Preposterous Universe

 
Two small pieces of truth

Truth! In the U.S. Senate, no less! Don't get too used to it, would be my advice.

First, a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, the Nelson amendment, which read:

It is the sense of the Senate that Congress should reject any Social Security plan that requires deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt.

The vote split exactly fifty-fifty, with every Democrat voting in favor. In other words, fifty of fifty-five Republican senators are on the record as favoring either deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt. Probably both!

Meanwhile, in committee, Alan Greenspan tries to slip one by:

Alan Greenspan and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton clashed briefly Tuesday over rosy surplus forecasts the Federal Reserve Chairman relied on to support President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, estimates that turned out to be considerably off the mark.

"It turns out that we were all wrong," Greenspan conceded at a Senate hearing.

"Just for the record, we were not all wrong, but many people were wrong," Clinton, D-N.Y., quickly shot back.

I love this tactic (also popular in discussions of Iraq's WMD) -- make some bombastic claim, ignore the opposition, and when you are proven wrong, claim that everyone agreed with you in the first place. Genius.

~ posted by Sean Carroll at 11:23 AM ~ link ~ ~ ~