In the South, Partisan Voting Gets Stronger

In the South, Partisan Voting Gets Stronger (Roll Call, $) Are you ready for “premature partisan polarization”? No, it’s not a medical condition that can be treated by Cialis, as Republican pollster Rob Autry joked at a conference here on Southern politics earlier this week. Rather, it represents a shift that is already having a major effect on American elections. Surveys ...

Automatic Signup In 401(k)s Backed

Automatic Signup In 401(k)s Backed (WaPo, May 30, A5) House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) will include a provision in his Social Security legislation to help employers make enrollment in 401(k) plans automatic unless workers choose to opt out, according to congressional staff and knowledgeable lobbyists. The provision could have substantial impact on the nation's savings rate, which ...

Bush’s Secret Plan to Kill Social Security

Brad DeLong thinks the combination of progressivity and privatization offered by President Bush to fix Social Security is really a secret plan to kill it off. Pozen Pill - How Bush's version of "progressive indexing" would kill Social Security (Slate) This sounds like a not unreasonable way to keep Social Security healthy through most of the century. And progressive price indexing, by ...

Max Sawicky on Bush’s Program

While the Left are pretty much in agreement that Bush's plan sucks, they really seem to be scattered on why it is a mess. Max Sawicky's post on it says it is bad because Social Security is a public good. Frankly I find his arguments flacid. Public goods are goods where one's use of the good does ...

Don’t Cut the Benefits for the Rich Says Kevin Drum

No, really. Well at least don't cut them like Bush is suggesting. But that's not all there is to fairness. Most Americans also intuitively accept the idea that tax rates become unfair if they get too high, no matter how rich you are. They also think it's unfair to pay taxes and get nothing back. A common sense notion of ...

Kinsley: Bush Gets B+ for Honesty, Even Courage

Michael Kinsley, long a favorite of mine among liberal pundits, once again demonstrates why in his LAT editorial "Bush Gets B for Honesty, Even Courage, on Social Security." Bush's rebuff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was superb. The people who oppose his judgeship nominees aren't prejudiced against religion, he said. They do it because they have a different "judicial ...

Pseudo-Progressivity

Matthew Yglesias claims that Krugman picks apart the "pseudo-progressivity" of the Bush Social Security plan. It is at moments like this that I have to wonder what in the heck he's got in his liqour cabinet because it must be good stuff and I want some. Seriously the cuts of the Bush plan are progressive: The more ...

President Bush’s Social Security Plan

Well President Bush has come out with a plan and he is going, in part, with reducing benefits in a progressive manner. Basically the more money you make, the lower your retirement benefits will be. The idea, to me, seems to be that since a person might earn say, $500,000 a year that they have plenty of opportunity ...

Is Bush Cutting Social Security?

Michelle Malkin notes that the major news outlets, notably the NYT, WaPo, and AP, are taking President Bush's statement last night that, I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off. This reform would solve most of the funding challenges facing Social Security. as evidence ...

Social Security Strategery

Pollster John Zogby, a Democrat, argues that President Bush's plan to reform Social Security will likely fail but that it's nonetheless shrewd politics. Why would the president risk his political capital on a plan that appears doomed to failure? I think the answer lies well beyond the politics of any single reform plan. And the president may end up a winner ...

Senate Votes 100-0 to Make Social Security a Priority

In a purely symbolic vote, the United States Senate today voted unanimously for a non-binding measure saying strengthening Social Security is "a vital national priority." Given that it's rare for all 100 senators to show up to vote for anything, let alone a non-binding measure, this is at least interesting. Senate to make Social Security priority (AP) The Senate ...

Social Security Reform and the Gay Community

Andrew Lee, an undergraduate at my alma mater, argues that the gay community would benefit from President Bush's plan: Red, Blue, and Rainbow (SF Chronicle) As it is now, same-sex couples cannot receive Social Security survivor benefits or dependent benefits because they are not married under federal law. If Social Security were privatized, however, the federal government could not regulate the beneficiaries ...

Social Security and Bankruptcy

Victor, over at the Dead Parrot Society looks at the issue of whether or not the private accounts in a Social Security reform measure would be subject to claims by creditors. Victor's take on it is, "No." Victor has done much of the leg work and I don't have anything to add so go read his post.

Geezer Envy

Nicole Gelinas makes an interesting argument about the Social Security reform movement: As the Baby Boomers retire, our perception of the elderly as poor and vulnerable is likely to change — and Social Security may lose its near-universal support. [...] It may sound crazy to warn that future generations could force 75-year-olds to work for their benefits. But when FDR knitted his social ...

GOP May Seek a Deal on Accounts

GOP May Seek a Deal on Accounts (WaPo) President Bush is still in the opening phase of a campaign to sell the public and Congress on his ambitious plans for Social Security, but some Republicans on Capitol Hill have decided it is not too early to begin pondering an exit strategy. With polls showing widespread skepticism of Bush's proposed ...