Remember, the bond traders were the ones who forced Bill Clinton to scale back his ambitious plan for public investments in education and health care. They even turned Clinton into a deficit hawk. I saw it with my own eyes. The same bond traders may force George W. Bush to back down on his plans, too. You see, Wall Street is divided right down the center lane. On the equity side of the street are the buyers and sellers of securities in brokerage firms and mutual fund companies. They're all for the Bush agenda because it will put more money in their pockets. Not only will they get more tax cuts on unearned income, but they also stand to rake in hundreds of millions in management fees on all those privatized Social Security accounts.
But on the other side of Wall Street are the bond traders, and they think differently. They're beginning to worry about the size of the deficits likely to result from Bush's plans, just like they worried about Clinton's potential deficits. They've heard estimates of the trillions of dollars the government will have to borrow over the next decade in order to privatize Social Security, not to mention making Bush's tax cuts permanent. LINK
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