I have a "Blue" congressman, Peter Defazio, in the district right next door to Ms. Hooley who sold out the common people in the estate tax sell out. Here's what he said, and I happen to think that this is a reasonable plan to maintain the promise that America made to itself, Social Security!

Thanks for your message in opposition to President Bush's plans to privatize Social Security. We are in complete agreement. I have long been opposed to undermining Social Security via privatization.

Although critics of Social Security claim the program is going "bankrupt" and is in "crisis," the report from the Social Security Trustees proves otherwise. Demographic changes (a growing number of retirees, fewer workers, and longer life-expectancy) create manageable challenges for Social Security. However, the program is fundamentally sound and can remain so for the next 75 years and beyond with relatively minor changes.

Currently, Social Security is collecting more in payroll taxes than is needed to fund benefits for today's recipients (70 cents of every dollar in payroll taxes collected is paid out immediately to current beneficiaries). These excess payroll taxes are credited to the Social Security Trust Fund and then invested in government bonds that pay interest to the Trust Fund. The Trust Fund already has assets of more than $1 trillion, which will grow to around $6.6 trillion by 2027.

The bottom line is that even using conservative economic and demographic assumptions, payroll taxes, in combination with the Trust Fund, are sufficient to pay 100 percent of promised benefits through at least 2042, nearly four decades from now. Even after 2042, Social Security will never be "bankrupt" in the sense that it couldn't pay any benefits whatsoever. Because future workers will still be paying into the program after 2042, even without any changes whatsoever, Social Security will still be able to pay 75 percent of promised benefits after 2042.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, by siphoning money from the current program to fund private accounts, the President's plan to privatize Social Security actually makes the projected financial challenge facing the program worse, not better!

While I oppose the President's plan, I believe it is prudent to plan now how to close the projected modest gap in long-term financing. I have drafted my own proposal to stabilize and improve Social Security that has been certified by the Social Security actuaries as keeping the program on sound financial footing for the next 75 years without privatization. My proposal protects and enhances the existing Social Security system by: lifting the cap on wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax so that individuals making over $90,000 a year will pay the same tax rate as the average worker in Oregon making $30,000 a year (currently, income above $90,000 is not subject to the Social Security payroll tax) - I don't think it is asking too much for a millionaire to pay the same percentage of his or her income to support Social Security as the average Oregonian pays; exempting the first $4,000 in wages from the Social Security payroll tax, so everyone earning less than $94,000 a year actually gets a payroll tax cut; allowing the assets in the Trust Fund to be diversified into investments other than just government bonds; improving benefits for widows and widowers; and creating a minimum benefit guarantee for low-wage workers.

I have posted a lot of other information about Social Security, including my January 2005 newsletter devoted to the topic, on a special section of my web site. I hope the information on my web site will help debunk a number of the myths spread by proponents of dismantling the current system via privatization. The address is:

http://defazio.house.gov/SocSecIndex.shtml

Thanks again for contacting me. Please keep in touch.

Rep.Peter DeFazio
Fourth District, OREGON

Just take the $90,000 cap off completely and cut the percentage paid in by a percent or two. There will be more than enough money to fund the system and it will lighten the load on small businesses struggling to hire and keep employees. Problem solved.

It's disgusting to watch the Beltway Dems pee in their pants because of some focus group. I guess Bob Shrum didn't retire after all. Do these people believe in anything?

mysteve,

I concur. These beltway types would f**k their mother if a focus group told them to. The 'compromise' will be a total surrender to Bush.

The good news is there's always Powerball!

Steve, you are just like all the other dems! You can't compromise on private accounts! you have the whole country against private accounts - so what do you and all the other wimpy dems do? You say OK but only as add on's. Are you nuts? This is why the dems are continually losing - they cave in when there is no reason to. Private accounts are bad in all ways - as add ons too. but the point is that you and all dems will not take a stand - you guys just want to keep losing don't you?

As a lifelong Democrat I recently told a telephone solicitor who was requesting (more) financial contributions to the Party that I will no longer give money until I believe the party leadership can provide a modicum of evidence that it is capable of standing firm and winning the vote on at least one "major issue." I further stated a standard complaint of many Party members that it has lost the the last three national elections, (amendments to)the bankruptcy legislation,estate tax,and (probably) will lose the votes on Bolton appointment and the so-called "nuclear option" in the U.S.Senate.
The telephone solicitor was very understanding, stating he had received similar responses from many other Party members.
I don't know what this means or how it relates to the "focus groups" in question here. Are there indeed such groups or are we witnessing an au general absence of cahones?

Reflect on that a moment: the same people who didn’t pay attention to their base or the facts on bankruptcy or the estate tax are now paying attention to focus groups as a cover for throwing Bush a lifeline on Social Security.

What better time could one choose to find the middle ground than the one time in YEARS when one's own position is the CLEAR political winner?! It's like Democratic congresspeople spend their days eating lead-based paint flakes.

How can one even successfully LOBBY people this stupid?

Who did these focus groups and what were their motives? I've tried googling 'focus groups AND social security' and haven't found anything recent. If anyone has a relavant link it would be appreciated.

Sez jj:

the point is that you and all dems will not take a stand - you guys just want to keep losing don't you?

Since your critique seems to come from the LEFT of the Dems (a place I also find myself), I can only assume that you ALSO plan to keep "losing."

It's hard to deal emotionally with the fact that the people around us are just so horribly stupid. I know; believe me, I know. But sometimes, one must adapt to realities. And in this case, the reality is that the Democrats are Orders O' Magnitude less dumb than their Republican counterparts. (Well, at least in terms of the actual policies; clearly, the "getting elected" prong of "clever politician" doesn't favor Democrats.)

Sometimes, you're dealt a losing hand. Such is the hand that confronts a modern left-winger. If you fold, though, you've got no chance to influence the rest of the hand.

jj:

The goal was to protect and improve Social Security, and I've proposed nothing that hurts Social Security. And doing nothing is not an option.

If Bush wants private accounts, let him tell America how he would pay for them. That's all I am saying.

The phone solicitor I talked to yesterday (since my callerID battery was dead, I replaced it in a hurry after that) didn't even hear me when I said I wouldn't be contributing to the Dem Senatorial Campaign Committee due to Stabenow's crappy vote on the bankruptcy bill, he just kept on yappin' about why they needed money, so I said I'd given my answer and hung up on him. He listened as well as any beltway type, so I'll donate to Boxer.

Steve Soto says: "And doing nothing is not an option."

Excuse me? Doing nothing certainly is an option for now as far as SS is concerned. There is no rush. And there should be a rush about the deficit.

If the article is correct what has happened is that the Democrats pretty much 'won' and they decided that they just couldn't handle that.

There is no way the Democrats can bargain with Bush and Co. Once they agree to discuss this, then they have given Bush and the Republicans in Congress all the cover they need. They have no role after that. Except to cast a meaningless vote.

I think the larger problem, and one that even Josh Marshall seems to be overlooking, is that the current set of republicans are unwilling to compromise. What might well happen is, a "partisan" agreement will be reached, and then it will be chopped & sliced & diced until it's what the bush regime wants, and the democrats will have sold the truest and strongest corner-stone of their party -- and *of the nation.*

Give an inch and they'll take 10 yards, and your money, too!

Does Social Security have issues? Yes.

Anything that'll really hurt anybody over the next four years? No.

So, the best thing is to sit tight and let Bush come up wih a plan, and then rhetorically beat him over the head with it! Politics these days, as the Republicans have shown us, is not the art of the compromise, but the art of war. Denying Bush any reform will help the Dems, especially in the Mid-Terms when we can portray the Republicans as selling out the working man.

Smirking Chimp complied this list.

To be more percise, it's the fourth article down on the GOP and the working class.

I don't get it guys. This is the third comment I've seen on this article/story that seem to be misreading, or unecessarily extrapolating the article. The alarmist tone in your post, and the other comments I have seen on other blogs today do not match the content of the article. Yes, the article does say that the Dems plan to: "quit emphasizing that they will not negotiate changes to Social Security until President Bush drops his idea for private accounts." But that does NOT mean that Dems will negotiate w/ Bush on private accounts, let alone that they are "about to cave on Social Security," as some on Kos and MYDD have suggested. Whether you EMPHASIZE "something" or not, does not correlate with whether you are doing (or not doing) that "something." Moreover, the article does not even quote any named Dems.

There is plenty to critique the Dems and the Dem leadership about (the Bk bill and Estate tax repeal, if it passes). This is not one of them (at least not yet). I don't understand the unecessary alarm at this point.

"I don't understand the unecessary alarm at this point."

Sounding unnecessary alarms against Democrats is the only thing this blog ever does.

At least the Pope watch has an air of the unknown, Congressional Democrats rolling over yet again on what should be their fundamental principles is all to predictable.

Not sold on your approach Steve quite yet. Mainly because in years past when a true bipartisan approach to an issue has occurred with resulting votes in each house of Congress, the conference committee to resolve the language in each bill usually excludes the democrats and results in some funny things. Wasn't it a bill that some republican staffer (sure it was just some staffer) inserted some language about the majority leaders on certain committees being able to get access to people's private tax returns? I just don't trust those republicans right now and that is why I have some major hesitation with your and Josh's suggestion. Maybe I am getting too far ahead here in the process and worrying too much, but...that's how I feel unfortunately. These republicans will say anything to get democratic support, but then will do the opposite. I don't Trust these people at all.

There is something that I have to point out because I think the majority of people either don't know, or forget the way out government works.

We elect congresspeople and senators to represent either a district of people, or a state of people. All republicans and All Democrats elected are not their to represent their respective party, they are their to represent their district and their state.

I think sometimes people comedown too hard on representatives because you don't agree with the way they voted. But the fact remains that they are to represent their constituents, not the beliefs of their party.

This is also the major problem with ALL POLITICIANS today...they don't even bother to figure out what their constituents want out of them.

So if any of these individuals are voting based on their constituents, then I applaud them...the rest can feel free to eat my ass.

steve,

my goof, I posted this on the wrong thread...a little early yet this morning.

My apologies,
Big Dog.

Switch the focus to health care, the real crisis facing America. Does nobody read Krugman around here?

When Rs talk about Social Security, Dems should talk about healthcare. Or maybe some focus group gave it the thumbs down. Oh my God. Run for the hills.

I still say that if you pre-screen your focus group well, you can get any results you want.