Zombie bad public policy

Really? Do we have to do this again? President Bush couldn't push his incredibly flawed ideas for Social Security destruction through the last Congress which he pretty much controlled and at least had a majority in.

Now, Democrats have control and we're talking about Bush reforming social security? Again?

Let's review.

1) The President and the Republican Party don't want to reform or save social security. They want to hamstring it, reduce its effectiveness, even end it.

2) The state of social security is not really a problem. Of the fiscal problems we have facing this nation, it's way down there. First, there's the annual budget deficit, the size of which is vastly underestimated because of the SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS. That's right: SOCIAL SECURITY RIGHT NOW IS RUNNING $100 BILLION+ IN THE BLACK. THE ANNUAL BUDGET DEFICIT IS RUNNING $400 BILLION+ IN THE RED. Now, pundits and Democrats overly eager to get their name in the paper: which one is a problem now. Which one will be a bigger problem in the future if not fixed? Go ahead... we'll wait....

3) Part of the reason the country turned on President Bush was his attempt to take away their social security. Even before they turned on him because of Katrina and the continuing debacle in Iraq, he was losing people because of his completely dishonest doublespeaking attempt to cut benefits, raise taxes, and siphon off money to Wall Street.

Look, Josh Marshall (and his every increasing legion of loyal readers and staff) have dealt quite well with this. Democrats should stay the hell away unless they can come up with a plan the President would veto and the Republicans would vote against so they could say Republicans hate Social Security. Otherwise, EVERY SINGLE TIME someone brings this up Democrats should say, this isn't really a problem. We're handing out tax cuts to the wealthy and mortgaging our future, we're spending like crazy on a completely unnecessary and extremely poorly executed war. These are our problems. Anyone who works on Social Security Reform before these problems are solved is insane.