This is shameful. Both McCain and Obama say they support the proposed mega-bailout, with caveats, but see no reason why they can't continue to live in La-La Land:
But Mr. McCain said in an interview here with CNBC and The New York Times that he would press on with his plan to extend the Bush tax cuts and to cut others. Contrary to the warnings of fiscal analysts, he said he believed he could do so and balance the federal budget, which was falling deeper into deficit even before the financial crisis, by the end of his first term."I believe we can still balance the budget," he said. "I think that it is restraint of spending, and I think it's growth of government and the economy, and the recovery of our economy. And anything you do that would take more money from the American people who are hurting more now, I think, would be a serious mistake."
Mr. McCain also stuck by his support for allowing workers to invest a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes in stocks and bonds, an approach that Democrats call privatization and that Mr. Obama has used to suggest Mr. McCain would subject retirees to excessive market risk.
In a separate interview earlier in the day, Mr. Obama said that despite the huge new government obligation, he would press ahead with his plans to overhaul the health care system to insure more people, make college tuition more affordable, give a tax cut to the middle class and raise taxes on those making over $250,000 a year.
Yes, let's have more tax cuts. Let's have lots more government spending. Let's pretend that there are no such things as limits. It's the American way, after all. Mayor Bloomberg said it well on Meet the Press yesterday:
And we're paying the price for the last years where we all wanted something for nothing, where we took risks because we were convinced that we would never have to pay, somebody else would pay on the downside, but we'd keep the profit. ... But I think it, Tom, it comes out of this instant gratification. We all were happy when the stock market was going up, we were all happy when there was all this money sloshing around in the economy, and everybody could get a loan whether they could pay it back or not. When companies went out and bought other companies and people got great bonuses, it was great. And nobody wanted to say, "Wait a second, this can't go on forever." I'm happy to say in New York, at least, we didn't think it was going to go on forever and for the last couple years we've been salting away money. I don't know that we've salted away enough, but we've been saying again and again nothing goes up in a straight line forever.
Again, I have to point out that the politician who told the American people during the fat years that not everybody could be in a home of their own, and that somebody should put the brakes on Wall Street, because despite the money it was raking in, it was operating recklessly, and was going to crash hard -- the politician who stood up, in other words, for the public interest, saying things that needed saying, he or she would have been quickly retired. There is no market in politics for telling people what they don't want to hear. Which is why McCain and Obama continue to pander instead of to lead. It's incredibly depressing. I like to think that this election would go to whichever one of these guys has a moment of truly straight talk with the American people, a real blood, toil, tears and sweat speech laying the unvarnished truth on us, and summoning us to sacrifice. You know, to put country first.
But does either man really have it in him? The moment demands a Churchill. It demands a leader, not an establishmentarian panderer.
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Drudge now reporting McCain as owning 13 or more cars, along with his 7 or more houses: how can he blame corporate greed with a straight face?
Drudge now reporting McCain as owning 13 or more cars, along with his 7 or more houses: how can he blame corporate greed with a straight face?
I don't need the guy to take a vow of poverty (a vow of chastity or a vow of fidelity is out of the question, considering how he behaved around his first marriage), but 13 cars? Get out of here, how can he understand the lives of most of the people in this nation?
Had the money been put into Treasuries, you'd be up.
...which, of course, isn't 'private' by any stretch of the word. And hurt the government's fiscal position a lot more than social security.
What exists is a fantasy, and when Congress cuts your SS and Medicare benefits, it will be equivalent to a greater than 100% drop in the stock market.
To rephrase you: The money you have loaned the government is fantasy, because the government will not be able to pay it back. Instead, you should have loaned the government money via some other means which is more expensive for the government.
Seriously, that's complete nonsense. If the government isn't going to be able to pay social security, it sure as hell doesn't need to be issuing Treasury bonds, which cost it more. (Because, as you pointed out, they return more.) Your 'solution' would just exacerbate the problem, turning what is currently debt we don't have to pay interest on, because we can borrow from the social security excess into general revenue, into debt we do have to pay interest on.
It's absurd to postulate that this would, in any manner, make the government more solvent. Unless, of course, the system included an 'opt-out' that let people fail to invest at all, and enough of them choose to do that.
'Private' social security requires investing the money in private industry. Just coming up with other ways to 'invest' the money in the government is sheer semantics, and your idea just increases the amount of money the government is paying out.
"I should also add that, while I don't have much confidence in McCain, I respect his willingness on several occasions to take on the PARTY of MONEY in Washington. He seems to have learned something from the Keating Five scandal."
Precious little, given his record for supporting deregulation over the years. Now he is for increasing regulation and holding these crooks accountable.
Johnny Come-Lately? Sorry, I trust him as far as I can throw the Empire State Building. His record speaks MUCH louder than his words.
If you were a stockholder of a corporation and one of the officers had conducted business as poorly as McCain has, would you reward him by making him CEO?
Obama may not be the be-all-end-all in this either. But we know what McCain as done, and it has helped pave the way to where we are today. Can we really afford four more years of the same failed policies?
Under the current plan, all my income is consumed (if I am the typical American), either by me or elderly through transfer programs, and the government borrows from China or Dubai to cover the shortfall. Under a private plan, I am forced to save more. Consumption declines and investment in plant & equipment increases, which can then provide the income necessary.
It wouldn't cost the goverment more because instead of borrowing from China, they would borrow from me. There's already more than enough debt in existence to satisfy savers, and more money would flow into other investments.
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