Social Security Reform

After I blew out the transmission in my first car (a Ford, imagine that) my father asked if it was doing anything funny before the final death throw. I told him yes, but that I just didn’t have the money to fix it and would rather suffer the drivetrain oddities than shell out cash from my anemic McPaychecks. He told me something that I’ve followed to this day: fixing problems early is hella cheaper than waiting until the entire system collapses.

Accordingly, I applaud Bush for pushing Social Security reform. Though the devils are in the details and I might not agree with him that the system is heading for guaranteed solvency in coming decades, I do believe the margins of error are too tight for comfort. I applaud him for having the political courage to reach out, touch that political third rail, and look at a problem before it blows up in our collective faces, potentially costing our generation the social safety net we are expecting.

Democrats should take a skeptical stance right now, in contrast to unflinching opposition. This is an assured method to be left out of the negotiation process. I earnestly want to believe Bush when he said he was open to any suggestion that allows for some sort of private account, does not raise payroll taxes, and is not a temporary solution. These are terms that Democrats should agree to on an ad hoc basis for the sake of coming to an acceptable compromise with a hesitant Republican majority.

Much the same as with Bush’s original tax cut proposal, his numbers are elephantine (and economically disastrous) on purpose – starting on higher ground to wage battle so that the inches ceded leave him with a result closer to his original goals. Allowing the Social Security to have its income slashed by 65% (4% of income, which will come out of the 6.2% payroll rate) would bankrupt the system as we know it. Though guaranteeing funding, albeit smaller than current payouts, for current freshman, it would nonetheless axe benefits for the non-traditional students. Already well into their careers, they have subsequently not had time to significantly pay into these accounts before costs exceed revenues in 2012 because of the accounts.

Bush purportedly has not ruled out raising the ceiling on taxable income. Currently, Social Security dishes out benefits proportional to what workers put in while they worked. In a bit of regressive-tax logic, only the first $90,000 of income is taxable – maxing out at $5580 a year. In raw numbers, that means that most liberal arts UNF graduates will be taxed 6.2% on all income, while an MBA peer making $900,000 yearly is only paying a tenth your tax rate at .62%.

Depending on Republican momentum on this issue, it is likely Democrats will have to make a “deal with the devil” to ensure the survival of America’s largest entitlement program’s. If allowing for small private accounts is necessary to eliminate the taxable income bar and make other steps necessary to ensure the programs solvency, , then that's a deal that should be made.

Iran and Such

Rumors of an impending invasion of Iran are a wild overstatement of what the administration is considering. These rumors stem from a New Yorker article written by Seymour Hersh, who broke the Abu Ghraib story, that US special operations teams were scouting Iran looking for targets for a potential air strike should negotiations with the EU to close a nuclear power plant collapse. The simple truth is that we do not have the means to occupy a nation with nearly three times the land mass and population as Iraq.

In columns I wrote nearly a year ago I supported such air strikes against Iran. I argued that nations with significant military threats and minimal means of defense have no reason to negotiate away their only deterrence, weapons of mass destruction. Negotiating away even small percentages of our overwhelmingly redundant and oftentimes obsolete array of nuclear weapons can take years to complete even when the tradeoff has been fewer nuclear weapons aimed against us. Consequently, the only way you could take care of proliferation threats is to attack them in their nascent stages, the way Israel attacked Saddam’s Osirak nuclear complex in 1981.

The reason I am more reluctant today to support such a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear facility is because Iran is much more of a position to retaliate than Iraq was in 2003 or Iran was in the same year, when the degree of the nuclear threat became more lucid. Launching a military strike on Iran would be a declaration of war which would be fought both in our own cities and in Iraq. Iran holds many of the cards in Iraq and would no doubt go out of its way to provide the weapons, cash, and intelligence to insurgents. The Shi’ite city of Basra would quickly become the next Fallujah, conveniently blocking major access to the rest of Iraq from logistical bases in Kuwait.

A bigger danger is Hezbollah, the “Party of God” that was founded by the Iranians to spread the Islamic Revolution. Deputy of State Richard Armitage has been quoted as saying that it might well be that al Qaeda is the “B-team” of terrorism and Hezbollah is the “A-team.” They were in large part responsible for America’s withdrawal from Lebanon in the 1980’s, killing 241 Marines in their barracks in 1983. The consequences would be devastating were Hezbollah deployed in America.

We must approach this delicate situation with the respect that it deserves. We must abandon our view that only America and its allies have the right to a nuclear defense, though we should act vigilantly to stop proliferation. We must realize that the more we threaten, the more likely nations will want to deter. We must also accept the danger we will be putting ourselves into should we choose to launch air strikes against Iran.

Rumors of Budget Cuts

The rumors of a possible decommissioning of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John F. Kennedy (CV-67) have spread like a nightclub fire through Jacksonville, carrying with it fears that Mayport will go the way of NAS Cecil Field. In a deft political response, Congressman Crenshaw and Senators Martinez and Neilson are drafting legislation making it illegal for the Navy to carry any less than the current number of carriers: twelve. Though aircraft carriers are a vital part of our nation’s defense, having twelve is an arbitrary number set to insure the careers of military brass, defense contractors, and a few congressmen.

President Eisenhower warned us in the 50’s of the military-industrial complex, which is the triad of power between congressmen, the military, and defense industry giants who build the hardware. On one side of the triangle stand the generals and Pentagon brass whose careers follow the success or failure of individual weapon systems. On another side of the triad are the industries that make the weapons and reap in the profits. Finally there are the Congressmen who have jobs created in their districts through the design, production, and basing of all this hardware who often receive direct bribes in the form of campaign donations to solidify support. The obvious problem that arises is there are incentives throughout the entire process to over-order equipment and build extravagant machines with unproven technologies almost solely because of their expense.

The brass at Mayport don’t want the Kennedy retired because it will likely cost them their careers, the congressmen have to fight keep the 3000+ sailors and support staff in town, and the myriad of companies responsible for keeping the 37 year old ship in service another two decades don’t want to loose the business. But who in authority is asking the real questions. Do we need 12 aircraft carriers in an age where we have unquestionable air and naval supremacy wherever we sail? If one carrier were to go, shouldn’t it be the one that requires the largest logistical network (the Kennedy is the only aircraft carrier in US Navy that needs to be refueled at sea during extended tours, the rest are nuclear powered)?

With war comes loss. Along with the nearly 20,000 troops who have lost life or limb in Iraq, we need to start making budgets that reflect the reality of the costs of Iraq. Almost half of Congress’s discretionary spending goes to the military, so it’s the obvious first place to look for waste – and it’s everywhere. We have an anti-ballistic missile system that can’t even hit the easiest of targets and can be easily decoyed, a 90-ship nuclear attack submarine fleet that can be outfoxed by diesel sub a tenth the cost, a two decade program to make hybrid helicopter-airplane that’s met with nothing but blood and failure, and a dozen aircraft carriers built to sink a fleet that’s rusting away in Russian ports. It seems there’s plenty of room for cuts to pay appropriate salaries, buy appropriate armor for troops in field, and make the sacrifices necessary to make victory in Iraq a possibility without breaking the bank.

Keep Your Chins Up Dems

Keep Your Chins Up Dems’

So we lost the election, I lost a $20 bet and my self-worth as an amateur poll-reader, and Fallujah was leveled in the victory celebrations. The victory wasn’t as sound as Republicans want you to believe though. There was no mandate, in fact Bush won with the smallest margin of any incumbent since Woodrow Wilson. The simply truth is half of the American voters wanted Bush the hell out of office. The Democrats have a moral obligation to not let the Republicans walk over them in Washington like they did in the lead-up to the Iraq war. We’ll probably lose most legislative battles until at least 2006, but we need to put up a hell of a fight until then and start looking for good candidates to sell to the American public.

Reframing debates will be an important tool in rallying the public behind our fights. We need to fight like hell to keep judges off the bench who will overturn Roe vs. Wade. In doing so, we need to reframe the abortion argument in libertarian and not feminist language. Though the latter is an important point, it doesn’t resonate as well as fighting to keep government out of doctor’s offices. Furthermore, we need to make absolutely clear that pro-choice is not pro-abortion. I think Kerry carried this point well during the election, but I’m not sure the point has solidified. We need to win over those who disagree with abortion, but also disagree with government intrusion into a very difficult decision that ought to be made by families, not Washington politicians.

We also need to fight like hell to keep taxes progressive. There’s been rumor floating Washington that Bush wants to rewrite US tax law with either a national sales tax or flat tax. Though it is universally agreed that we need tax reform in the country (for instance: Goodyear, Texaco, or nor Ryder paid taxes during the boom years of the late 90’s), but those two options would become tax cuts from hell. Wherein now tax rates are bracketed such that the rich pay progressively more than those making less, the result of a federal income tax would place a greater proportional burden of paying taxes on those who have the least. These would be the tax cuts from hell.

Democrats also need to stand strong and build a clearer defense policy than “see, I told you so.” America must stand up against all threats, but we also must use proportional force and use it wisely and in a manner that compliments our strengths. Democrats should build and sell a defense policy most Americans can agree with – using our military to strike terrorists wherever they hide, which does not necessitate invasion. Occupations must be an absolute last resort, being that they dive into our biggest military weakness, but also one that is not shirked when necessary.

Keep your chins up, Democrats. We’ve got the numbers to win elections and we’re on the right side of the issues. We just need to find a sellable candidate who can reframe the issues on the table in our favor, someone whose moral backbone stands in stark contrast to those who sell out the American people to the highest bidder.