03 May 2005

My e-mail to John Tierney

This is my e-mail to John Tierney re: his April 30 column claiming that Democrats are flummoxed by Bush's "progressive" Social Security gambit.

Mr. Tierney:

As usual, your column is Radical-Conservative nonsense. The most important effect of Bush's deceptive proposal would be cuts in retirement benefits for anybody earning over $20,000 a year. People making median income would be substantially impacted. These are FACTS, which give the lie to any idea that the Bush plan is truly "progressive indexing" rather than an overall, massive cut in benefits for the majority of American wage-earners. As Matthew Yglesias puts it in TPM, "people raising families on salaries in the $30,000-$60,000 range are hardly living high on the hog or setting up trust funds for their kids."

Social Security taxes are capped at $90,000 of payroll income, so the very rich ALREADY pay no more in taxes and receive no more in benefits than do those in the upper tier of the middle class. The very rich are irrelevant to the debate on social security.

The scam of Bush's plan, which you endorse, is simply belied by the inescapable facts. Fortunately, for once, the majority of Americans have their BS detectors set on high, and this crap isn't playing in Peoria.

I wish the Times would find someone other than you to replace old man Safire. At least he was witty.

2 comments:

  1. It is a terrible shame that the NYT has retained an apologist for the conspiracy of the rich against the poor that has control of the White House. The thought s are from The Weeping David >:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm not quite sure why anyone would want to waste their energy responding to that much balderdash. No facts. No figures. No meat. Just whining. Okay, he's whining in the New York Times. So what? The New York Times has long ceased to be a relevant newspaper, as have most of the mainstream media. There aren't too many folks out there who trust the mainstream media any more, and I am not just talking about conservatives. Their circulation is NOT going down because times are tough, but rather because what they are calling news, or commentary, is White House-approved pap, and NO ONE is interested in it.

    Signed: Cynical in New York

    ReplyDelete

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