Just POlitics

Hillary going to N. Korea?

An e-newsletter, interestALERT, is reporting that an opposition party in S. Korea is trying to setup a diplomatic visit for Hillary Clinton to go to N. Korea:

SEOUL, March 6 (UPI) -- South Korea's opposition Millennium Democratic Party is trying to arrange for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to visit North Korea along with other U.S. senators.

MDP Chairman Han Hwa-kap said he plans to meet with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill to discuss the issue, the Korea Times reported.

"If possible, the visit will come sometime later this year," an MDP member said on condition of anonymity.

Republicans supporting Hillary

The NY Times reports on how New York Republicans are holding fund-raisers for Hillary Clinton:

The intimate gathering at a private home in Corning, N.Y., was pretty typical for an upstate fund-raiser featuring Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: dozens of donors clustered in the terrace, listening to her speak, as they sipped wine and nibbled on hors d'oeuvres.

But one thing made the event unusual: The host was a prominent Republican businessman whose brother Amo Houghton was the popular nine-term Republican congressman from the area who, it turns out, gives Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat, an "A-plus" for the job she is doing.

His brother James, chairman of Corning Inc., agreed. "When I introduced Hillary, I told the crowd that the last time a Houghton had a fund-raiser for a Democrat was about 1812," he said.

With her 2006 re-election campaign approaching, New York Republican leaders vow to rally party loyalists in a broad effort to topple Mrs. Clinton, who has long engendered deep antipathy on the right.

U.S. spymasters more aggressive

The Washington Times reports what National Counterintelligence Executive Michelle Van Cleave said in a conference regarding the spying game:

The new mission for counterintelligence is to identify foreign spies and terrorist threats, and then develop "a counterintelligence doctrine of attacking foreign intelligence services systematically via strategic counterintelligence operations," Miss Van Cleave said.

The offensive counterintelligence strategy is part of the Bush administration's policy of pre-empting strategic threats. It is also part of President Bush's announced plan to promote democracy and freedom and undermine global tyranny, she said.

Freed journalist disputes account

Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian journalist just freed in Iraq, writes for the communist newspaper Il Manifesto. She discounts American soldiers accounts of the shooting of the car carrying her to the Baghdad Airport in this AP news MY Way account:

Suddenly, she said, she remembered her captors' warning her "to be careful because the Americans don't want you to return."

The U.S. military said the Americans used hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and fired warning shots to get the car to stop. But in an interview Saturday with Italian La 7 TV, Sgrena said "there was no bright light, no signal." She said the car was traveling at "regular speed."

Democrat dissension

Dan Balz of the Washington Post reports on Senators John Kerry and Harry Reid:

Kerry was unhappy with the posture of the Democrats and told Reid that they needed to be far more aggressive in fighting President Bush, needed to set up what amounted to a perpetual campaign and needed a plan to prevent Bush from seizing the middle ground in the Social Security fight.

Reid responded that he had set up a campaign-style war room and taken other steps to put the Democrats in fighting mode and made it clear he wasn't going to change course just because Kerry thought something different was needed.

FEC Internet regulations?

The NY Times reports the commissioners to the FEC are discussing aspects of regulating the Internet:

The Republican commissioners interviewed agreed that it would be difficult to place a value on most political activity conducted online, and thus to determine whether it fell under the campaign contribution limits. "If you have a very successful blogger who attracts a lot of attention based on the commentary he or she is undertaking, and maybe that activity is coordinated with a candidate, what is the value of that?" said Michael E. Toner, the third Republican member of the commission.

"Everyone here believes this is one of the most important rule-makings the F.E.C. is going to do this year," Mr. Toner added, "mainly because the Internet got millions of people involved in politics. What we do here is going to have a major consequence of how people are involved."

Top Ten Reasons for Social Security Reform

Here is Rep. Paul Ryan’s, (R-Wis.) of Janesville who represents Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District, reaction to the Milwaukee Journal’s request to come up with a Letterman response as to why Social Security needs to be changed:

10) Demographic pressure: In 1937, there were 42 workers paying into Social Security for every person receiving benefits. Today, just over three workers pay a 12.4% tax to support each beneficiary.

As the baby boom generation retires, this ratio will shrink even further to two workers per retiree. The only surefire way to insulate Social Security from such demographic shocks is to move from a pay-as-you-go system to a system where workers can put a good part of their payroll taxes into an account they own to help support their own retirement.

9) Approaching shortfall: The year 2018 is the tipping point. In that year, according to the Social Security trustees, the program will pay out more money in benefits than it takes in through payroll taxes. At that point, in order to pay promised benefits, the government will have to find that money somewhere else.

8) Ugly alternatives: Doing nothing leads to large tax hikes, deep benefit cuts or endless borrowing for the foreseeable future, as the government scrambles to find the money it needs to meet Social Security's obligations.

7) Mounting debt: Social Security's unfunded liability - what the program promises today's workers but lacks the funds to pay - currently stands at $10.4 trillion. Every year we delay fixing the system, we take on an extra $600 billion in Social Security debt.

6) Abysmal rate of return: The rate of return on workers' investment in Social Security is well below average. Today's workers will see about a 1.25% return on the money they pay into Social Security, while my young children will get a negative 1% rate of return.

In contrast, the Thrift Savings Plan, a 401(k)-type investment program for congressmen and federal employees, delivered an average 7.67% rate of return over the past 10 years.

5) Government raids: For 35 years, the federal government has dipped into Social Security payroll tax revenue to pay for unrelated spending, for a total of $1.7 trillion.

As long as Social Security funds are lumped together with general revenue, it will be extremely difficult to prevent such government raids on Social Security dollars. Separating the program from the rest of the budget and allowing younger workers to actually own their own accounts is the only sure way to prevent future raids.

4) "Trust fund" fiction: Some claim there's no urgency because Social Security's "trust fund" won't run out until 2042. They are ignoring the fact that the "trust fund" isn't money sitting in a bank account, available to pay benefits. It is quite literally a set of filing cabinets in Parkersburg, W. Va., full of IOU's that the government has given itself whenever it has drawn from Social Security's surplus to finance other government spending.

These are paper promises - not cash or investments. The Social Security "trust fund" does not extend the government's ability to pay benefits one extra day.

3) Ownership beats politicians' promises: Under the current system, none of us has a contractual right to the money we pay into Social Security, as the Supreme Court ruled in a 1960 case. Instead, our future benefits depend on the decisions of politicians.

With reform that includes voluntary personal accounts, workers could build savings in an account they own and can bequeath, when they die, to their loved ones.

2) Politics of fear hurts all generations: None of the reform proposals being considered by the White House and Congress would alter the Social Security benefits of those people age 55 or older.

Reform advocates are discussing how to put the program on solid financial footing so that it can cope with the retirement of the baby boomers and assist future generations of retirees. Scare tactics - or simply denying a problem exists - confuse the issue and make it harder to correct Social Security's undeniable weaknesses.

1) Our children and grandchildren: What we do today decides what kind of world our children and grandchildren will inherit from us.

Instead of handing them a legacy of higher taxes, mounting debt and a less secure retirement, we must ensure they have the opportunity to earn a decent rate on the money they contribute to Social Security, while preserving Social Security's safety net and helping the program create a more secure retirement for all generations.