In the debate about social security, I have come to conclude that the Democratic party does NOT want reform. They have had 30+ years to fix this system, and have done nothing except increase taxes. I see this on all levels of government…the town governments that will not spend pennies on maintaining school buildings, but will accept a huge level of bonded debt to tear down the decrepit buildings and build new schools. THE DEMOCRATS DO NOT WANT TO EFFECT ANY BENEFICIAL CHANGES TO ss…THEIR IDEA IS TO:
-DO NOTHING
-WAIT UNTILL THE THING IS BANKRUPT
-DECLARE A CRISIS
-ENACT MASSIVE NEW TAXES, AND DECLARE THE PROBLEM SOLVED (PASS IT ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION)
hENCE THE DEMS REACTION TO pRES. bUSH´S HONEST ATTEMPTS AT REFORM.
jUST LOOK AT YOUR LOCAL COUNTY GOVT…THE COURTHOUSES ARE ALOWED TO DECAY AND FALL APART. tHEN , SOME POLITICIAN DISCOVERS THAT THE COURTHOUSE IS ABOUT TO COLLAPSE.
PEOPLE LIKE sEN. KERRY IRK ME…HE HAS KNOWN THAT ss WAS FISCALLY UNSOUND FOR 20 YEARS…BUT FIX IT? NAH, LETS LET IS COLLPSE, AND THEN STEP IN (LIKE THOSE NURSE WHO GET THEIR KICKS FROM CAUSING A SERIOUSLY ILL PATIENT TO GO INTO CARDIAC ARREST…AND THEN `SAVING ´HIM!
IANAPolitician
I assume you have a job. (Supposedly) many people hate their job, but they still have to do them to live. Now, asuming you hate your job, when you are doing it, are you usually specifically trying to do a bad job of it and screw over your clients or do you generally just going about doing your job?
I am going to assume the second answer. (It was a rhetorical question.)
So now do have any reason to think that anyone in any profession, in any company or government body is really specifically trying to screw over all of their customers/constituents or that 99% of the time they are just going about their job?
Perhaps a mod can come along and re-title this thread to contain some partisan insults to democrats.
And I had no idea that Democrats were so in favor of letting courthouses go without maintenence. Is that in our platform?
You’re hoping that the dust will obscure the 10 Commandments monument. 
To the OP, politicians (Democrat and Republican) sometimes want reform and sometimes not so much. The Democrats (and many Republicans) wanted campaign finance reform, for example. On the Democratic side, they even voted against their party’s short and medium-term financial interest to secure it. I happen to think it was a horrible law, but its sponsors advocated it in (mostly) good faith and in the belief that it was reform and that it was good. On other issues, “reform” theatens a status quo with which politicians are comfortable or from which they profit somehow (usually not directly financially). So no, politicans (D&R again) don’t favor it.
On Social Security, the Democrats know there’s a problem. And they know they don’t have a solution besides raising taxes. But they do know they don’t like the President’s proposed solution much at all. And they believe that the problem is far enough away that blocking reform now doesn’t kill the system – that it can be fixed later, presumably under a Democratic president. Switch the parties and change “Social Security” to “health care” and the above is a short history lesson from the Clinton administration’s first term.
On the Republican side, you have to distinguish between the President and Republicans in Congress. The President is a true believer in reform now and in the merits of his plan (which, to be fair, is still forming so it’s more accurate to say he’s a believer in the principles behind his plan). In Congress, many Republicans believe in the President’s plan but they fear the political pain of passing it – they still consider Social Security the “third rail” of politics. And many also believe that reform can wait – not so much for a Democratic President but for a time when they’re retired and don’t have to do it themselves. So it’s not like those guys are angels here and Democrats are devils.
Finally, if either party truly believed in reform that would help the American people, the automatic caps lock key would have been banned on pain of death as far back as the Apple ][.
That is a point. Now I wonder…
manhattan: On Social Security, the Democrats know there’s a problem. And they know they don’t have a solution besides raising taxes.
Well, that might be a bit too sweeping. Democratic SS reform plans generally do invoke other mechanisms besides raising taxes. For example, the proposal of Democratic Congressman David Obey modestly reduces benefit increases as well as slightly increasing the amount subject to payroll tax and dedicating estate tax revenues to Social Security.
If you mean “Democrats don’t have a solution that doesn’t involve any tax increases at all”, yeah, that’s true. But then, I think that’s because there isn’t a solution that doesn’t involve any tax increases at all, except those that impose severe benefit cuts instead.
Addressing the title and ignoring the misplaced pitting of an OP.
As a general rule, politician’s are self-serving individuals. Maybe a little more so than the average Joe, maybe less so.
The truth of the matter is that some reforms that would benefit the nation as whole, for the long term are not in the perceived best interests of pols.
By the way, you might want to consult President Clinton’s next to the last State of The Union speech in which he made every effort to explain not only why he thought Social Security should be attended to, but how to do it. He had, of course, an enormous surplus to work with and proposed using SOME of it to extend the life of the trust fund for at least another 20 years. He was, by the way, a Democrat. That the surplus is gone is not much in question any more, regardless of the reasons you ascribe to it. Fact is, don’t blame the Democrats for not wanting to do anything about what the Republicans are describing as a crisis. They were ahead of the curve to begin with, they have not created this monster, and they shouldn’t get the blame.
It’s easy to slap ‘reform’ into the title of a bill or proposal, or even onto a set of ideas. But it doesn’t mean that it/they would constitute genuine reform, if implemented.
Oh yeah: WHAT’S WITH ALL THE SHOUTING? IS THE OP A VOGON?
** ralph124c**!
Stop the all-caps!
Or, is somebody borrowing your machine? 