"Some of the changes you're talking about sound reasonable, although God knows if the poor dupes back in Roosevelt's time knew their tax rate was going to end up being 12-14 percent on the first $10,000 of income,* they would have pushed his wheelchair off a bridge."

The 'poor dupes' back in roosevelt's time were dangerously close, in some places, to armed rebellion. America came damn close to withering on the vine or following eastern Europe. Roosevelt should be remembered for the civil war that didn't happen. Unless you have ancestry back in the midwest, I don't think you know how the teens, twenties and thirties actually were for most of america.

The 'poor dupes' back in Roosevelt's day were hundry, desperate, poor, and had just ben shafted by a long period of stupid Hooverite/Right Wing economic and fiscal policy.

"The budget, the Social Security structure, the demographics, and every other factor of Social Security is almost exactly the same now as it was when five or six years ago."

Unadulterated hogwash. Obviously incorrect. What is the average life-span today? What is the average retirement age vs 50 years ago? What are the current distribution of ages on the bell curve? Dear god, surely the kool-aid hasn't ruined your ability to do math and look at graphs!? Has it?....

"The Democrats insisted Social Security was in trouble and needed something to fix it. Sure as hell, we couldn't cut income taxes with Social Security on its last legs."

It is in trouble, it needs adjustment, and its patently stupid to cut taxes[*] in the face of other priorities needing attention. Tax cuts are fine, but if you know you have a big bill coming due next month, you don't blow your surplus this month. Simple common sense.

Now, Bush makes it an issue and suddenly literally dozens of sources, experts, organizations and others pour out of the woodwork to declare that Social Security is just fine as it is, isn't in trouble, never WAS in trouble, and where the hell could Bush have come up with the looney idea that it was? Where the hell were they back then?

First off, not my problem, not my poisition, not my argument. Don't point that at me, daisy, I'm not you patsy.

Second off, pointing out there is a 'problem' with SS and saying that 'problem' should be our first priority is NOT THE SAME as saying 'its broken! Its broken!'. When someone then wants to take SS and practically tear it to shreds, using the justification that 'its broken! its broken!' its not hypocritical to point out that its not, it just needs to be fixed.

Frankly, you are making a strawman argument, and I find it a little dishonest.

So, keep those taxes going, keep those old folks living to 90, 100, 110. No problem. None at all. Never was

disingenuous misrepresentation of what 'the other side' is saying. Instead of raising taxes, raise the benefit age by 5 years. If we live to 110, and get SS benefits for close to 50 years for chists sake!, after paying into the system for maybe 45/50 years tops, I'd call that an effing deal as far as government backed security programs go.

Davin L.

[*] The idea that tax cuts stimulate the economy is unjustified empirically despite 'sounding reasonable'. There is no good data that suggests that tax cuts, especially those centered out of the primary consumption classes have ever improved the economy markedly. There IS, however, some data that increasing taxes has a mild cooling effect on the economy.