BUSH IS SUCH A LOVABLE KIND OF GUY.
Bush is such a lovable kind of guy... He loved his WAR in Iraq, he was passionate about finding nonexistent WMD's, he was so in ecstasy over his tax cuts for the RICH and now he is absolutely head-over heals, gaga about his desire to change OUR (it certainly isn't his) Social Security... My goodness Bush is just loving (screwing) us to death!
(Please click here to watch an unbelievable flash movie on Bush's War)
On Thursday night, during his Press Conference, President Bush gave us all the Bush Poke, Pound, Punch, Rap, Slam, Slug, Smack, Sock, Thump, Thwack, Uppercut, Whack and Wallop right in the middle of our collective MUGS! OUCH!
With his second grade vocabulary he Stammered and Stuttered, Crackled and Barked, Spit and Sputtered, Yipped and Yapped and tried to make us all buy into his GREAT NEW VISION to change THE GREAT WORLD WE LIVE IN, TO A BETTER GREAT NEW WORLD minus any social programs! Because he left little doubt in any THINKING person's mind that, a little bit of
whittling here and there and he will rid our nation of those pesky little pain in the ass social programs that the less fortunate amongst us (i.e. middle class
of today) have come to rely on. But first he has to change one of the programs into a welfare program to accomplish this... SO BYE BYE SOCIAL SECURITY AND BYE BYE ANY HOPES OF RETIREMENT FOR THOSE WHO WORK THE HARDEST FOR THE LEAST COMPENSATION!
I was so sickened by his pathetic insincerity, the next morning, I immediately
tuned into the one TRUTH channel on my 300 channel satellite TV to get a glimmer of reliable NEWS... DEMOCRACY NOW came to my rescue.
Amy Goodman had Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) on (via telephone) and this man shed so much light on the Bush plan that I choked up a bit. I had to wait for today to get a transcript and I am sharing it with you below. Please read Mr. Moran's words carefully, Representative Moran is telling us all, exactly what we are getting in the future with this Bush/Neocon administration, THE SHIT OF THE BULL, ...no doubt in MY mind. Thinking Blue
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DEMOCRACY NOW APRIL 29TH 2005
Friday, April 29th, 2005
Bush Social Security Plan Cuts Future Benefits
During a nationally-televised press conference last night, President Bush proposed for the first time cutting Social Security benefits for future retirees.
The proposal - which is part of his plan to overhaul the retirement system
- would preserve benefits for low-income workers but cut benefits for
everyone else.
The prime-time news conference was the first of Bush's
second term and just the fourth of his presidency. It comes at the end of
a 60-day road show on Social Security in which the president argued that
the retirement system is headed for financial trouble and should be
overhauled to include private investment accounts.
The issue has turned out to be a politically divisive one in Washington over the past few months. Virtually every Democrat, as well as many Republicans, are opposed to the plan and a Washington Post-ABC News poll this week found 51 percent of Americans are against it.
In the hour-long news conference, Bush also acknowledged
the high price of gasoline and called on the Senate to pass his energy
program which includes drilling in a portion of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. He declined to offer a timetable for the withdrawal of
American troops from Iraq and stood by his embattled nominee for United
Nations ambassador, John Bolton.
night. The president again outlined his plan to overhaul the system.
Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) RUSH TRANSCRIPT this transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV
broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
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start retiring in three years, Social Security will start heading toward
the red. In 2017, the system will start paying out more in benefits than
it collects in payroll taxes. Every year after that, the shortfall will
get worse, and by 2041, Social Security will be bankrupt. Franklin
Roosevelt did a wonderful thing when he created Social Security. The
system has meant a lot for a lot of people. Social Security has provided
a safety net that has provided dignity and peace of mind for millions of
Americans in their retirement. Yet there's a hole in the safety net,
because Congresses had made promises it cannot keep for a younger
generation.
As we fix Social Security, some things won't change. Seniors
and people with disabilities will get their checks. All Americans born
before 1950 will receive the full benefits. Our duty to save Social
Security begins with making the system permanently solvent, but our duty
does not end there. We also have a responsibility to improve Social
Security by directing extra help to those most in need, and by making it
a better deal for younger workers.
Now as Congress begins work on legislation, we must be guided
by three goals. First, millions of Americans depend on Social Security
checks as a primary source of retirement income, so we must keep this
promise to future retirees, as well. As a matter of fairness, I propose
that future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the
benefits today's seniors get. Secondly, I believe a reform system should
protect those who depend on Social Security the most. So, I propose a
Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income
workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off. By
providing more generous benefits for low-income retirees we'll make this
commitment. If you work hard and pay into Social Security your entire
life you will not retire into poverty. This reform would solve most of
the funding challenges facing Social Security. Variety of options are
available to solve the rest of the problem, and I will work with
Congress on any good faith proposal that does not raise the payroll tax
rate or harm our economy. I know we can find a solution to the financial
problems of Social Security that is sensible, permanent, and fair.
Third, any reform of Social Security must replace the empty promises
being made to younger workers with real assets, real money. I believe
the best way to achieve this goal is to give younger workers the option,
the opportunity if they so choose, of putting a portion of their payroll
taxes into a voluntary personal retirement account. Because this money
is saved and invested, younger workers will have the opportunity to
receive a higher rate of return on their money than the current Social
Security system can provide.
(Read The Whole Transcript Here)
AMY GOODMAN: President Bush in his Prime-Time news conference last
night. Joining us on the phone for reaction is Virginia Democratic
Congress member, Jim Moran. Welcome to Democracy Now!
AMY GOODMAN: Well, thanks very much. Can you respond to President
Bush's plans for Social Security?
REP. JIM MORAN: First of all, Social Security is a national
insurance system. It's not an investment account. It's there in case the
breadwinner of the household dies. Their survivors will have at least
money to get by on, or if you become disabled, you can get those benefits.
Or when you are so old that you can't work any longer, there will be
retirement money available for you. But it's a minimum threshold. We have
retirement accounts, 401(K)'s, I.R.A.s, your passbook savings account. We
need a national insurance system. And I think what President Bush is going
to do is to means test it, which on the face of it makes a lot of sense,
except that it will lose the political support of the people who have the
power and the influence in this country.
The reason Social Security is such a popular topic now is that
everybody participates. If he cuts the benefits for the middle class and
upper class by 40%, which is what this plan entails, fewer people will
really care what happens to Social Security, and that's not in anybody's
interests. Last night we passed a budget resolution that took billions out
of the TANF program. Does anybody even know what TANF means? It's the old
welfare program. It’s assistance to needy families. But because there's so
little political support for it, it goes by without much discussion. The
Medicaid program, we took $10 billion from that last night, supposedly so
that we could afford the tax cuts of over $100 billion. But the only
reason people talk about Medicaid is because the States are upset they
might have to make up the money. It's a 50% State matching program. What
happens is that if you means test this, and it's only the poorer people
who have a vested interest in maintaining it, it won't be maintained. And
I think that's what President Bush has in mind.
You know, the only thing that is really fiscally solvent of any size in
this country is the Social Security Trust Fund. It's not going bankrupt.
Our country is going bankrupt. Last night, as part of the budget
resolution, they increased the debt ceiling to over $8 trillion. We have a
$10 trillion economy, but we have got debt of 80% of that economy. He
doesn't seem to be concerned about that. Our health care crisis is in
bankruptcy, but here he has taken on Social Security, which has a $1.7
trillion surplus. We're gaining surplus every year. And in 2018, we'll
have $4.5 trillion. Then from that time, for another approximately 35 to
40 years, there will be enough to pay out full benefits, and after that,
about 80% of benefits. That's not bankruptcy. And it's wrong to be telling
people the system is going bankrupt so that you can pass an ideologically
motivated plan basically to dismantle the whole system.
mentioned before that other Americans have a variety of retirement plans,
like whether it's 401(k)s or pensions but isn't this reform occurring
against a backdrop that many of the so-called classic pension plans, the
defined benefit plans are also experiencing enormous financial problems,
in the airline industry, in the automobile industry so that Social
Security is becoming an even more important sort of final safety net for
retired workers, because so many Americans now don't have defined benefit
pension plans, but are depending basically on 401(k)s or the stock market
itself to assure their retirement income?
REP. JIM MORAN: Well, the answer, I think, is yes and no. Under
his plan, if you earn over $25,000, your benefits are going to be reduced.
If you are under $25,000, then you will keep the same benefits, and it
will be based upon wage-based indexing. So, it goes up every year. But
that's not going to make up for the loss in pension. What we should be
doing with regard to pensions is making sure that these corporate raiders
can't come in and buy up companies and take advantage of all of that cash.
We should have better protections for pensions. We have some, but you
know, increasingly, we are yielding to corporate profit over the pension
guarantees. I think that this is all about dismantling a program that's
defining of what the Democratic Party was all about that was established
by Franklin Roosevelt. It's the one program that really is solvent, so why
should we make it insolvent by taking approximately $2 trillion over the
first ten years, $5 trillion over the next 20 years, and taking that money
out of the fund, fencing it off, putting it in private accounts?
And these private accounts, you know, are not going to amount to much
when people retire, because the Social Security system says it's going to
come back in and take out of those accounts the amount that Social
Security would have earned otherwise. The Goldman-Sachs economist just
estimated that Social Security will earn about 3.3%. It's actually earning
over 7% per year now, but it will earn about 3.3%, which is as much as
they estimate the stock market is going to be earning on average over that
period of time. So, they are going to be left with very little, but in the
meantime, we will have borrowed trillions out of the trust funds, then out
of the general fund to make it up to the trust fund. So, we're creating a
situation of fiscal insolvency in order to dismantle a program that is the
last one we need to worry about right now. We need to be worrying about
Medicare, we need to worrying about the federal budget and the hundreds of
billions that our kids are going to have to pay in interest costs on that
federal deficit. So, you know, I just think he has his priorities out of
order. I think this is all about ideology rather than fiscal
responsibility.
with us for a minute longer. I want to ask you about rendition, his
response to that question, what some call kidnapping. Congress member Jim
Moran is from Virginia. He is going to be holding a town hall meeting
today on protecting Social Security in Falls Church, Virginia. And then
we're going to talk about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip
throughout Latin America.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: During the Thursday night news conference, PresidentBush defended sending detainees to other countries for interrogation. Some
call it kidnapping, others call it extraordinary rendition. Here is the
reporter who asked the question.
REPORTER:
Mr. President, under the
law, how would you justify the practice of renditioning, where U.S.
agents scoop up terror suspects abroad, taking them to a third country
for interrogation? Would you stand for it if foreign agents did that to
an American here?
That's a hypothetical, Mark. We operate within the law, and we send people to countries where they say they're not going to torture the people. But let me say something. The United States government has an obligation to protect the American people. It's in our country's interest to find those who would do harm
to us and get them out of harm's way. And we will do so within the law,
and we'll do so in honoring our commitment not to torture people. And we
expect the countries where we send somebody to not to torture, as well.
But you bet, when we find somebody who might do harm to the American
people, we will detain them and ask others from their country of origin
to detain them. It makes sense. The American people expect us to do
that. We -- we still at war.
AMY GOODMAN: That's President Bush answering a question on what is
called rendition. Congress member Jim Moran, Democrat of Virginia, your
response?
own law. It's wrong, and you know, if any of President Bush's family, if
either of his daughters were ever arrested in any of those countries, he
would move heaven and earth to get them out of there, because he knows
they do torture. Those prisons are inhumane hell holes. And it's wrong to
do that. And it's particularly disturbing the character of people who say,
“Oh, I wasn't responsible,” when they are responsible for transporting
them, knowing somebody else is going to carry out their dirty work. You
know, we have had all of this rhetoric about how horrible these
undemocratic countries are, but when we want to use them, we take
advantage of the fact that they are undemocratic, that their people are
powerless to express opposition to their policies, particularly their
penal policies. I think that this is just more of the same, figuring they
can get away with anything they want to because they have this supreme
hubris, and I’m ashamed of my country that we would -- when we send people
to countries knowing they're going to be tortured, because we don't want
to be responsible for the actions that ultimately we are responsible for.
It's wrong.
AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Jim Moran, I want to thank you for
being with us, of Virginia, again, holding a public town hall meeting in
Falls Church, Virginia, today, with the former acting Social Security
Commissioner, Bill Halter.
To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program,
click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bush has the lowest approval rating of
any president at this point in his second term, according to Gallup polls
going back to World War II.
particular has helped bring his overall approval rating down to 45
percent.
Forty-nine percent disapprove of his performance.
Compare Bush's Gallup numbers taken in late March to
poll numbers taken at the same point in the presidencies of the six
previous men who served two terms:
approval versus 35 percent disapproval
versus 37 percent disapproval
34 percent
versus 21 percent
versus 20 percent
versus 24 percent
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http://www.bushflash.com/y2.html
OK, HERE IS A LITTLE EXERCISE FOR YOU. AFTER VIEWING THE ABOVE MOVIE CLICK HERE AND SEE THIS ONE "America We Stand As One". I WOULD SPECULATE THAT WHICH EVER ONE MOVES YOU THE MOST,WILL TELL YOU IF YOU ARE A BUSH FOLLOWER OR NOT. THINKINGBLUE
PS: IF YOU DID NOT PICK THE "America We Stand As One" MOVIE PLEASE CLICK HERE AND READ MARK MORFORD'S DELIRIOUSLY, WHIMSICAL ARTICLE ABOUT "America We Stand As One" MOVIE.
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posted by thinkingblue at 12:52 PM
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Feel free to come and check it out if you get time :-)
site is www.christmas-mall-online.com
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