Why the arguments of Obama's defenders leave many cold.

[JDPriestly]

265. I wouldn't have a clue as to what Fox News says.

The premise of Social Security is that you pay in, most of your money supports retirees in the currently retired generation, and then when you retire, you receive benefits according to what you paid in. It is like an insurance policy. If you don't pay in, you don't get benefits.

This payroll tax cut undermines that basic premise. The money paid out in Social Security benefits over the years has come from the payroll taxes paid in. Now with this tax cut, the benefits to us seniors come not from the money paid in currently and not from the Social Security Trust Fund for which we paid out taxes beginning during the Reagan era. No, now it comes from the general fund. That makes Social Security just another government program dependent on general tax revenue. That undercuts the entire idea of Social Security as being a separate, independently funded program.

That is one of Obama's many bad policy ideas -- the payroll tax cut.

During the primary debates, Obama stated that he would solve problems with Social Security and Medicare by RAISING THE CAP on the payroll taxes. When I was walking precincts for Obama in 2008, I talked to many seniors who were voting for him because of his stance on raising the payroll tax cap and insuring the future of Social Security. Obama reneged on that promise. He will lose some of the votes of seniors that he got in 2008 thanks to his bad policies on Social Security. I will never forget one woman who was undecided. She said she was trying to choose between the babies and Social Security, meaning abortion or the safeguarding of Social Security.

Obama can only win in 2012 if people think they are in better shape now than they were in 2008. I want him to win because he is a Democrat, but honestly, he isn't doing much to help win the election.

His stance on gays and lesbians in the military will help him, and his health insurance reform bill would help him if only more of it were fully implemented now. But really, not many of his policies have improved the lot of Americans in a way that is easily perceptible to the majority of us.

The thing that Obama has going for him is that he is very likeable and, as far as I can tell, leads a personal life that is without reproach or controversy -- great family and a very upright man personally speaking. But too many of his policies are really not well thought out.

It doesn't help that states are cutting back so severely either. The cutbacks will be blamed on Obama even though they are not his fault. The general state of the economy will be blamed on Obama although it is only partially his fault.

So, Obama needs to try to think of some very popular measures that he can sponsor with quite a bit of energy and enthusiasm. The NDAA bill is not a popular measure, not at all. The payroll tax may be popular with people who haven't thought about it, but it won't be popular when people realize what it is doing to Social Security. How in the world can Obama argue that Social Security needs fixing and then propose a policy that defunds Social Security. That inconsistency is a big problem.