefits, increased retirement age, or a combination. I think that this is the best plan.

I would like a welfare plan that gives all seniors a minimum income so that none are in poverty. I don't want a forced-savings plan; I don't see the point. The middle class and wealthy who want a better retirement should be able to save for it on their own. Once it's a welfare plan, I would like the money to be raised through general revenue instead of a regressive tax like currently.

I suppose one could view it as an insurance policy of sorts against ending up needing Social Security.

Oddly enough this is precisely what have some have argued, but they are also opposed to this kind of change which would, in my view, make Social Security look more like a form of social insurance/saftey net.

So I'd favor eliminating the Social Security taxes entirely and folding the whole thing into general revenue and other taxes too as that happens.

And that, IMO, has always been the genius in Bush's taking on these issues... he has exposed the weakness of the arguments the Democrats have made for decades, now.

It's like stirring an ant-hill with a stick... Every ant in the colony gets totally confused about what they were doing, and where they were going. Leaderless, they're fored to think for themselves... and most fail at it. The rest become EX -Democrats.

If people have more money and want to save for retirement in order to have more than that guaranteed minimum income, they should do it on their own. There's no need for a government retirement scheme.

Mr. Drum is free to propose a plan that doesn't cut the benefits of the better off, perhaps by cutting the benefits of the poorer, perhaps by increasing the retirement age. More likely, he'll go for raising the taxes; it seems to be the only thing that Democrats approve of.