Originally published June 25 2005
Columnist proposes compromise between Democrats and Republicans in social security reform debate
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A columnist for the Centre Daily Times writes that Congress is too dominated by the interests of the extreme left and right to be able to work together on social security issues.
We need more extreme moderates in this increasingly polarized Congress.
Unless we want to avoid national ideological bloodfests like the government shutdown of 1995-96 and the presidential impeachment of 1998-99, we have to develop a coherent center in the Senate.
Frist is the bludgeon where Lott was the conciliator.
Lott, an innate politician, understands that confrontation is no way to govern and that he needs to massage the institutional dynamic to get it to work.
Now, finally, 14 moderates have taken their place astride the center of the Senate, which is really the apex of its power.
Some are there only for the short term, for this fight only.
But some, Democrats from Republican states and Republicans from Democratic states, have realized that they will fall between two chairs if the ideological groups dominate the politics of the Senate, as Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would have them do.
Taking their cue from one of their number, Republican Sen.
They should throw out the absurd Democratic position that they will not pass anything that includes any amount of diversion to private investment accounts.
In the middle, they should let each citizen choose his or her retirement age, mandating higher taxes for those who choose an earlier date and lower taxes for those who agree to a postponement.
Armed with those ideas, they should develop legislation that is acceptable to the broad middle of the country, which understands the need to adjust Social Security to make it financially viable.
The harmful polarization of our system, where the right tries to hammer the left into submission by cloture and the left attempts to talk the right to death through a filibuster, is no place to perform the delicate balancing we will need to preserve Social Security.
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