>>>> What you didn't explain is how his tax increases, whether you
>>>> call them accelerations or not, did increase social security

>>> I guess if you ignore the fact that a bipartisan commission
>>> recommended it, and Congress passed it, and the increases

>> You can get almost anything labeled 'bipartisan',

 EC> Only to someone like you, who uses words as weapons rather
 EC> than as descriptors. You would just as quickly call them

 Or to someone like you who doesn't address the actual question,
 but automatically attacks motives.

 EC> Rostenkowski's tax increases or Tip O'Neil's tax increases,
 EC> if you thought it would serve your purposes of the moment.

 You have to reach back that far to get something to falsely
 accuse with. Just demonstrates how weak your thinking is.

 EC> Presidents Clinton and Reagan, unlike Obama, could
 EC> negotiate and get things done.  At the time, Reagan was

 Clinton and Reagan didn't face a fanatical group, financed by
 billionaires, with a supreme court decision giveing corporations
 the rights of people to allow unlimited political attacks
 financed by those billionaires.

 ...

 EC> Carter had left Social Security in a mess.  A bipartisan

 When you show Carter did any such thing we can discuss it.

 EC> Commission made recommendations, Reagan and O'Neil accepted
 EC> them, and both houses of Congress passed them.  The result,
 EC> in the words of one US News article: "Students of Reagan
 EC> have offered praise for this agreement. Reagan biographer

 They may well have. Doesn't change the fact that it did not
 solve the problems, we are facing them again. It also does not,
 in any way, challenge my original point, all it really did was
 give the federal government more money to spend today without
 raising taxes other than social security taxes, which apply to
 the workers, not investors. IOW, it let the Reagan
 administration hide their violation of the promise to cut taxes,
 not raise them.

 EC> Lou Cannon praised Reagan's Social Security commission as
 EC> an example of "a compromise that did some things the
 EC> Democrats wanted and some things the Republicans wanted,"

 Which is irrelevant to the original point.

 EC> while even the former president's critics including author
 EC> Will Bunch cited the Social Security deal as a "practical"
 EC> and bipartisan reform that had a "lasting positive impact"
 EC> on government and public policy."

 Where is the lasting impact? Why are we going through it all
 over again? And how does that change the fact that the federal
 government got more money to spend immediately, while putting
 off repayment to the future?

 EC> So, yeah, YOU can call something anything you want to.
 EC> Doesn't change the facts.

 It certainly does not change the facts. The fact is, the
 government got more money to spend at that time, while
 concealing the fact that they were breaking the promise not to
 raise taxes. It was another tax increase on workers.

 You didn't even argue that point.


BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

--- Via Silver Xpress V4.5/P [Reg]
 * Origin: Fidonet Since 1991 Join Us: www.DocsPlace.org (1:123/140)