Not digging the administration's SS plan?

Fine - but we need to come up with SOMETHING to encourage Americans to save. Right now, the IRA and 401K laws that allow tax free long-term saving aren't cutting it. And despite the obvious fact that Social Security is (1) not enough to live off of in your retirement years and (2) probably not going to exist in the same form as it does today when we retire, Americans still refuse to save (you'd think that would be incentive enough). The Administration's attempt to increase demand with it's "Spend Spend Spend!" propaganda over the last few years hasn't helped the situation much either.

The capital gains tax cuts under Clinton and Bush don't seem to be helping. And one could argue that Bush's capital gains cut during a war and a recession was immoral (cut taxes on those who make their salaries on stock options to 15% while middle class people have to pay 27% or 33%). In a perfect world, investment profits would be free of taxation. But so would income! 15% is low enough (and probably too low).

So what do we do to encourage saving? Forcing people to do it seems like the best answer (privatize social security!)... The Washington Post (in an Editorial) recently argued for small benefits cuts coupled with a smaller privatization plan than the Administration has put forth. Personally, I think some means testing would also be in order, but only if we privatize and then allow wealthier individuals greater flexibility in opting out and investing in small accounts.

Either way, Democrats need to come up with some sort of government mandated savings program that gets more than 0% a year interest (Social Security) and forces people to invest - because, at this rate, we're going to end up with millions of starving elderly people who earned middle class wages all their life.

A critique of centrism

Here's the main critique of Democratic centrism:

In order to be politically pragmatic, centrists often sell out on social issues. It's true. But it's also true that, just as often, centrist Republicans sell out their own party to support abortion rights or gay rights.

The corporations are out to get us!

Are they out to get all of us? Are they controlling the media and working with Bush to take away our freedom? Are they working with centrist Democrats to squash liberalism?

There has been a rise in sort of rhetoric on lefty blogs over the past few weeks. And it saddens me. We need to address the real causes of Kerry's loss and not just throw out conspiracy theories that make us seem like loons or socialists. Please don't make the Democratic party purge the socialists again. That's not fun. Instead, let's all read an economics textbook and forget socialism.

Are there bad corporations out there? You bet. Is media consolidation a bad thing? You bet. But where do these conspiracy theories come from? You can look no further than Virginia to find GOOD corporations working for the public good (Jim Ukrop). And this is a state that doesn't even cap political donations. Businesses can write checks straight from the corporate account!