Raise the income cap on taxable wages. All salaries up to and including the level of pay for the President should be subject to FICA. If you make more than the President, you’re on your own — you don’t need Social Security.

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Talk of the Town

Quit Lying About Social Security’s Health
        … On a recent episode of "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarbarough and guest Peggy Noonan, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, both insisted that any work to reduce the deficit must begin with cutting Social Security benefits. It was a lie. Social Security has no effect whatever on the federal deficit.
        They also insisted that as an "entitlement" Social Security faced bankruptcy. Another lie. Social Security is fiscally sound until about 2037. By lifting the income cap from the current $106,000 level it will be fiscally secure until past 2070.
        The practice of lying about Social Security has become epidemic among "conservatives." It needs to stop. Along with the issue of civil discourse when we disagree, honesty is desperately needed as a part of the conversation, too.
        Social Security has out-performed every private sector retirement program in our country except the "golden parachutes" of the uber-wealthy. It has never missed a payment and won’t, unless the extremists in our government insist on shutting down the government as a part of their political tantrum. Conservatives need to find a different dead horse to beat on. And they need to stop lying about Social Security.
JOHN SHIPLEY
Albuquerque

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Talk of the Town

[updated added 2/22/11 7pm]

ThinkProgress » McCain On Social Security: ‘It’s A Ponzi Scheme That Bernie Madoff Would Be Proud Of’

By calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, McCain appears to be aligning himself with other radical conservatives who have long sought to gut or privatize the popular public program. Last year, former House Majority Leader and FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey called Social Security a “pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme“; a month later, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) also compared the program to a Ponzi scheme. And Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) campaigned by making the same comparison in his television commercials.

All of these radical conservatives are wrong to make such a comparison between a criminal enterprise and one of America’s most successful social programs. A Ponzi scheme involves fraudulently manipulating investors’ money without being able to pay them back; meanwhile, Social Security is a program that has successfully managed Americans’ money since its inception and has guaranteed them safe retirements.

ThinkProgress » McCain On Social Security: ‘It’s A Ponzi Scheme That Bernie Madoff Would Be Proud Of’

ThinkProgress » Koch Industries Slashed WI Jobs, Helped Elect Scott Walker, Now Orchestrating Pro-Walker Protest

A number of the big business interests standing with Walker are beneficiaries of his administration’s tax giveaways. But the greatest ally to Walker is the dirty energy company Koch Industries. In response to the growing protests in Madison, Koch fronts are busing in Tea Party protesters to support Walker and his union-busting campaign.

ThinkProgress » Koch Industries Slashed WI Jobs, Helped Elect Scott Walker, Now Orchestrating Pro-Walker Protest

NewMexiKen | All you need to know about Wisconsin

Originally posted Saturday, February 19, 2011  

Wisconsin’s Democratic state senators went into hiding to deprive the Republican majority of the quorum they need to pass Walker’s agenda. The Senate majority leader, Scott Fitzgerald — who happens to be the brother of the Assembly speaker, Jeff Fitzgerald — believes the governor is absolutely right about the need for draconian measures to cut spending in this crisis. So he’s been sending state troopers out to look for the missing Democrats.

The troopers are under the direction of the new chief of the state patrol, Stephen Fitzgerald. He is the 68-year-old father of Jeff and Scott and was appointed to the $105,678 post this month by Governor Walker.

From Gail Collins.

NewMexiKen | All you need to know about Wisconsin

Grover Norquist is among the worst of the old time Radical Wrong. He’s famous for an anti-federal viewpoint so extreme that he has said he wants to starve the federal government (no taxes) until it is weak enough to drown in a bathtub. Charming. At lease he didn’t say he wants to shoot the federal government in the head or lynch it and drag it behind a truck (as other anti-feds have). Even though I’ve lived long enough to see Republicans move so far beyond the conservative that Tricky Dick is too liberal, I’m still amazed when the old demons sound sensible compared to the new ones.

ThinkProgress » Norquist: The Right Has To ‘Marginalize’ Islamophobia, ‘There’s No Place For That’ In The GOP

Referring to Gingrich’s anti-Muslim fervor, ThinkProgress asked whether there is a place for Islamophobia in the GOP 2012 presidential primaries. “I don’t think there is,” Norquist replied:

TP: This sort of fearmongering about Islam. I don’t think Gingrich has gone as far as Gaffney has but he’s kind of right there. He’s near that edge and I’m wondering do you think there’s room for that on the presidential campaign.

NORQUIST: I don’t think there is. I don’t think you’ll see it because the people who support you is broader. … . I don’t think that it will work because it doesn’t work. I think it will go away because it doesn’t work. I would like it to go away because it’s the wrong thing to do. But I’ll take it doesn’t work.

Also during the interview, Norquist praised Democrats for their ability to be an inclusive party. “Democrats have doing it with the mosque in Iowa forever. They just have this natural understanding of, ‘Oh there’s a mosque? Let’s go!’ … You know there’s an incredible understanding of diversity [within the Party].”

ThinkProgress » Norquist: The Right Has To ‘Marginalize’ Islamophobia, ‘There’s No Place For That’ In The GOP

What makes Norquist so … progressive (throwing up now): Could it be the fact that his wife is Muslim?

Eugene Robinson – The GOP’s selective memory on Ronald Reagan

The Republican Party … has moved so far to the right that it now inhabits its own parallel universe. On the planet that today’s GOP leaders call home, Reagan would qualify as one of those big-government, tax-and-spend liberals who are trying so hard to destroy the American way of life. …

Meanwhile, the Republican Party has lost its mind. The GOP argues for deep across-the-board budget cuts of a kind that Reagan ultimately rejected. Party leaders denounce the belief that government can do any good for anybody as "socialism."

Eugene Robinson – The GOP’s selective memory on Ronald Reagan