It's Miller Time!

I typically enjoy a new columnist over at the Times. It usually brings refreshing insight, viewpoints and a certain "je ne sai quoi." Particularly when we are fortunate enough to have said substitute be a liberal and in the case of today's Matt Miller subbing for MoDo, a member of CAP. I love MoDo but she has recently begun writting more about the issues revolving around Mary Poppins movies and not so much things of substance. So, imagine the shock when he opens his 4 week stint over at the glorious NYT OpEd pages with a piece so full of bafoonery and Bush Cheerleadership that it allowed me to drop an a turd so fresh it contained bits of this morning's bagel. If you think that is disgusting go read the whole thing.

I will take the quotes apart one bite at a time first up:

Under today's system of "wage indexed" benefits, every new cohort of retirees is guaranteed a higher level of real benefits than the previous generation. Workers retiring in 2025, for example, are scheduled to receive payments 20 percent higher in real terms than today's retirees. Today's teenagers are slated to get a 60 percent increase. When Democrats cry about "cuts," they mean trims from these higher levels.

This quote paints the stupid picture that wage indexing is a silly idea and that it will allow the lot of us to retire on a yacht on the French Riviera sipping martini's with the Prince of Monaco whilst eating foie gras served with a truffle oil reduction demi glasse paying for it all with our Social Security checks. Luckily, I got my Social Security statement not too long ago and I didn't see my wages blossoming to this point by the time I retire. In fact I think I will have to substantially curb my current superfluous lifestyle of doing things like feeding my dog and cat while leaving enough in the wallet for some chicken bones I can boil for sustenance.

So Matt tries to convince us all that he is a liberal in good standing by talking about the poor and other progressive ideas that we will have to sacrifice Social Security for in order to achieve:

A Democrat might ask: Why would we ever change this way of calculating benefits, other than from some Scroogelike desire to slow the rise in future benefits? Well, we probably wouldn't think about it if we weren't on the cusp of the biggest financial crunch in American history. But we are. And with the baby boomers' retirement looming, Democrats need to think beyond Social Security alone to think intelligently about achieving progressive goals.

Indeed, if you care about social justice and economic growth, the big policy question for the next generation is this: How do we square the needs of seniors with the needs of the rest of America, at levels of taxation that don't strangle the economy?

Those who say today's Social Security structure is sacred are arguing that our top priority - before we even consider anything else - must be to guarantee that every senior will enjoy real benefit increases in perpetuity.

Social Security isn't just a top priority ass wipe it is the single most important government program that we have, and judging by the way corporations like United Airlines generosity with pensions and their propensity to pay CEO's millions of bonus dollars, perhaps Social Security will be the only thing saving the rest of us from being a part of that poor demographic.

Why should we sacrifice one "liberal government program" to allow another to potentially flourish? At this point the article is begging an explative?! Who the fuck is this guy representing here? I mean, remember Hillary care and how the Republican's fucked that shit up for those so called 45 million people you are so keen on saving by pulling our retirement rug from under our feet? Oh yeah, he does:

I know this is asking a lot. Republicans didn't demagogue responsibly when they caricatured Hillarycare as "socialist" back in the 1990's. But being a Democrat may mean being a little better even when you're bad.

Luckily almost towards the end Matt writes something that could potentially be considered:

We know Democrats aren't making sense here because their chief argument is that "progressive indexing" (to prices, not wages) would cut retirement incomes too deeply by 2075. This may be true. But it's a little like worrying that Captain Kirk's phaser may malfunction in that year as well.

By 2075, for all we know, genetically engineered seniors may be living in retirement utopias on Jupiter. Or people may be fit and routinely working at age 90. A million things will have changed, just as Social Security's benefit design has changed in the past. If, instead, you look out 20 to 30 years, the benefit trims consistent with Bush's idea are modest (and for low earners, unchanged). If there's a problem, 76 million stampeding boomers will make sure politicians fix it.

Right Matt, perhaps by 2075 there will be Space Tourism and we can take up a collection of our silly Social Security dollars that you are helping Bush & Co to squander to send you to fucking Jupiter with the rest of the millionaire "Republicans in Democrat clothing" who could afford it, whilst the rest of us stay behind in the polluted, trash and garbage infested, resourceless, wasteland you and your friends in Washington are helping to create.

How many times must one say it! THERE IS NO PROBLEM, CRISIS, ISSUE WITH SOCIAL SECURITY. There IS Problem, Crisis, Issue, with the way Republicans are running this economy. Spending tax dollars and distributing wealth UP the socio-economic latter, whilst the poor get the good old Dutch Door treatment on things that should be the basis of what Democrats like Matt Miller should be standing up for. Things that this countries leadership and, at the very least, this countries "Liberal Spokespeople" should be fighting for, particularly on the battlefields like the New York Times OpEd page.