I’ve used the analogy before. You just want to make sure you’ve got a padded seat in the lifeboat, and the people in steerage can go down with the ship.

You seem to forget, we’ve been actually watching and listening to the Far Right, their press, their representatives in congress, their candidates for President, and to you. We can see what you are trying to do, and why you are convinced you are entitled to do it.

It’s not conservatives as a group that I oppose, conservatives have much to contribute. And heaven knows liberals have their own problems and errors. Its the brand of conservative extremism YOU represent TB, and the conservatism you come here to the Zone to sell. It is toxic and pathological.

And no, I don’t want to discuss it with you, because you never meet me or anyone else half way. Yes, it IS your way or the highway. So take a walk.

Note that this is exactly the thinking of the Democratic Party. Geithner almost used that exact phrase to a House Budget Committee: “We’re not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to our long-term problem…What we do know is we don’t like yours.”

This has also been their policy on the budget and larger fiscal issues, now passing three years in the Senate without a Democratic budget proposal. But that’s another story.

A person taking this attitude during a crisis is not useful. On a sinking ship or a crashing plane, a person saying only this would be locked in a closet so his noises didn’t disturb the people who had to think.

Conservative solutions have been many, and detailed, and do not fall into the category you state. I’ve posted links to most of them.

The Conservative solution, to every problem, is always “I don’t give a damn what happens to you, but my taxes are too high.”

-Here-.

A record of the tax rates over time, -here-.

The concept was sold to America on a two percent tax on our income that is now 12.4 percent.

You’re clinging to the reporter’s comfortable spin on “exhaustion,” and refusing to consider the numbers.

25 percent cuts in benefits, or 33 percent increases in taxes.

Now what?

The Republicans over the years have come up with ways to bend the curve. The response from Democrats has been blind fury, declaring that the Republicans want to destroy it all and that nothing at all needs to be changed. I’ve gotten that response here.

Social Security is the cornerstone of the Great Welfare State progressives have been dreaming of for decades. If this turns out to be infeasible, the whole fantasy could come crumbling down. No liberal is going to effectively deal with this.

So who actually needs to “compromise” here?

Are Democrats going to go for benefit cuts? Means testing? Raising the age limits (this has already been done). Tax increases? Who pays? Who pays when the Treasury bills have to start being cashed in? Remove the cap? Remember why the cap is there in the first place? (there’s no cap on Medicare taxes).

There are many ideas out there.

This problem has been obvious for a long time. One party has tried to address it and has been shot down in flames. The other one is firmly pretending it doesn’t exist.

And Medicare, as indicated in the article I linked, is in far worse shape.

Again, now what?

This is not the first time SS has been in trouble, and like the last time, it can be fixed if everyone involved is ready to compromise.

“This bill demonstrates for all time our nation’s ironclad commitment to social security. It assures the elderly that America will always keep the promises made in troubled times a half a century ago. It assures those who are still working that they, too, have a pact with the future. From this day forward, they have our pledge that they will get their fair share of benefits when they retire.” — Ronald Reagan, 20 Apr, 1983

Those who petulantly insist on pointing out the financial difficulties of the program rather than working for their resolution should bear in mind Social Security is not an “entitlement”, it is a bill that must be paid, a solemn contract. If the government decides to welsh on that contract, then it is obligated to return to every citizen every penny he contributed in SS witholding while he was working, with interest.

Besides, do you really think the Chinese are going to loan us any more money if they see we are no longer honoring our obligations to our aged? That is a culture which takes seriously its debt to its ancestors.

More discussion and links here, including one to the actual report.

Trends: