Update: The GOP war on public employees
The coming battle over Social Security
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
There has been rampant speculation in the blogosphere for weeks now over how the radical Tea-Publican Congress will hold Social Security and Medicare hostage for their newfound "austerity" in reducing the federal deficit. Many have speculated that President Obama will "preempt" the GOP hostage taking by proposing his own cuts to Social Security based upon the "recommendations" of his failed Catfood Commision.
First of all, there is absolutely no reason — zip, nada, zilch — for President Obama to give this radical Tea-Publican Congress any opportunity to undermine Social Security, and as a Democrat sworn to defend the integrity and legacy of the Social Security program, he certainly should not propose any cuts of his own.
Social Security does not contribute to the federal deficit. Social Security has a $2.5 trillion surplus to cover future benefits. In fact, if we do nothing with Social Security it can meet all of its obligations until 2037. Social Security Trustees report that social security will be able to make full payments until 2037 (pdf).
So why not wait until some future date when we have a more sane political environment in this country to make the minor tweaks needed to Social Security to extend the solvency of the program indefinitely into the future? You do realize that Republicans are only interested in Social Security now because they understand that this may be their last chance to destroy the program before the tide of history turns against them?
President Obama and Democrats should flatly say that Social Security is off the table. Period. The GOP will not be taking any hostages today, thank you very much.
Second of all, why are we still talking about the Catfood Commission, which was an epic failure? Update: Catfood Commission Recommendations DOA – R.I.P. The Catfood Commission failed to complete its work in a timely manner; as a result it failed to vote on any "recommendations" to Congress; and those commission members who publicly announced their positions, as if that counts for anything, numbered no more than 11 members on any one proposal — far short of the 14 votes required to send any recommendation to Congress pursuant to its statutory authority.
The "lamestream" corporate media that wants to convince us that these oh so serious commissioners have given us oh so serious "recommendations" that we really must take oh so seriously are full of crap (per usual). Through the looking glass of Beltway unreality. There are no recommendations.
The Catfood Commission was not statutorily tasked with examining Social Security in the first place. The Catfood Commission, whose membership was heavily weighted in favor of conservatives who adhere to faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP religio-economics did so on their own. And their proposals, particularly the Bowles-Simpson chairmen's mark, is designed to undermine Social Security (a life-long dream of Alan Simpson). So f#%k 'em.
If Congress wants to get serious about deficit reduction then it should be looking to serious deficit reduction proposals offered by others, not the bogus chairmen's mark of the failed Catfood Commission. President Obama should meet with Rep. Jan Schakowsky to discuss her plan as well as the individuals who wrote the fiscal blueprint compiled by Demos, Economic Policy Institute, and the Century Foundation, and the economists behind the Citizens Commission who drafted a similar plan for that focus on jobs and growth. (h/t Daily Kos).
Finally, Karoli at crooksandliars.com offers these words of wisdom today in her post Social Security 101:
My career, pre-blogging, was as third-party administrator of employer-provided retirement plans. For years I was a certified practitioner, and I watched as private pensions were systematically dismantled, underfunded, and ultiimately converted to 401k plans subject to the whims of the market and unsophisticated investors. While owners might — MIGHT — have retired with adequate funds, workers almost never did. The one single thing that every worker could always count on at retirement was (and is) Social Security.
Yet it seems that conservative lies have taken hold to the extent that the truth is called a lie, while lies are called the truth. Once upon a time, that only happened in fiction. Now it's real. So let's talk about Social Security, what it is, and why you shouldn't believe everything conservatives and their minions in the press tell you:
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