Everybody knows this is a bad idea...

Some just think it is the best of the worst alternatives.

I think Howard Dean stated it well on CBS's Face the Nation this Morning: "This is a short-term Washington fix...It does nothing about this biggest long-term threat to America, which is the deficit. I don't hear Republicans or Democrats talking about the deficit. There is no pain in this agreement. This is the easy way out for everybody, much as everybody is complaining, hooting and hollering, this is an inside-the-beltway fuss and somebody needs to do something about the long-term problems to this country. It is not in this bill."

Rep Gerald Nadler agreed with Governor Dean about the cut in Payroll Taxes: "Governor Dean is entirely right about the long-term risk to Social Security here," said Nadler. "Now this one time, $120 billion tax cut in social security taxes will be paid for out of the general fund. But that, for the first time, starts getting the general fund to subsidize social security for $120 billion a year, and brings Social Security into the deficit debate, which greatly undercuts the political support to avoid eviscerating Social Security a few years down the road."

We seem to be fixated on one or two options. There is no other way to do it. I think that is short-sighted and dangerous. We need to look at other options.

And that's the whole point.

plain & simple

they should do that for the next ten years to settle up.

They really should. It has been borrowed and re borrowed so many times it must be like the disappearing shell in three cup shell games.

But they will use this "coverage" as an excuse to portray Social Security as being the danger allowing our entire economy to implode.

Bad Social Security. Good Big Banker Bailouts. Good endless unwinnable wars.

<sigh>

unions, pensions, 401ks, retirement plans and basically our children's future for any kind of happiness. We are heading for slave labor wages soon and if we don't like it? Tough, 'suck it up' is the msg we hear loud and clear!

But we are invisible to all, including Dr. Dean, so "there is no pain in this agreement."

Just fucking don't expect our votes, goddam it!

Right on!

Some of us get it that it is no use trying to think that we can get through to "progressives" about what poverty truly is.