Cause ain't no money gonna be there when you're old. Congress in no rush to fix Medicare and Social Security or so the CSM says.

"The chances are pretty close to zero of significant progress on either Social Security or Medicare financing," said Robert Greenstein of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in a briefing with reporters.

He adds that Congress has time to work out a solid, bipartisan reform on Social Security, but that the issues facing Medicare are more challenging. Recommendations by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), including halting "massive overpayments to private insurance companies in the Medicate Advantage program," have been stymied by healthcare industry lobbyists, he says.

I wonder what real chance of changing the health care system and continuing to fund these two HUGELY important/expensive programs any president has.

Obama believes that the first place to look for ways to strengthen Social Security is the payroll tax system.

According to ontheissues.org:

Clinton called Obama's proposal to raise Social Security taxes on annual earnings over $97,500 "a trillion-dollar increase on middle class families." Obama defended his proposal: "Only 6% of Americans make more than $97,000--so 6% is not the middle class --it's the upper class." Clinton responded that some of her constituents would still find the increase burdensome. "I represent firefighters. I represent school supervisors," she said.

The base pay of an NYC firefighter is $68,475 after 5 years on the job. So Clinton is being misleading to suggest that a rank-&-file firefighter would be affected. On the other hand, FDNY captains make $140,173 with overtime. For them, Obama's proposal could amount to a $2,646 tax increase. As for school administrators, in NY state there are few that make less than $100,000 a year.

Obama may be correct to say that only the top 6.5% of earners would be affected. But we judge that Obama is being misleading to say that his proposal would tax only the "upper class."

It seems that McCain wants to ramp up the eligible age and increse co-pays.

I haven't really heard much about this and while I certainly don't have anything to worry about short term, my parents do. It's not as sexy as war talk, but considering how many old folks there are and more every day I'm just curious.

Lou Dobbs must be laughing all the way home to his Mexican wife and kids with this story.

The idea that having A SINGLE DISCREPANCY in your Social Security file can get you fired is appalling. Knowing the corporate structure the way I do, the 90 day "investigation period" will simply be a way for the company to find someone who isn't as much trouble.

From the NYTimes:

Leave it to the Bush administration to throw thousands of law-abiding American workers and companies off a cliff in perilous economic times.
That would be the effect of its decision to press ahead with a bad idea: to force businesses to fire employees whose names don’t match the Social Security database. The purge is part of a campaign — along with scattershot workplace raids and the partial border fence — to make a show of tackling the broken immigration system.

The plan rests on the assumption that people with Social Security glitches are illegal immigrants using fake identities. Companies that receive “no match” letters warning of database discrepancies are given 90 days to clear them up. After that, they must fire the affected workers or face stiff penalties.

A federal judge blocked the plan last year, warning that it would create havoc in the economy and lead to serious due-process violations for victims of clerical errors. The Social Security Administration’s inspector general has estimated that about 17.8 million of the agency’s 435 million records contain errors that could lead to a “no match” letter. Seventy percent of those 17.8 million records belong to native-born Americans.

In his speech this morning on the economy, Senator Obama didn't mention Clinton ONCE. He spoke considerably about McCain, but nothing about the Democratic nomination "battle". A post on Huffington advised him to just move past her, like she's irrelevant already, and I think that is precisely what he needs to do, and is possibly doing already. The idea that she can still catch him in the delegate race is, to use the Clinton vernacular, a fairytale.

Honestly, it's getting kind of stupid for her to keep this going so long just to see if she can run over and put her foot on him and proclaim "victory" if, and only if, he stumbles. It's clearly ripping the heart right out of the Democratic party, and the Republicans are salivating at every turn.

Still, in his speech this morning, he laid out a comprehensive economic plan, which I thought either proved that he has a thorough understanding of economics (he does), and/or he has surrounded himself with some extremely smart people (he has).

Either way, this speech proved that he has more to offer than just pretty speeches. The substance over style battle is OVER.

Click further for his complete speech on the economy (about 33 minutes).

The Obama campaign is putting out a 13-minute documentary about McCain's involvement in the Keating 5. Obviously, this was made to be a preemption to the forthcoming attack ads to be put out by the McCain campaign after the debate tomorrow night. Is this kind of thing appropriate, especially since the McCain campaign has already announced its upcoming attack ads? Thoughts?

[Trailer after the break.]

I feel better already.

Also, watch Paulson during the statement. What is with those bizarre head twitches? Is he watching a fly?

Political quotation of the day: "What do you think stimulus is? It's spending -- that's the whole point! Seriously." -President Obama

Also, check out this video:

Recovery.gov