A post by Steve Clemons on his site, The Washington Note got me thinking. What is the great threat to marriage and why does the "breakup" of marriage constitute such a grave threat to our society? (It must be noted that most of the cries of doom come from folks who mourn the decline of proper, straight and christian marriages.)

I understand the idea that marriage is the basic union that helps define our social system. Yet what I and proboably an overwhelming percentage of this country know is that family is not necessarily blood.

My Godmother and her family is as much my family as my cousins and sisters are. My sisters and cousins and uncles and aunts are all related to me through marriage and blood, genomes, etc. My Godmother's family is related to me through a social ceremony. I even have an aunt who isn't my mother's sister, but her best friend. Technically, she isn't my "aunt", and so if there was some extreme case she has no de-facto claim of guardianship, but she is certainly my aunt.

How many extended non-blood related family groups are out there? How many people have been helped, loved and supported by a group of people who are not bound to them through marriage?

The nature of relationships extends far beyond our ability to cleanly define them. We define them for our own piece of mind or for technical reasons (legal reasons of custody, taxes, etc.). Yet those "defined" relationships are only as valid as the relationship of the individuals involved.

The Catholic Church recognizes the right of a woman to annul the marriage if her husband is abusive. Certainly, no one would say that an abusive marriage is a valid relationship, yet in the abstract the dissolution of a marriage is looked upon as a symptom of a failing society.

Certainly we should support couples who want to pledge themselves to each other in a public ceremony, but that should not be the barometer of the health of our society.

Rather, we should look to how much we as a society support those we are not legally obliged to stand by. There are countless single-parent and non-married families that are just as morally sound and have just as much of a positive impact on society as any straight, christian couple with the 2.5 kids.

Just because certain vocal individuals have a preconceived notion of what is the "correct" form society should take does not mean we should abandon our ability as a society to decide what is best. Biblical definitions may serve to give their opinions "weight", but the New Testament is a rather straightforward piece of work (barring Revelations) and it is far less concerned with the old testament style strictures than with the basic idea of loving others as yourself.

The NT gives many of society's most doctrinaire critics difficulty because its basic message is not strictly disciplinary nor focused on legal definitions. Jesus supped with the sinner after all. I think that was the point of the story of performing miracles on the sabbath. Get caught up in the technicalities and you miss the point. The whole spirit vs. letter thing.

Perhaps we should focus less on who's with whom and more on the quality of the relationships.

Once again, Josh Marshall is on top of the Social Security debate. He makes an excellent point on what has to happen next with the Social Security debate:

.This is key to the entire unfolding debate: do Democrats start looking for ways to ameliorate the damage caused by the president's phase-out plan or do they try to push the debate further on to why Social Security is good for America and should be retained. (Needless to say, whether Democrats do start to soften their position will have a direct and immediate effect on the willingness on Republicans to get back on board with the president's phase-out program.)

…

The difference of opinion and values is pretty straightforward: Democrats support Social Security, the president supports private accounts. What is there to do but to find out where everyone stands?

This is a point I have been trying to get across to people I have spoken to about the Social Security issue, this is not a fiscal but an ideological debate.

If Democrats allow the Republicans to keep the debate in the fiscal realm then they have little chance in making the point that a system of private accounts is completely different then the Social Security system.

The debate needs to be kept alive so that everyone understands what Social Security is and what the Republican phase-out plan actually means. The Republicans are counting on trillion dollar sums and infinite projections to intimidate people from learning about Social Security and thus understanding that the Republican plan is not Social Security but a government-administered retirement account system.

While I know it is good to have a person who is familiar with an industry serve as the government's chief overseer in that area, but isn't this taking it just a bit too far? Terry Ganey has a piece in the Post-Dispatch today looking at Blunt's appointment process.

Blunt gets industry input in choosing agency heads JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt, who has said he wants to make Missouri more business friendly, is using industry representatives to help pick the state officials who will regulate the industries' operations.

Dale Finke, Blunt's nominee to run the Department of Insurance, was one of three names submitted to Blunt by a five-member committee of insurance company executives, lobbyists and representatives of the medical profession.

Blunt declined Monday to name the industry insiders who are helping him pick his Cabinet. Blunt said those decisions were personnel matters that are confidential under the state's Sunshine law.

So not only are the industries who will be affected by government oversight picking the officials who head the departments, Blunt refuses to disclose who is vetting these individuals.

Of course, since Blunt set up the vetting process he doesn't have to abide by their recommendations.

One member of the committee that recommended Finke's name to Blunt said interest groups have always sought input in the process.
"I didn't see anything wrong with it at all," said Tom Holloway, a lobbyist for the Missouri Medical Association, whose members helped fund Blunt's campaign last year. "I wouldn't call it a screening process. There was nothing binding. We made recommendations, and the governor was free to pay attention to them or to ignore them."

Blunt's assertion begs the question: what is the point in appointing the committees in the first place if their recommendations would be tossed aside?

And Finke said he did not see a problem regulating insurance after having been an agent.

"Most insurance agents operate for the benefit of the policy holder," Finke said.

What should also raise some questions is Finke's apparent belief that businesses' operate not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of their customers.

In a billion dollar industry such as insurance, I doubt that there are many corporate officers who have as pro-customer point of view as Finke does.

Steve Soto over at Left Coaster gives a rundown own Reid's announcement of the Democratic Senate agenda. While he points out that this is not a unified plan, it brings together a lot of good ideas Democrats can use in the upcoming session.

I especially like Senate Bill 19, the Fiscal Security for a Sound Future Act. Fiscal responsibility is an area in which the Democrats can really smack around the Republicans. The only problem is, deficit reduction never won an election. It is responsible governance and it is the right thing to do. The Bush Administration has given up on taking any responsibility for this country's fiscal future and the "fiscal conservatives" in congress are letting him run with his bankrupt plans.

Here's something from Bloomberg News, which isn't exactly
a bastion on wild-eyed liberalism. More a den of
market-trend bores.

"The Trents are part of a demographic phenomenon in the
U.S. unmatched in any of its major trading partners: Americans are having more babies. The trend, combined with an annual inflow of immigrants that is more than the rest of the developed world combined, may undercut a key argument behind President George W. Bush's plan to allow private Social Security accounts: that the current system faces an emergency because of a sharp decline in the size of the future U.S. workforce.

Even Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House of Representatives and a supporter of private accounts, says, ``The combination of higher birth rates and more immigration makes the United States the healthiest of developed nations. This is not a crisis.'''

Here's the link to the story.

If supporters of private accounts want private accounts, then they should state their reasoning clearly. They should start a debate on the merits of their ideas. Fabricating a false crisis is, well, deception, plain and simple. If that is how the administration wants to ram its proposals through, well, they better be willing to call uncle whent someone points out the truth. As with most political scandals that develop into law-breaking, its never the act but the deception that get the actors into the most trouble.

Howard Dean spoke here in St. Louis while he was in town for the Midwest Regional DNC meeting. The speech itself wasn't all that surprising for folks who have been listening to Dean or his supporters. In this case he was speaking to the local chapter of Democracy for America, formerly Dean for America, so his speech was more rally than anything.

Dean's basic message is one that I think the DNC should pay greater attention to. In effect his argument was that the Democrats are playing by the Republican's rules and that it was time for the party to embrace the aspects that make it the Democratic Party and not the Republican party. Some of the leaders in the DNC seem to think that playing "Republican-Lite" messages will help shore up support.

Dean, I think, correctly argues that the "Republican-Lite" campaign strategy has simply allowed the Republicans to cloak their plans in Democratic language (think Compassionate Conservativism, William F. Buckley must have choked on his brandy at that one) thus blurring the lines between the two parties.

You combine liberal-sounding initiatives with Republican-style campaigning (I am right, and I know it because I am a Christian) and you have a strategy that can cover a lot of ground. Republicans are in the convenient position of being able to argue for government-sponsored reforms (a liberal characteristic) while at the same time cutting government programs (a conservative characteristic).

At the same time the Republicans have used their vocal evangelical christian supporters as backdrops for their argument that Democrats are "out of touch" with American "values", despite the high rate of religious participation among card-carrying Democrats. Many anti-war and pro-gay rights efforts have been led by liberal christian denominations and ministers and rabbis are often among the leaders of liberal/Democratic initiatives.

Very few serious people could ever argue against the fact that the events of 9/11 have provided a rhetorical hammer for the Republican leadership. To say so is, unfortunately, not a cynical position. President Bush did a great job in the days following the attacks. He did rise to the occasion and acted, admirably, as the leader of one country under attack. Unfortunately, the events quickly became a shield behind which the Republicans could act with impunity. One famous quote from House Majority leader Tom Delay R-Texas states, "Nothing is more important in a time of war, than cutting taxes."

In effect the Republicans have out-maneuvered the Democrats by stealing their best lines and then out-shouting them.

Dean pointed out that in the 2004 election, Florida voted for President Bush and to raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage issue won a much greater percentage of the vote (%70 voting for the increase) than Bush's margin (%52 to %47). That is a lot of room for growth.

There seems to be a consensus that Dean will most likely be elected the head of the DNC despite the objections of some prominent members such as the Clintons. If so, it will most likely be a positive turn of events for the Democratic Party. On the national level the Democrats have been losing across the board for years, yet at the local level they are making gains. If there is one thing that characterized Dean's campaign for the Democratic nomination, it was the success of the local grassroots supporters, the ones that developed into DNF.

Dean's rise to the head of the DNC will of course eliminate any possibility of running for the nomination in 2008. In fact he has explicitly stated he would not even entertain the notion. If that dedication to rebuilding the Democratic party is genuine, Dean could help lead the Democrats out of a slump that many Democrats in national leadership positions seemed baffled by.

To steal some style from Aaron Sorkin, maybe it is time to let the Democrats be Democrats.

There is a good point at the end of Josh Marshall's post below. If the individual can put the majority of their tax responsibility into private accounts, how long will it be until the drumbeat starts up that the employers should be able to do so as well. If that passes as well, then the entire system changes. It is no longer SS as we know it, a pay-as-you-go system that ensures some modicum of income for retirees, to a government administered 401k program. If the true soul of the conservative yearns for a smaller, less-intrusive goernment this is the exact opposite what should be done. In fact, the Social Security program as it stands today is a model of efficiency and good planning.

Predicting the future of social security is almost an entirely demographic exercise. Cross that with DGP and employment growth and you can make some pretty trusty estimates. There are no fluctuating P/E ratios, stock bubbles, or corporate malfeasance that can potentially wipe out trillions of dollars of value when it comes to the Social Security system. Its security (hence social security) rests on the stability and existence of the government.

As my father insisted, there is no physical money in a box someplace. The surplus tax revenue is invested in Treasury Bonds (which are as good as gold. Via the Constitution: 14th amendment: Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned) and until it is necessary to start cashing those in, the currently employed subsidize the retired.

Given that there is no actual "SS account" it can not be bankrupt. The only way in which the SS system can be bankrupt, which the President claims will happen, is if the government goes belly-up. The surplus can and will be used up, but that is exactly why it was created in the first place. The surplus was created to be there when the boomers begin to retire so that if the system was unable to cover the outlays, there would be money backing it up. The actual depletion date of the surplus (currently at 2042) keeps getting pushed back as the actuaries make adjustments for economic growth and demographic changes.

Government sponsored savings incentives already exist. The reason people don't save at the levels they did in the 70's and 80's is because through the 90's borrowing accelerated like never before. The average family carries thousands in debt. Deby isn't inherently a bad thing, but the financial maintenance on debt can drain any extra income.

The administration needs to come clean on this entire effort. There is a deliberate deception going on here. There is no "crisis" and the money is there. President Bush talks about the system as if there is no money there because it is the form of Bonds. Given that every day billions change hands every day in the bond market, I think anyone with one iota of experience looking at economics and the market system will tell you that it is nonsense to say the money isn't there. The administration is deliberately counting on the inexperience of the average voter to pass this structural change. Bush's own chief strategist said that to get this past will require convincing the people there is a crisis.

If the administration is truly interested in ensuring the stability of the SS system he should do as least as much as Reagan was willing to do which was to establish a non-partisan panel of experts to examine the options, not simply push through an ideologically motivated effort ("I don't need to tell you that this will be one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times," Peter Wehner.).

From a memo written by Bush's chief of strategic initiatives, Peter Wehner:

"I don't need to tell you that this will be one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times. If we succeed in reforming Social Security, it will rank as one of the most significant conservative governing achievements ever. The scope and scale of this endeavor are hard to overestimate."

And from Josh Marshall:

"Let's not miss the big news in today's article in the Times about Dick Cheney. The vice president supports putting over 95% of the employee-side

Unfortunately, the authors construct the sentence in a somewhat murky fashion. But the key passage is this one: "Mr. Cheney is said by associates to favor creating investment accounts into which workers could deposit 4 percent to 6 percent of their earnings that are subject to the Social Security payroll tax."

In orther words, Cheney supports putting 4 to 6 percentage points of each individual's 6.2% contribution into a private investment account and taking it out of the Social Security system.

(Just for maximum clarity, that means about 97% of the employee's payroll tax contribution, which is 6.2% of their salary up to $90,000. And it's about 48% of the total Social Security money going into the program for the given individual since the employer also kicks in another 6.2%.)

So, in other words, the initial 'partial' phase of the Social Security phase-out, turns about to be 50% phase-out. And the only money going into Social Security comes from the employer. How long do you figure that lasts?
-- Josh Marshall

A copy of the article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/18/politics18cheney.html?oref=login&oref=login&pagewanted=all&position=

The Wehner memo quote above goes on to state that the initiative is to try and stabilize Social Security and ensure its solvency into the future. Yet if you take into account Vice President Cheney's statement, it think it is entire clear that the true motivation is to eliminate Social Security as it is established today.

The language the administration uses when talking about the SS system is designed to frighten and confuse the average person. Even people who have experience in this area have trouble sorting out the bad from the good. Terms such as "unfunded liability", "trust fund" and "bankruptcy" are all designed to make it sound like the person is knowledgeable about the subject while they attempt to scare the listener into going along with their position.

Few people seem to want to acknowledge the ideological divide between the two sides. This is not a fiscal argument, as the administration and its spokespersons contend, but an ideological argument.

Over at Tapped, Paul Starr lays out the best explanation of Social Security and why phasing it out is a bad idea. Social Security may be yet another example of people not knowing how much they like something until it's gone.

In addition, Josh Marshall runs down a New York Times article on the administration having the Social Security administration use its own resources to advocate for its own elimination. As Marshall says, it makes the Armstrong Williams incident look like a blip on the radar.

There must be some sort of institutional ethics that decry this type of action. Can the administration use taxpayer's money to advocate a political position? No matter what the administration may say, this is a political maneuver. A leaked memo from Bush's director of strategic initiatives, Peter Wehner, makes it obvious that the destruction of Social Security is a longed-for conservative goal and they are solidifying their strategy to do so.

No matter what side of the argument you fall on, keeping Social Security or eliminating it, there is little denying the fact that the administration is lying about the situation in order to further their goal. There is so little fact included in the administration's arguments that simply reading the Social Security Trustees report blows their argument to pieces.

This is not an argument about the facts, but a clash of ideologies. The media should either expose the lies or stop confusing the argument with incomplete arguments and few facts.

In the wake of the WIlliam's controversy, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is taking the initiative to track down other "journalists" who may be on the administration's payroll.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and other senior House Democrats asked the General Accountability Office to examine the use of covert propaganda by departments and agencies under the Bush Administration.

The GAO has in two previous occasions cited the administration for violating the congressional prohibition on using propaganda in cases in which it created PR pieces designed to look like news segments. They are more commonly referred to as "infomercials" but instead of Ron Popeil's Solid Flavor Injector we are talking about multi-billion dollar government programs.

These are designed to mislead the public into supporting programs that do not pass critical inspection by government bodies. It is an end-around the accountability system. Given the administration's record in the area of accountability all possible review should be given to their proposals.