Steve, I love your slogan "Social Security is not an investment vehicle, it is Old Age Insurance"..... The Dems need to beat that into everyone's head, along with "its not broken".

Sorry Steve but I think you are delusional. bush, with the help of his media whores will get what he wants, which is to destroy Soc Sec. The dems are dead, they are cowards and will never put up a fight. We are now a banana republic. We have to deal with that. To think the dems will be an oppostition party is delusional.

The Dems need to begin to frame SS and Medicare as safety nets the Repubs want to destroy and point out the Orwellian double think. Do that every day of this debate and put the Repubs on the defensive.

While I'm all for defending the poor, and children, and attacking Big Pharm, the idea we need to get into the public's head is that Bush is actually threatening their own retirements. He's trying to convince people that their personal futures are threatened, and his answer will save them, just as he did going into Iraq, and to get re-elected.

We've got to convince people that he's not going to save them, he's going to ruin them. Tactics include rebutting the "system is in crisis/bankrupt" lie, dismantling the "If I invest my own money, I'll get rich" lie, and promoting the "Bush's plan costs you more than a system that works" idea, and the "every country that's tried this before is sorry now" story.

If we can get people to start thinking Bush is actually going to leave them old and destitute, then selling them this perfectly good Old Age Insurance system we already have will be easy.

exactly. SS is an INSURANCE policy, not a retirement plan.

Think about how much we spend on fire and housing insurance in our life times, or car insurance. Do we say "but I didn't get my money back"?

Social Security is not an investment vehicle, it is old age insurance.

No it's not. It's a pyramid scheme requiring more and more workers to support an expanding retirement pool. Think of it as Amway or Women Helping Women. If the number of new recruits doesn't expand, those at the top of the pyramid see the available income diminish. That's what has happened to Social Security. Initially 16 workers supported 1 retiree. Now, there are 3 workers per retiree. And soon, 2 workers per retiree. The base of the pyramid isn't growing fast enough, leading to the current crisis.

As such, if the program’s long-term solvency can be improved with increasing the taxable earnings ceiling, reconsidering Bush’s tax cuts and redirecting revenue from a reversed estate tax cut into the program, raising the retirement age,

This has been done before, and only postpones the pyramid collapse. It does not remedy the inherent flaw in pyramid schemes. In addition, raising or eliminating the cap and raising taxes reduce the incentive to work. Most high-income workers are self-employed, and thus pay both sides of the social security tax. This would represent a wreckless 13% tax hike on them and bump up their total tax rate north of 60% in states like CA.

I’m sure those red state, low income voters

As noted before in several links, low-income voters preferred John Kerry over George Bush. Kerry overwhelmed President Bush in the under $30K annual income crowd; while Bush slaughtered Kerry in the over $50K annual income crowd by a 13% margin of victory.

Is it best for Democrats to start the fight by simply opposing all Bush proposals with harsh rhetoric

That's status quo dishonesty from the left.

It's old age insurance Muck. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it a pyramid scheme. Bush's privatization is a pyramid scheme, but you love it. And show me how the improvements will not address the solvency issues.

You're not even making any sense at this point. Good luck trying to get those arguments by folks with college degrees!

Keep trying Muck, keep trying.