August 5, 2005
SAME PLAN, NEW WRAPPER:
The New New Deal (Niall Ferguson & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 08.04.05, New Republic)
President Bush's Social Security proposal looks to be dead in the water--and a good thing, too. The plan was half-baked and fiscally irresponsible. [...][O]ur new New Deal has several components--a federal sales tax, individual retirement accounts, and health care vouchers. The plan we envision is not only market-based and economically efficient, but it is also moderately progressive and generationally equitable. It's simple and transparent, too--the very opposite of the status quo. Taken together, our proposals would not only modernize Social Security, provide universal health care coverage, and overhaul the tax system. They would also eliminate most of the fiscal gap described above, improve the well-being of the poor, enhance incentives to work and to save, raise the nation's rate of saving and domestic investment, and stimulate economic growth.
The three proposals covering taxes, Social Security, and health care are interconnected and interdependent. In particular, tax reform provides the funding needed to finance Social Security and health care reform. It also ensures that the rich and middle-class elderly pay their fair share in resolving our fiscal gap.
Nothing quite like declaring your opponent's idea disastrous and then reiterating it as your own. No Democrat though is going to sign on for personal accounts in SS, a switch to a consumption tax, and voucherized Health Care just because the New Republic calls for them instead of President Bush. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 5, 2005 5:30 PM
What about when Hillary pulls the same gambit as part of her personal reinvention project? I hope the congressinal Reps stay limber and the WH moves fast because it will be a poachers free-for-all in the run-up to 08.
Posted by: Luciferous at August 5, 2005 6:57 PMIn as much the G-d of today's "progressive" Left would seem to be Joe Stalin's best friend FDR, why not just continually restructure SSI, and MediCare, eligibility on the demographics of life expectancy in the mid 30's versus todays.
Then, I believe, very few ever reached the age of 65, let's just adjust SSI, and Medicare even tho' FDR would never have even considered it, to compdensate for the much longer life expectancy now occuring.
SSI retirement age at, what?, maybe 75 years of age?
Mike
"Taken together, our proposals would not only modernize Social Security, provide universal health care coverage, and overhaul the tax system. They would also eliminate most of the fiscal gap described above, improve the well-being of the poor, enhance incentives to work and to save, raise the nation's rate of saving and domestic investment, and stimulate economic growth. "
Jesus, that's quite a laundry list! Will it make my teeth whiter and increase the volume of my ejaculate? Cause women to throw themselves at me and stop the heartbreak of psorasis? Stop rust on my car and make it get 100 mpg? When somebody tries to sell me a bill of goods that will help solve all of society's ills if only we do *exactly* what they say I tend to get suspcious.
"New New Deal" — so that's what they're calling the same old false shuffle and stacked deck these days.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at August 6, 2005 2:17 PM