Recognizing a fixed game when they see it

E.J. Dionne has some sage advice for Dems and any remaining sensible Republicans out there who recognize that Social Security is a vital element in the safety net for the elderly and the disabled: Walk away from the table because you can't win with this Bush and the Congressional leadership dealing the cards.

Some press reports have suggested that Bush's willingness to cut Social Security benefits for the wealthy turned him into some latter-day Karl Marx, or at least Ted Kennedy.

This is nonsense.

Bush has refused to put his own tax cuts on the table as part of a Social Security fix. Repealing Bush's tax cuts for those earning more than $350,000 a year could cover all or most of the 75-year Social Security shortfall. Keeping part of the estate tax in place could cover a quarter to half of the shortfall. Some of the hole could be filled in by a modest surtax on dividends or capital gains.

But Bush is resolute about protecting the interests of the truly rich by making sure that any taxes on wealth are ruled out of the game from the beginning. The Social Security cuts he is proposing for the wealthy are a pittance compared with the benefits they get from his tax cuts. The president is keeping his eye on what really matters to him.

The real costs of progressive indexing as currently conceived would be paid by middle-income earners -- those with incomes in the range of $35,000 to $60,000 a year.

Eventually, such earners would face benefit cuts of 20 to 30 percent from what they are promised under the current program. And it gets worse: Rising Medicare premiums are eating up an increasing share of middle-class Social Security checks. Even without the cuts, Social Security payments will, over time, barely cover an individual's Medicare costs.

It is simply unbelievable to me that this debate even continues. Though I guess I shouldn't be that surprise as long as the press -- who are supposed to be monitoring such bullshit -- continue to be blinded by this administration's pixie dust.

We were happily reading a report from the Financial Times when something started smelling a little fishy: "Without providing details, " the Times reported, "the White House said that progressive indexing could take care of as much as 70 percent of the long-term funding gap."

"Without providing the details"?

And what details might those be?

Primarily, the money needed to fund the Social Security program's obligations to the disabled. The 70 percent figure Bush cited is based on the original Pozen plan, named for Robert Pozen, an investment executive and a Democratic member of Bush's 2001 Social Security Commission. However, while Bush did endorse progressive price indexing -- the key component to Pozen's plan -- in the president's variation, benefits for the disabled would not be cut. Cuts in benefits to the disabled, it turns out, account (PDF) for one-sixth of the Pozen plan's total savings.

One-sixth of total savings makes a difference. According to Jason Furman, an economist working with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a group that opposes Social Security privatization, "If the president has the same benefit cuts [as the Pozen plan] but protects disability benefits and has a new poverty-level minimum benefit, then his plan would solve only 57 percent of the problem."

And, reliably, we are treated to op-eds like this that opine that Dems are now behind the eight-ball because Bush has brought "a plan" to the table, so Democrats must do more than "complain" and must "sit down and negotiate."

To quote Bill "Falafel" O'Reilly, "Shut up." Bush has said he won't negotiate with himself. Democrats should admit it when the preznit makes a good point. They shouldn't negotiate with him on this one, either.

The more this debate rages on, the more reality seems to resemble Deadwood.

Swearengen: "Dan, don't you agree that truth, if only a pinch, must season every falsehood, or else the palate f**king rebels?"