Local Social Security Blather, Kenny Boy Mehlman and Novakula
During the local part of Morning Edition today I heard this story, Central Texans on Social Security. Here is most of what was said:

Ms. Harding (School nurse retiring in a few years): There's nowhere to go to look for the information that isn't hype. We don't know where to go to look to for the information that's not, uh, put out by somebody that's biased.

Narrator: Harding and several others at last nights forum say they walked away feeling Social Security doesn't need as much change as the President has suggested. But Brain McAuliffe says he like some of what he's heard about the President's plan, the financial planner who probably won't retire for at least another 15 years, says no matter what it's time for his generation to get serious about Social Security.

Mr. McAuliffe: Unfortunately, ahh lot of people.. just tend to.. not really seem to care about what goes on. They may gripe but they don't want to take the time to take some action and I wish people would get a little bit more involved and take action and talk about things and investigate.

Narrator: Need to know more about all the proposals for Social Security before they take a position on any of them.

So the first person has no idea where to go to find unbiased information about Social Security. Do you? And the financial planner, no surprise, likes "some of what the he's heard about the President's plan". Probably the part about the fees he would get. But he says we just need to stop griping and take some action. Although no one there knows what that should be. They need more information. Very informative.

Then came Kenny Boy Mehlman to tell us all about the RNC's plan to sway African Americans to the party of Lincoln and the state of the President's, yet unreleased, Social Security plan, Mehlman: GOP Needs to Reach Out to Black Voters, he was interviewed by Steve Inskeep:

Mehlman: My message is, give us a chance and we'll give you a choice. What I'm hearing is folks who recognize that the African American community is not well served when one political party, the Democrats, too often takes their votes for granted and assumes them and another party, the Republicans, don't compete hard enough for their votes. What I'm here to say is, the party of Lincoln, no matter how well we do in elections won't be whole until we get more African American support. And we're competing hard for it.

Q: On this question of trust you mentioned the party of Lincoln. This is also the party that made a historic calculation in the 1960's to welcome former Democrats who had opposed civil rights. Do you think it is necessary for your party to acknowledge that a mistake was made?

Mehlman: (Let me summarize, NO!)I think that our Party hasn't done enough in explaining our positions to the African American community. That's what I intend to try to do.

Q: President Bush in his arguments for changing Social Security, one of his arguments for private or personal accounts as you refer to them, is that African Americans have a shorter life expectancy. Therefore under the current system they get less money under Social Security and if there was an individual investment account there'd be something to leave their children. Are you saying that you don't expect anything to be done about the factors that cause African Americans to have shorter life expectancies such as health care?

Mehlman: Obviously the President is very committed to helping to reduce the gap, not only when it comes to home ownership and not only when it comes to income and not only when it comes to education but to health care. But there is something else that we need to do. There's another gap that this personal retirement account concept addresses and the gap is the gap in savings.(How? It's 6.2% going in. No matter if it's a private account or if it's Social Security. How does that address the "savings gap"?) Giving that option to every poor person, the same option that is available to every rich person, will do an incredible amount in my judgment to reduce the disparity that too often exists between the wealth of the African American household and the wealth of the white household. (The question is about the life-expectancy of African Americans, which he avoids. What I don't understand is what is the relationship between African Americans' life expectancy and poor people/savings gap? Is he saying that if African Americans saved more they would live longer? The other thing is he makes it seem like poor people can't save money now, I mean legally. We all know that the real reason poor people can't save money is because they don't have any money. That's why they're poor, right?)

Q: The President has said in recent days he would be willing to consider a form of a tax increase in order to finance some of the changes in Social Security. The amount that affluent Americans pay in Social Security taxes would increase substantially under that suggestion if it became law. Why didn't he talk about that before the election?

Mehlman: (Because every asshole in the media, like yourself, was too busy saying that this President says what he means. But seriously, did he actually ask this question? Let's me see. Hmm, because he was running for office and his name is Bush so that means, lie, lie, lie!)I don't think that what he said recently is different than what he has said before. What he has said is there are certain bright lines that are absolutely off the table. He was asked a specific question on this other issue and what he said is that's not one of the bright lines he has and therefore welcomes Democrats and Republicans with ideas. Come to the table. He's open minded. He wants to work with everybody on a proposal and a solution.

Q: This is a proposal that would cause some Americans, over time to pay substantially more. This is a President who said repeatedly during the campaign that he was against tax increases and attacked his opponent and called him a tax raiser.

Mehlman: And I think that...

Q: How does he get around to this new position?

Mehlman: (Well you see Steve, we know that the media in this country are a bunch of corporate owned squids like yourself that won't ask follow up questions or hold our feet to the fire and I can answer questions with vague nothingness.) Well I think that we don't know what the overall plan is gonna look like. There are a lot of proposals. Ultimately you need to look at this from the perspective of what is the net effect in terms of the tax rate. To say that the President came out for an increase in the net tax rate, in my judgment, misrepresents what the President said.

Q: Some conservatives have been against Social Security for many, many years on philosophical grounds. Is that part of the reason the Democrats are having so much trouble trusting what the president says, because the goal here is for some is to eliminate a Democratic New Deal program because of what it is?

Mehlman: (No Steve, they're having trouble trusting the President because he lies about everything! Remember? WMD, Saddam/Al Qaeda link, Saddam/911 links, tax cuts create jobs, tax cuts for the rich spur the economy, need I go on?)I wouldn't want to be in a place where I, as a Democrat, say to a young person, I traded your long-term retirement security for a short-term political gain for me. And I wouldn't want to have to explain to voters why it is that I, as a member of Congress, along with every Federal worker has the option of setting up a personal retirement account but that same option's not good enough for that voter.(I wouldn't want to be in a place where I, as a Democrat or Republican, were responsible for losing a your persons retirement savings and killing one of the most popular and successful government programs ever invented! - LH)

Oh yeah, Bob Novak is a liar! Novak misquoted Dean for second time in three days. Here is the e-mail I sent to CNN:

Look it's bad enough that you still let Novak on your station after he broke the law by outing a CIA operative. Why do you let him blatantly lie like he did about Howard Dean. Dean said, "..if Social Security were left alone for 30 years, its benefits would be reduced to 80 percent of what it is now." Eighty percent of..., not as Novak said, "..over the years it's going to lose about 80 percent of the benefits." See the difference? Now I understand it's not Bob Novak's fault he is still on your channel, that's your fault and one of the reasons I no longer watch CNN. When my Grandparents got old and their minds weren't so sharp anymore we took away the car keys. Just a suggestion.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 9:06 AM