Webloggin » Democrats Fragmented on Social Security, Obama Just Plain High, Same ‘ol Clinton, Thompson (R) Provides Details

The Democrats put forth a fragmented message yesterday on Social Security with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton taking differing approaches toward solving the looming issue. Of all approaches though it is that of Barack Obama that is both insulting and textbook Democrat while Clinton remains evasively Clintonesque.

Barack Obama accuses Hillary Clinton of adhering to a “textbook campaign” in the middle of doing the very same thing himself.

“The same old textbook campaigns just won’t do in this election,” Obama said.

Oh really? Then perhaps Obama can explain the following textbook Democrat proposal he practically made in the same breath.

Barack Obama said he would lift the income ceiling on the Social Security tax. Currently, only the first $97,500 of a person’s annual income is taxed; the cap is scheduled to rise to $102,000 next year.

If this isn’t a rob the rich to give to the poor type of strategy then nothing is. Far removed from any outside the box thinking Barack Obama is sticking to the more taxes strategy; sounds pretty textbook to me.

Perhaps Barack Obama is stoned or perhaps he is just so out of touch with the American voter that he just doesn’t get it.

How’s this for pain English? Americans are as sick of tax and spend Democrats every bit as much as they are gutless spendaholic Republicans. Neither side appears to have a rudder except when catering to the extreme. On Social Security these idiots spent the money (read stole American taxpayer retirement funds) and talked about imaginary lock boxes. Now that reality is hitting them in the face their grand solution is to tax us more? Shut the hell up. Nobody wants to hear it.

At least the Bush administration had a plan. The very same type of plan that Hillary Clinton suggested for new babies until she realized that she was flying a little too close to the Sun.

At least we have to give Hillary Clinton credit on her rhetoric.

I think it’s much smarter to say: Look, we’re going to deal with the challenges by fiscal responsibility and we’re going to use a bipartisan commission. And we’re not going to do it by further burdening middle-class families.”

In an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama said increasing the income ceiling would allow relatively well-off taxpayers such as himself to pay a little more to rescue the system. Clinton rejected that argument.

“If you lift the cap completely that would be a $1 trillion tax increase,” Clinton told reporters after a Veterans Day event.

Clinton said she would initially end the practice of borrowing from the Social Security trust fund. She said more responsible fiscal practices could bolster the economy, which would in turn make the fund more healthy.

Unfortunately both candidates sound as if their plans include some sort of tax hike. Has anyone been paying attention? In fact Clinton doesn’t have a plan at all.

“She will oppose any effort to privatize the program,” her campaign said. “As president her first priority will be restoring fiscal responsibility and fair tax policies, and then will work in a bipartisan process to address Social Security’s long term challenges.”

Punt.

On the flip side we can always count on the mainstream media to display ignorance and a little political favor by attacking Republican candidates for being “Short on details”. Consider that what you just read above is pretty much the crux of both Obama and Clinton’s plans. On the same day Fred Thompson released his plan. Read the following while scratching your head trying to figure out who among the three is short on detail.

Republican Fred Thompson offered a proposal Friday for dealing with Social Security’s anticipated meltdown, and it includes a plank likely to draw fire from the conservatives he has been courting since before he made it official (though he has banged this drum before).

The plan: Provide a federal match for private investments in an ancillary 401(k)-style savings account. Individuals could contribute up to 2 percent of their monthly income and receive the federal match. Thompson offered no estimate of how much that would cost. But it would not allow workers to opt out of the Social Security program itself — a linchpin for those advocating independent retirement accounts.

Thompson also called for indexing future benefits to changes in the price of goods rather than to wages, though he offered no estimates of what sort of savings that might lead to. But he said it would not affect people age 57 or older (he earlier put that level at 60).

Significant here is the general lack of details. The former senator from Tennessee seeking the Republican nomination for president offered these four bullets of goals:

* Leave Social Security benefits received by current retirees and those near retirement completely unchanged and fully preserve their annual cost of living adjustment. No one now over the age of 57 will be affected.

* Preserve and strengthen Social Security for future generations of Americans and guarantee the current benefit structure, fully protected for inflation.

* Increase retirement options for today’s workers — and future generations — by giving them the option when to retire and allowing them to build wealth they can pass on if they so choose.

* Completely eliminate the estimated $4.7-trillion unfunded Social Security liability over the 75 year actuarial planning horizon and leave Social Security permanently fiscally sustainable.

But the proposals he offered say little about how he would achieve those goals.

Wow, a bipartisan commissions and higher taxes versus minimally the barebones details of Thompson’s plan complete with bullet pointed goals. If this amounts to being short on details we can only assume that the writers at the Baltimore Sun are short on brain cells. They are so caught up in jerking the democrat chain that they can’t tell the real difference between lack of detail and a base proposal.

But hey, you get what you pay for.

See Also - Michelle Malkin - Obama speaks ill of Social Security, nutroots go nuclear

Here is a cardinal rule for Democrat presidential candidates: Unless you are Paul Tsongas, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 and died in 1997, you are not, not, not, not, not ever supposed to breathe a negative word about the looming entitlement crisis. Barack Obama apparently didn’t get the memo, and now he’s being barbecued by the far Left for suggesting something needs to be done to avert the collapse of Social Security. Doesn’t matter that his solution is means-testing. He spilled the beans on the problem in his Meet The Press appearance and that is a nutroots no-no:

Also: Free Frank Warner, Below the Beltway, Fantasy Politics, Huffington Post laugher - Senator Obama, Please Stop Echoing Right-Wing Lies About Social Security!, Talk Left, Macsmind