[NYT] Kennedy Urges Democrats to Resist Bush on Social Security

Stupid stuff highlighted ...

Kennedy Urges Democrats to Resist Bush on Social Security
By JOHN O'NEIL

Published: January 12, 2005

Senator Edward M. Kennedy sought to rally Democratic forces today for a clash with Republicans over President Bush's plan to reshape Social Security, which he said was being pushed through the "politics of fear."

Mr. Kennedy, the 72-year-old Massachusetts Democrat, said in a speech delivered at the National Press Club in Washington that Democrats should not respond to their losses in last November's election by becoming "Republican clones."

"If we do, we will lose, and deserve to lose," he said, according to a prepared text of his remarks.

In 2001, the tax cut plan that was the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's first-year agenda was passed with the help of several Senate Democrats, and the Democrats went on to lose Congressional seats in the 2002 midterm election. With votes from the Democratic minority again needed to get changes in Social Security and other Republican proposals past the threat of a Senate filibuster, Mr. Kennedy argued that Democrats should not compromise their core values, but instead push an ambitious agenda of their own.

"If the White House's idea of bipartisanship is that we have to buy whatever partisan ideas they send us, we're not interested," he said.

Mr. Kennedy said the Bush administration's drive to revamp Social Security was being waged through "the politics of fear and division."

"We have an administration that falsely hypes almost every issue as a crisis," he said. "They did it on Iraq, and they are doing it now on Social Security."

Mr. Bush has said the Social Security system will go bankrupt under the weight of the retirement of baby boomers unless drastic changes are undertaken now, like shifting some of the program's revenues into private savings accounts. Democrats have responded that the system will remain in good financial health for decades, and that relatively modest changes now can forestall any shortfall.

Mr. Kennedy called on Democrats to stop their hand wringing over Sen. John F. Kerry's defeat, emphasizing instead how close Mr. Kerry came to ousting an incumbent president during wartime. "I categorically reject the deceptive and dangerous claim that the outcome last November was somehow a sweeping, or even modest, or even a miniature mandate for reactionary measures like privatizing Social Security," he said.

And he made it clear that he will continue to assail the president over the unsettled situation in Iraq, repeating his assertion that "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."

"Our challenge now is to convince George Bush that there is a better way ahead in Iraq, instead of continuing to sink deeper into the quagmire," he said.

Mr. Kennedy laid out an ambitious agenda of the sort he believes Democrats should pursue, focusing on education as a means of combating "the harsh winds of a shrinking world" and ensuring economic growth in a time of globalization.

Mr. Kennedy proposed that the government guarantee tuition for all students who finish high school and are admitted to college, and subsidize poor students who want to pursue advanced degrees in math or science. He said these measures could be paid for by revamping a student loan system that he contended now overcompensates lenders.

He said he intended to introduce legislation requiring employers to offer workers at least seven days of paid sick leave a year, and called for passage of a bill to raise the federal minimum wage.

And Mr. Kennedy proposed dealing with the problem of the uninsured by gradually expanding Medicare to cover all Americans. The expansion of the program could be paid for by a combination of payroll taxes, general revenues and savings from the introduction of electronic record-keeping, he said.

"The Democratic Party's proudest moments and greatest victories have always come when we stand up against powerful interests and fight for the common good," Mr. Kennedy said, "and this coming battle can be another of our finest achievements."

 

Hey BJ, do you think that Kennedy's agenda would carry in over half of the blue states?

 

The good news is that we will not occupy Iraq forever.