Category: Politics

From Stephan’s blog: I’m running for congress. its got great benefits

Yes congress people pay into SS fund.
Members of Congress under FERS contribute 1.3 percent of their salary into the FERS retirement plan and pay 6.2 percent of their salary in Social Security taxes.

but they don’t tend to collect SSI.
Why?
Because federal employees have great pension and other benefits.?
Maybe.
Because they tend to get lucratic jobs in the private sector often as lobbyists immediately after leaving office?
Again, maybe?
Because 1 in 4 house representatives and 1 in 3 senators is a millionaire?
Hmmm? Getting warmer.
All of the above and they tend to be well paid professional business owners who have other options.

Do I think that whether they are or aren’t paying into the system would have a great deal to do with their decisions on SS?
No

Do I think that being rich might?

Go read the rest.

Monday’s NYTimes column by Paul Krugman:

After November’s election, the victors claimed a mandate to unravel the welfare state. But the national election was about who would best defend us from gay married terrorists. At the state level, where elections were fought on bread-and-butter issues, voters sent a message that they wanted a stronger, not weaker, social safety net.

I’m not just talking about the shift in partisan alignment, in which Democrats made modest gains in state legislatures, and achieved a few startling successes. I’m also talking about specific issues, like the lopsided votes in both Florida and Nevada for constitutional amendments raising the minimum wage.

Since the election, high-profile right-wing initiatives, at both the federal and state level, have run into a stone wall of public disapproval. President Bush’s privatization road show seems increasingly pathetic. In California, the conservative agenda of Arnold Schwarzenegger, including an attempt to partially privatize state pensions, has led to demonstrations by nurses, teachers, police officers and firefighters – and to a crash in his approval ratings.

(quote fixed)

Part of a big mess of to-read links this morning. Via The Sideshow, with a lot of good stuff today.

This Tuesday, the US Senate is scheduled to vote on the implementation of a national ID card system. The Real ID Act is nothing less than a Real National ID Act. The only thing left to the individual states is to decide which pretty picture they will choose to put on the card: everything else will be controlled by Washington DC bureaucrats.

Preserve the land of the FREE and the home of the brave, and our right to be anonymous. Act now at UnrealID.

We’d All Be 3 Times As Rich, If Not For Republicans!

The average GDP growth over this time is 3.56% (I’m rounding off the actual numbers used). Under GOP presidents it was 1.83%, under Dem presidents it was 5.07%–that’s 178% higher.

…

This suggests a very simple Democratic Plan on how to save Social Security: Elect Democratic Presidents from now until the end of time. That will ensure high levels of GDP growth, which will mean plenty of money in the Social Security trust fund, and absolutely nothing to worry about.

More there, but that’s the gist of it.

From the NYU Washington Square News:

In asking about Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence v. Texas and his view that privacy is not constitutionally protected, Eric Berndt, a law student, shocked the crowd by asking, “Do you sodomize your wife?”

Scalia refused to answer the question while the crowd gasped and the administrators promptly turned off Berndt’s microphone.

via AMERICAblog, among other places.

If you needed one more reason before hating Tom DeLay, here’s one:

Mr. Dinan: You’ve been talking about going after activist judges since at least 1997. The [Terri] Schiavo case gives you a chance to do that, but you’ve recently said you blame Congress for not being zealous in oversight.

Mr. DeLay: Not zealous. I blame Congress over the last 50 to 100 years for not standing up and taking its responsibility given to it by the Constitution. The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that’s nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn’t stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn’t stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn’t stop them.

(emphasis mine)

From MyDD citing an interview in the Washington
Times (“Moonie Times” per MyDD)

My own opinion on the subjects above is that anyone who at this point in time wants to refight Marbury vs. Madison has no business being elected to a local water board, let alone federal office, or as in DeLay’s case, being the most powerful man in the H.R.

They’re In — but Not Home Free: Many Californians have ‘interest-only’ loans. They might be living on borrowed time.

It’s not just first-time buyers who are at risk of payment shock. Miseon and T.G. Kang just sold their town house in San Jose for $625,000 and bought a new home for $1.21 million.

“We paid a premium. We wanted this house. Without an interest-only loan, we couldn’t have afforded it,” said Miseon Kang, a pharmacist. “For five years, our payments will be OK. But after that, they’ll be a problem. My husband and I are concerned.”

Via Atrios

At some point, I really have to track down a copy of Matt’s book that’s apropos to the subject (Shaky Palaces: Homeownership and Social Mobility in Boston’s Suburbanization (Columbia History of Urban Life (Hardcover)), out of print)

Addendum: Loosely apropos, and for lack of a better place to put the link…. Meritocracy in America: Ever higher society, ever harder to ascend

Well, not really, despite their similarity. But do check out the Wal-Mart Fact Checker page.

link via MyDD