Originally posted by jonb+Jul 2 2005, 06:12 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jonb @ Jul 2 2005, 06:12 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-brainzz_n_dong@Jun 30 2005, 11:24 AM
jonb,
I agree, let's not talk about Fox and CNN if that's how you feel about them. If you feel the former is biased and the latter fair and balanced, then it's like someone living on Mercury and someone else living on Pluto discussing what hot and cold means to them personally.Â
Steve
[post=325444]Quoted post[/post]
Um, no. Fair and balanced is a trademark of Fox News. Although they should say "Unfair and in Serious Need of Thorazine".
[post=325873]Quoted post[/post]
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I purposely turned around the moniker of Fox News and applied it to CNN, as it's apparent that's how you feel about them. At least I've never read that Fox has had to tell staff to keep it quiet on any Presidential election nights when a state is being declared for a Republican. Seems that has been a problem in past election years at CNN when they'd declare a state for a Democrat.
I guess Fox gets attacked as being unfair because they don't lay down and trumpet a liberal worldview when all is said and done. Conservatives do get an outlet on Fox News they don't get elsewhere, but that mere fact hardly makes them a Neo-Con soap box. I don't recall seeing too many politically-based segments that don't feature both sides of the opinion aisle. Even their Sunday morning talk show, when it comes to their discussion panel, regularly features two conservatives and two liberals, in addition to the host.
As for social security, there are points to be made that I don't have time to get into now, but let's all review the facts: The Social Security trust fund is made up of government bonds that were placed there to represent the annual surpluses generated since the early 1980's. The money coming in each year via the S/S taxes has been SPENT. The paper bonds representing the "trust fund" are worthless in that there is no hidden cache of money to raid when it comes time to cover the deficit the annual inflow/outflow will begin showing sometime in the mid-late 2010's. The only thing backing those bonds is the full faith and credit of the US government. They represent both sides of the accounting ledger: An IOU replacing an asset that has been spent and a future liability to be paid out. In that event, you cross both of them out and you have nothing resembling a "fund". If you borrow all of the money out of your 401K on Monday do you still have a retirement fund to use when Friday comes around? Well, you have something that needs to be repaid in order to be whole again, but if the $$$ is all gone, it's all gone. For the govt to stand behind their obligations, there will have to be additional borrowing in order to make good on long-made promises to retired individuals sometime in the next 10-15 years, economy-dependent.
And, during years of Democrat and Republican admininstrations, AND years of Democrat and Republican Congresses, both sides have gleefully agreed to spend the trust fund to pay for current expenditures (whether it be military spending as some liberals will blurt out or more social spending as conservatives will speak up and say) lest they have to make painful decisions about what other programs to cut. Whether you choose to lay the blame for all of this at the feet of Democrats (as they have been the party that proposed the various taxings of S/S) or Republicans for going along with it and being afraid to touch the vaunted third rail of American politics, both sides are to blame for where the program lies today, which is in the hospital alongside Medicaid and Medicare.
Hate Bush (as 95% of you do) or like/love him (as the other 5% might ascribe to), he began a dialogue during January of this year about how to go about fixing the S/S issue/problem/looming disaster (choose the word that best fits for you). Do I feel he properly "launched" the discussion...in a word, NO. He left himself open to nothing but criticism by Democrats that are more bent upon defeating anything he proposes than they are actually trying to work with serious-minded people and come up with a solution to the problem.
Bush should have proposed a comprehensive solution, good or bad, whose end result would have ended in compromise in the House and Senate where both sides could have had some meat to take back to their bases and could have still found time to hurl invectives against the other side. Instead, it's labled as Republicans as being the party of privatization and Democrats trying to be the party saving S/S when, in fact, nobody is doing ANYTHING to save it and EVERYTHING to bash the other side over the head when cameras are rolling so they can use it an election issue next year.
I'll discuss the private accounts versus all the other solutions later, but I wanted first to see how many would attack what I've written thus far before laying it all out.
Steve
uke:
