GOP Senators Plan One More Attempt To Sell Private Accounts - By Paying For Them With Trust Fund Surpluses

by Steve

(Photo courtesy of Reuters)

Never underestimate the stupidity of Senate GOP conservatives. Next week, three GOP senators will hatch one more plan to sell voters on private accounts. How do they plan to do it? By convincing voters that the trust fund surpluses that Bush is currently squandering to pay for his upper income tax cuts and Iraq war should instead be redirected to finance the private accounts. Gee, won't this create even larger deficits or require immediate tax increases? Sure. Does the GOP care about this? Nope.

Will they be able to convince voters that private accounts are such a good idea that we need to slash spending hundreds of billions a year on health care, education, homeland security, law enforcement, and even the Pentagon to make up for the trust funds that are currently financing Bush's deficit spending? Probably not. But the whole exercise will allow Democrats to show voters plainly that Bush is paying for his upper income tax cuts and Iraq war with Social Security taxes that were to be lockboxed for the system's solvency which are instead holding down his deficits.

And tell me again how taking billions of Social Security taxes from the trust fund and sending them to Wall Street addresses the system's solvency without also requiring massive benefit cuts? It will be far easier for Democrats to sell voters on simpler solvency fixes within the existing program like raising the withholding ceiling to deal with the solvency issue, than it will be for the GOP to explain to voters why sending the surpluses to Wall Street, drastically cutting benefits, and gutting other spending are better. And oh by the way, have Little Ricky Santorum, Lindsey Graham, and Jim DeMint thought about what will happen when the Social Security surpluses run out and general taxes will have to be raised or spending cut even further to make up the difference? Nope, but these three will be long gone by then, sitting on the boards of Wall Street firms cashing their checks.

And does the GOP really want voters to think about making a choice between sending the surplus tax revenues to Wall Street, and using the surplus tax revenues to finance the Iraq war and tax cuts for the wealthy?