>>>> 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   
      
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