Burnt Orange Report

I will be calling Rep. Doggett's office this afternoon to ask for a "no" vote on this bill.

See, Master Rove, your devious plan is working - Democrats will themselves kill the bill, thus alienating the entire AARP vote...while at the same time we Republicans will not, after all, have to actually enact this abomination of entitlement. As long as we can find a way to placate Big Pharma we win all around!

You're right Mark. It sucks to be us. But Democrats have two choices -- do the right thing, or do the popular thing. It basically boils down to that.

I, for one, am all for doing the right thing. This bill must die.

It would be ideal if we could get a coalition of the left and the right to jointly do it in, so that neither side would have to worry about being "blamed" for killing this monstrosity, and could concentrate preventing it from passing.

Of course, I suspect that the kind of bill that would make me happy would leave you guys even more depressed, but it would at least be more philosophically consistent than the "weird combination of conflicting policy preferences," that Grassley & Co. hashed together. Really odd seeing myself agree with E.J. Dionne, but this bill is so awful that it can unite both principled liberals and conservatives in opposition. I just hope there are enough principled liberals & conservatives in the congress to defeat it.

Mark, you are really depressing me here. Aren't you a conservative? Minus the inconsequential nods to "reform" that mean and signify nothing, there is nothing in this bill to like. Do you actually believe government entitlements are good policy? I hope not. Look at Western Europe, where the entitlements they have promised their senior citizens are in the process of bankrupting half the continental governments. America must not go down that path.

This kind of stuff is worth losing elections for. How much better off would today's senior citizens be if Social Security had never been enacted, and they had invested their savings at the historically achieved 10% annual rate of return? A lot better than the 1% return Soc. Sec. pays now. The average senior citizen would get something like double to triple the monthly income they recieve now, not to mention an inheritance to leave their children, and a much smaller federal government as well. Our health care system would be a *lot* less screwed up now if we didn't have Medicare and Medicaid wrecking the entire price structure. These issues are worth fighting for, and worth losing elections over! You shouldn't gloat that we are dividing the left, Mark -- you should mourn the GOPs appalling lack of principle. The only reason I can forgive Bush is because he looks set to try to privatize Soc. Security in 2005, which, in my mind, makes up for a multitude of policy errors, even one of this magnitude. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to vote 3rd party over this issue, or just stay at home ... unless the Dems. nominate Dean, who would wreck the country and must be opposed, no matter how much Bush might suck at actually being a conservative President.

Sherk

I don't see how anyone under the age of 40, Democrat or Republican, can support this measure. The expansion of a system of old-age entitlements already grievously unfair to our generation is only made worse by this act.