and Thomas's ego is such that he would love to have his name on a landmark piece of bipartisan legislation that fixes Social Security

I don't know if this was unintentional, but social security is not broken, it is not in trouble, and it does not need "fixing." Indeed, it's about the only program that works, and to imply it needs fixing is to fall right into the neo-con way of thinking. It is unacceptable for SS to be considered along with other budgetary issues.

I agree with phidipides. Your premise starts with the assumption we must negotiate about SS.

Lets propose a roll back of tax give aways to the rich. Lets propose health care and medicare and medicaid solutions. But let's not suggest re-designing SS is part of this.

I think this blog entry, and the first two comments, can be filed in the "When Pigs Fly" folder, and stored away in the file cabinet.

Grassley, honorable?

Bullshit.

If he was honorable, he'd be openly defying his caucus on the issue of the judicial filibuster and openly acknowledging his massive use of the holds to stop Clinton nominees during the 90's.

Grassley has got some good press for protecting whistleblowers and advancing senior issues in the face of his own party - but that's because he knows those positions get him re-elected in Iowa.

I think this blog entry, and the first two comments, can be filed in the "When Pigs Fly" folder, and stored away in the file cabinet.

One more neo-con who would sell their childs kidney on the free market to make a buck. All it takes is a bathtub full of ice and a knife, muck. $110,000. on the open market for a nice kidney. Get to hacking.

I think this blog entry, and the first two comments, can be filed in the "When Pigs Fly" folder, and stored away in the file cabinet.

Why don't you go back to holding up that latest Donald Luskin column with one hand, muck? Let thinkin' folk do the thinkin'.

idiosynchronic:
You are absolutely correct about Grassley. He was a "concensus" senator until Bush became president. Since then, he's been a tool of the whitehouse. He speaks only in talking points and lies right into the cameras. The real surprise is Lugar. He was criticizing the war effort a few moinths ago, but lately he's completely rolled over for Bush on the Bolton nomination.

Steve, what have you been smoking? It's holy disaster, Batman, for the country and the Dems if they go along with any of this.

If Social Security is on the table then the future of the Democratic party is too.

Fire up the Delorean, rlprather, their future is in the past.

You may be right Muck, but not for the reason you think.

Hey, unfair to point out that muckdog's kids don't belive in a thing he does, rlprather. Why, that implies the little imps are going to rebel in a fashion that makes the 60's look like a clothing fad (which it was).

There is no reason to do anything on Social Security because there really is nothing wrong with the system.

There is no solvency crisis.
In the last twenty years the actuaries have had three scenarios in each report.The intermediate one is the one that is cited when we talk of the trust fund running out of money and pay as you go becoming insufficient. However the intermediate scenarios has always been wrong. It has always predicted more shortfall than actually have occurred or would occur.

The scenario that has been correct is the "low cost" or "optimistic" scenario. In that one there is enough money to go to the next century.

That is one good reason not to get to the Scylla and Charydis of a House committee like Thomas's that will hide in it things we Dems should opposse like tax cuts for the rich qnd corporations, etc.. A bill will be forced out if the Dems don't set themselves forthrightly against it. The same will happen to Grassley, the "honorable" Grassley who massaged the Medicare bill enough to make Bush and Rove happy. Then the 2 bills, with putative Dem support,IF THEY ARE STUPID, will go to conference committee where it will come out for phase out and tax cuts. My imagination fails me.

By that time the DEMS BEING STUPID WILL BE UNABLE TO TURN AROUND AND EXPLAIN TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WHY THIS BILL IS BAD BECAUSE THEY JUST HAPPILY VOTED FOR IT.

Demorats should not support any bill dealing with any of these issues. The Republicans only negotiate in bad faith. No bill should get out of committee with Democratic support.

phild.,

To me it's simple. Look at the perspective of someone born in 1980. In the first grade the adults talked about Iran-Contra. By late elementary school Bush I's America was losing jobs and they were just getting old enough to understand the worries of their mostly boomer age parents. Their adolesence corresponds well to the happy, prosperous Clinton-era 90's. Last year and maybe now they face the possibility of a draft. Also, they're the young adults who are getting the worst of the raw deal as Bu$hco sells America's future cheaply.

On top of this, American education has been on a 'back to basics' (read more objective) approach scince the 1980's as the free form sixties experimental (subjective) theories have been largely abandoned. Why does this help the liberals? Because a generation of rationalist thinkers is going to be less susceptable to manipulation through fear and short term greed. They really tend to be more reality based than their elders.

Many, including myself have pointed out that the Bush push on personal accounts is, among other things, an attempt to try to woo this demographic that was so strongly pro-Democratic last year. Rove has outsmarted himself and the plan is backfiring. We're already seeing this in that young workers who had favored personal accounts when the idea was a vague generality are turning strongly agsinst it. Polls show that the more informed young workers are about private accounts the more likely they are to oppose them.

The size and demographics of this group also point to America's future heading portward. They the most racially and religiously diverse generation in history and although they mostly come from small families as a whole they outnumber their boomer parents. That gap will grow as the years pass.

It is often said that demographics is destiny. We're looking at a future where a lot of the swing states will likely turn blue. Rove knows this and his plan to prevent it backfired when it literally hit reality. Generation Y. They're new, they vote blue get used to it!