Self-identified liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics.
- Thread starter outamyway
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av8torntn
Well-Known Member
Well it isn't as long as people like bbdsm are allowed to frame the debate. I haven't heard anyone credible talk of just stopping social security payments to those receiving them. That does not stop him or others from claiming that people who oppose bondage want to take grandmothers monthly welfare check away. It's always how do you convince the public to starve papaw or some other absurdity. If , and I think this is one thing that Bush understood, you frame the debate as saving social security they will be more successful. He had an impossible sell with an evenly divided congress that opposed his domestic policies along strict party lines. Most young people today understand that they are getting robbed with the social security system and I think if given the choice to opt out and invest even 5% of their salary would not even think twice. I have to assume here that most are willing to accept the fact that their salary is reduced by 6% not the 3% that government tries to sell you. Most people in my generation understand that we are not entitled to social security like the older generation feels. We can see the basic math and it just is a poor deal. You guys are correct in the fact that efforts to clean up this mess have been blocked but there is a serious storm on the horizon. I understand that I will pay into this "system" the rest of my life but more and more are willing to do this if we could get the opportunity free the next generation from this bondage. More and more people understand that our parents and grandparents have dumped this ponzi scheme in our laps to deal with.
One of the reasons the Bush plan was so opposed was because the government understood if people were given just a little control over their money that it would only be a matter of time before they demanded more and more control , especially after seeing the results of compounding. It was such a small percentage that they were offering to give us control of and the crying from the left was absurd. The common line was Bush was going to allow people to gamble away their life savings as if that was somehow a worse deal than what the government was doing. As long as you guys on the left are allowed to control the debate you are correct it will be politically impossible to free ourselves from this burden. Honestly in many cases it isn't the people that fear freedom as much as it is the government.
I think that you really are looking at it the wrong way. We should take a lesson from you guys on the left. They should not set out to eliminate it just to "improve" it in a way that will eventually lead to elimination.
av8torntn
Well-Known Member
Exactly the same way they did in the health care debate. We're going to save social security. We're going to lower the costs of retirement. We're going to offer choice to Americans. We're offering competition and choice. Keep it simple. Talk to the lowest level. Avoid debating the facts. Avoid honesty.
av8torntn
Well-Known Member
Oh. Lie. Politics as usual.
In a way, maybe, but remember the death panel part of the health care debate? Death panels. The bill at the time had a provision that required a panel to determine treatments based on things like life expectancy. The dimocrats fired back that there was no such thing as a death panel and you could not even find those words in the bill. While neither side actually told a lie the rhetoric from the right won out as it caused several provisions to be removed from the bill. Think how powerful oversimplification of an issue can be. I think you already understand that as you do it often here. It could have gone the other way, and they tried to spin it, and caused the anti freedom crowd the ability to add more to the law. Lots of political lessons were gained from the health care debate that will play out in the years to come. One thing for certain now is that popularity of a law being debated doesn't necessarily predict the outcome.
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