Political Parties And Government Programs

Which party has the best solution to the social security crisis?

The Republican Party's perspective on Social Security is really encapsulated very well in George W. Bush's proposal to privatize a certain amount of the payroll taxes that are taken out of your pay check and go to Social Security. I think it was a total of six percent comes out, two percent of that you can take out and invest on your own. So the Government would say, “You have to invest this”, but you can invest it on your own into the free market, into investing stocks, bonds, whatever. And so the idea is, you get control over some of it and you have a potential to get a much better return than what Social Security provides. Ideological conservatives are more willing to privatize the whole thing. Say that you get a very weak return with what the Government does on Social Security and you have a much greater potential with your own. Of course, there's risk involved with that, but they're much more willing to do that with the whole thing. That's not all Republicans, that is just a prominent idea that's been put forward on their side. Now on the Democratic side, there are a lot of Democrats and Liberals that are less willing to accept that there is a crisis with Social Security. They're definitely not less willing to accept a free market or privatized approach to Social Security. Some of them want to shore it up by protecting it, by preventing politicians from taking money out of the Social Security. But I think on the Democratic side, there's much more of a conversation about how much Social Security is in crisis in the first place. They really haven't gotten to a specific reform. A Democratic President, a future Democratic President might change that.

Which party favors civil liberties over security?

When we are at war, the American people favor civil liberties less, and they favor national security more. And after that war, the pendulum swings the other way. So, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, and nobody said, not even the Supreme Court said a word. After the Civil War, then the Supreme Court steps up and says, "Oh by the way, that was unconstitutional, Abe." You know, "You shouldn't have done that." FDR pretty much creates Japanese internment camps, and just rounds them up without due process of law at all and puts them in internment camps. Supreme Court doesn't say anything till after, because the Supreme Court knows that if it tried to, the American people are going to be like, "Eh, we're fighting a war! Shut up!" And that tends to be the way it works. So 9/11 created this horrible situation. People are less concerned with civil liberties right after 9/11, and the longer it goes without us having a terrorist attack, the more they're going to be more concerned with civil liberties. Until another terrorist attack happens, and then the pendulum is going to swing back.

What is the approach on torture?

One of the first things that - the hurdles that you have to approach is that - how do you define torture? Because torture is a word that is loaded and different people define it different ways. The real question is - Republicans tend to define torture more narrowly than democrats, especially Europeans do. Ask a question about waterboarding...Republicans are less willing to put a prohibition on waterboarding because it doesn't cause any lasting physical damage - that sort of thing, or usually doesn't cause lasting physical damage - that whole sort of thing. Things like humiliation or sleep deprivation, is that torture? Republicans are less willing to say that's torture. They call it agressive tactics or whatever, but they don't define torture in that same sense. Whereas Democrats are more willing to define torture broadly. We put this along parties but I think the parties are less of a way to define this then between conservatives - idealogical conservatives - and idealogical liberals or progressives. Liberals are more willing to define torture broadly and are more willing to just prescribe waterboarding beforehand - before they know what the situation it is or where the nuclear bomb is or whatever other those mythical situations that 24 brings up all the time. It's not solidified on either side. John McCain for instance is willing to prescribe waterboarding. Joe Lieberman is a little bit less hard stance on waterboarding so there's fluidity between them.