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Obama's Deficit Panel Draws Ire from Left
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday that Congress will not pass a traditional budget resolution this year because long-term deficit questions are better left to President Obama's bipartisan deficit commission, an 18-member panel charged with creating a plan to bring down the deficit to 3 percent of the economy by 2015.
Opposition to Mr. Obama's deficit commission has reached a fever pitch among liberal activists, who have even adopted some of the most notorious rhetoric conservatives used during the health care debate to relay their concern. Two of Mr. Obama's own presidential campaign and transition team members last month penned an article entitled, "Has Obama Created a Social Security 'Death Panel'?"(CBS News) "It
isn't possible to debate and pass a realistic, long-term budget until
we've considered the bipartisan commission's deficit-reduction plan,
which is expected in December," he said. "I believe that Congress must
take up and vote on that plan."
To the Democratic Party's liberal base, however, the majority leader's full-throated endorsement of the deficit commission is simply confirmation that the president and Congress are seeking to scale back Social Security and Medicare -- and avoid accountability by ceding responsibility to an unelected group.
Liberal activist David Swanson, who runs the site Democrats.com, attended Hoyer's speech Tuesday morning to protest the prospect of seeing Social Security benefits cut while Congress continues to fund the Afghanistan war. He characterized Hoyer's statements this way: "We're going to wait for the guy [Mr. Obama] whose constitutional responsibility is to execute the will of the Congress to tell us what to do."
"And then we're going to do what his commission says," Swanson continued, "and everybody knows what his commission is going to say."
Opposition to Mr. Obama's deficit commission has reached a fever pitch among liberal activists, who have even adopted some of the most notorious rhetoric conservatives used during the health care debate to relay their concern. Two of Mr. Obama's own presidential campaign and transition team members last month penned an article entitled, "Has Obama Created a Social Security 'Death Panel'?"
The article's co-authors Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, now co-directors of the group Social Security Works, point to the clear interest among some commission members in rolling back Social Security.
"We're going to mess with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security because if you take those off the table, you can't get there," commission co-chair Erskine Bowles, former Clinton White House chief of staff, said in a March speech. "If we don't make those choices, America is going to be a second-rate power and I don't mean in 50 years. I mean in my lifetime."
Altman and Kingson also point out that if the Treasury were to repay the billions it has borrowed from Social Security, the program would pay out the full benefits owed for more than another 25 years.
"So what is the rush?" they write, blasting Congress for giving the commission so much deference. "What is the need for such an unaccountable, fast-tracked process when one has never been needed before?"
Liberal economists like the New York Times' Paul Krugman have accused deficit commission co-chair Alan Simpson, former Senate Republican whip, of perpetuating zombie lies when he warns that Social Security will be bankrupt in a matter of years.
Nevertheless, many contend entitlement programs, which make up the government's largest expenditure, need to be reformed.
"We're lying to ourselves and our children if we say we can maintain our current levels of entitlement spending, defense spending and taxation without bankrupting our country," Hoyer said.
Concern over the deficit has, in fact, hamstrung debate in Congress over the budget, as well as extending unemployment benefits. Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concern that within just 10 years, the debt could reach unsustainable levels, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Hoyer Tuesday outlined the type of entitlement reforms the deficit commission could recommend.
"On the spending side, we could and should consider a higher retirement age, or one pegged to lifespan," he said, "more progressive Social Security and Medicare benefits; and a stronger safety net for the Americans who need it most."
Swanson, meanwhile, said that the commission should start by "dropping the pretense that Social Security is broken already and dropping the pretense that the public wants to cut back Social Security."
Jane Hamsher, founder of progressive blog FireDogLake, contends that "the Obama White House has been interested in cutting Social Security right out of the gate" and has pressed for more transparency from the deficit commission by running a live webcast on FireDogLake of the closed front door every time the deficit commission meets.
In one such recording, the man behind the camera, Alex Lawson of Social Security Works, engaged in a testy exchange with Simpson, who raised the ire of the left even further with references to the "lesser people" who rely on Social Security. The video prompted the liberal grassroots group MoveOn.org to start an e-mail campaign asking for Simpson to step down from the commission.
The commission has all year to consider recommendations, and 14 of the commission's 18 members must agree to a proposal before it is included in the final package of recommendations Congress will vote on. Commission members say adjusting Social Security benefits is a likely point of consensus, the Washington Post reports.
37 Comments so far
Show AllBullshit,they have stolen from it to wag war and dont want to pay it back and want to continue to steal from it!Like I said bullshit.Tony
"We're lying to ourselves and our children if we say we can maintain our current levels of entitlement spending, defense spending and taxation without bankrupting our country," Hoyer said.
So cut defense and raise taxes.
But no, the priorities are keeping taxes low on the rich and maintaining the empire. The old folks will just have to get by on cat food. The House Majority Leader seems to have transformed into the second coming of Ronald Reagan.
Hoyer is one of the many reasons that I despise the Democrats.
ahh yes got to love those corporate dicky crats. all of the dim leadership and obama are happily lining up to gut what little social safety net exists in the US. FAIR had a good story about social security about when asshole reagan borrowed(stole) from SS so he could hand out tax cuts to wealthy scumbags in the US. like someone posted here the samething has been going the last 2 decades to SS and especially under the gw bush asshole regime.
i guess dick dims and repugs would love to privitize SS and turn it over to wall street and our shit financial system to run. i guess that would turn out real well.
bullshit!!
its the definition of insanity to keep voting for the democrats and expect any real changes.
time to wake up and vote for green candidates and other progressive candidtates outside of the dim party.
this is the only future for this country. not the 2 shit corrupt corporate parties.
matt in galveston
hcgp.org
There will be "death panels" all right. These treasonous bastards will be the ones that face them.
Social Security has been the personal slush fund for presidents since Jimmy Carter. You don't see the bastards confronting a military-industrial complex run amok, do you? Not on your life! That is where their strength lies.
Have you noticed that Obama has a proclivity for associating with the dregs of humanity? For instance, Alan Simpson, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, the Barons of Wall Street, the Hucksters of Health Care, etc.? Our illustrious leader who charmed us all into voting for him speaks with a forked tongue. Public oratory and private seduction of the common man are his chief stocks in trade.
I no longer trust him, his minions and those who champion his causes in the mainstream news media.
The DLC separated the Democratic Party from its roots in the years of Bill Clinton, and Oilbama is finishing the job. I despise the man, and what has become of the Democratic Party.
He didn't charm me. I voted for McKinney. It was obvious to me at the time that Obama's words meant nothing. But let's remember a couple of promises that he kept:
1. More troops to Afghanistan.
2. Increase the Pentagon budget.
There are more. Obama kept the promises that he made to the elites and betrayed those that he made to the people.
A quote from the Wizard of Id seems fitting, "The King is a Fink!"
Well said. Remember "Only Nixon could go to China"? Well, in the same vein: Only a Democrat could destroy Social Secuirty. Is that another promise Obama made to the elites?
"Only a Democrat could destroy Social Secuirty. Is that another promise Obama made to the elites?"
He has made noises about cutting entitlements all along the way, so I'd say yes, he promised that to the elites long ago ...
Another promise kept: 30 Billion in ADDITIONAL aid to Israel. And on top of that, Israel is getting some of the most sophisticated weapons in the world, either free of charge or at a subsidized rate. Obama is an even better Republican than Bush.
He also said during his campaign that he would expand the use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And he has, greatly.
Everyone with a brain hates the Demoncrats, AND the Republicans!
Let me know when all you folks are ready to launch a new political party in this country to fight the plutocratic, corporate Republican and Democratic parties.
I'm ready to fight.
But never for any Democrats again.
There is already a party waiting for you to join up - The Green Party US.
Think about it. If progressive hangers-on finally find it within themselves to "get a spine," leave the Democrats to rattle around in their own detritus, we could at least instill some fear in those so-called representatives of the people.
Democrats, with support from the spineless, are stabbing We The People in the back and have been for quite some time. We don't have representation, the money calls all the shots. Our consent is "manufactured." Maybe some of you were taught to defer to "authority." I wasn't. I was taught to be suspicious of anyone who would call themselves my "leader." I don't want a leader, I want representation. When 60% of Americans say they want single payer or strong public option and our reps give us corporate mandated instead, when Democrats even consider cutting Social Security, well .... it's past time to leave!
Please, step back and analyze this "lesser of two evils" slope to the right. Where has it gotten us? We've been trying to elect good Democrats for decades only to watch them move to the right. It's a losing strategy. What will it take for progressives to see that? A new pair of glasses? What more evidence do you need?
Begging on your knees only makes you shorter. It's way past time to credibly challenge sold out Democrats. They could care less about your phone calls and petitions but if they think they might lose an election, they'll pay closer attention. We've been pretending to "hold their feet to the fire!" for decades but because progressives appear to be as spineless as their party, they wind up voting for them no matter what. It's a classic abusive relationship.
Progressive! We need spine! Join the Green Party or the Progressive Party. Maybe the two can form one big, giant party. When the MSM doesn't cover our new movement, our new party, a thousand of us need to picket in front of their offices. We will make noise! We will be heard.
The light is Green! GO!
"Whenever we compromised, we lost." David Brower
All of the politicians, including Obama, are mainly interested in their own future, which gives them great benefits as long as they can toady to the rich and powerful to get re-elected. We have a sick country that is run by greed, no matter what it does to our own citizens or people in other countries, by our war machine that is sacred. We were warned decades ago that this problem of being run by the military-industrial complex would happen and now it is here. People are of no concern, as long as the power machine keeps rolling.
It's about time CD picked up on this story.
tomhairless Plutocrats say Social Security is a
welfare program. Taking them at their word, that means they should be taxed for it on all their income not just the first $106,500 with the vast
remainder untaxed. That one simple change would keep Social Security solvent forever. ("forever"
meaning the possibly fifty years until Climate Change exterminates all life on Earth.)
One of the only sources of public money not yet stolen is social security. As long predicted these vultures and kleptocrats will scheme on a way to steal it from us. They have stolen virtually everything else already.
The USA is crumbling; instead of massive investment in social spending, infrastructure, public transport, green technologies etc. the vultures will asset-strip the place until there is nothing left. Welcome to neo-Fuedalism, complete with neo-Aristocracy, private armies, serfs, and debt peonage.
"We're lying to ourselves and our children if we say we can maintain our current levels of entitlement spending, defense spending and taxation without bankrupting our country," Hoyer said.
Well, let's see now. Hundreds of billions to prosecute wars against peasants far away, Hundreds more billions to the Pentagon for its various projects, billions more for its black sites, hundreds of millions paid as "protection" money to the Taliban, the War Lords, the drug dealers in the ME, more money to Halliburton and KBR, more money to the oil cartels. Millions for advanced research in the pain ray, the sound projector, and any other inhumane program the military can come up with. Anything to keep the profitable wars going for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex (MICC)
Of course there is no money to repair our disintegrating infrastructure, take care of We the People, mend fences and create jobs. To the MICC, that is just waste of good money which should be funneled to them and their wars.
Remember, the Oligarchy that owns the government, lock, stock and barrel, (and about 98% of all the rest) is a bunch of corporate entities. They have no loyalty, no allegiance, to any nation or group. They are only loyal to themselves and their universal greed. As a reward, the government gives them trillions with no checks, balances or obligations.
To them, We the People are no more than serfs, to do their bidding and fight their wars. They pay both sides so the wars will go on undiminished.
If we quit the wars today, cut the Pentagon budget in half (they would still have about as much offense spending as the rest of the world combined) and used the savings to benefit We the People, there would be no worry about SS and Medicare, our schools would be funded and teachers allowed to teach. College would once again become the goal of the scholar, not something restricted to rich kids.
Jobs could be re-created here in the US. Investment in renewable power would bring the cost down and the availability up. We could again be paying our own way
Remember, the more starving, homeless, we have, the more cannon fodder for the war machine.
We have GOT to take our country back. The MICC is not going to give up their cash cow easily.
Watch out for the upcoming war in Iran. Israel will bomb and then we will be at war. Paid for by SS.
Paul Craig Roberts has long maintained that it will take government attempting cuts to Social Security and Medicare to stimulate the American populace to open revolution against the government and its mindless support of imperial wars instead. He may be about to see if that's correct ...
They have already been cutting Medicaid haven't they? Medicaid, not Medicare... yet.
Actually, they have been making assaults on Medicare, through the back door. This year, by their failure to rescind the planned 21% reduction in physician fees, until, literally the last minute, they left many MDs furious. More and more will withdraw from the plan leaving patients without docs and increasingly frustrated with Medicare. The patients will then demand a "better system", opening the door to further privatization.
There have been planned cuts for fees for several years under what is called the SGR formula. The formula has been widely criticized and every year for some years Congress has voided the scheduled cuts instead of revising the formula. Every year there is a last minute scramble in Congress. So far Congress has voided the cuts each time but there is no guarantee they will continue to do so. By failing to fix the formula, Congress has left a Damocles sword over providers heads and more and more are getting fed up and leaving the program. This is how Congress is killing Medicare even as we speak - not directly but indirectly.
The Democrats have had a great opportunity to fix the formula so there would be some stability in the system and providers would know what they could count on, but have failed to do so. Under the current system, providers can't count on anything, facing potentially drastic cuts every year. This is how the Dems are currently destroying Medicare. The Rep do a frontal assault with bullets, the Dems do it with slow poison. The failure to fix SGO is a big clue, you don't need to wait until Dec. to see where this is going, it has been ongoing; Dec. "recommendations" will simply be another step in the process.
The fact that "single payer" was off the table from the start was also a big clue to this administration. Refusing to even consider it meant that it would never be submitted to CBO for a cost analysis, which the admin knew would blow its own proposals out of the water. Single payer or "Medicare for All" would have committed this country to adequately funding and taking care of the system, something which neither Reps nor Dems wish to do. By keeping Medicare as a "specialty program" they can pit the young against the old - convincing the younger folks that the older ones are selfishly "stealing their future". If the younger folk go along with this scam, they will find, as they, too, get older, that they have screwed themselves, as well as the rest.
Thank you for a very well written and spot on explanation.
If they destroy social security and medicare without raising taxes on the upper 2% to 50 percent or 90% like FDR did) without eliminating corporate welfare/entitlements/subsidies and defense, to name a few, The People of the United States should file a lawsuit against the former administration of George Bush II and the current Obama administration for all the lies and crimes from 2000-2010 that have resulted in the destruction of this country and its people by elected and unelected groups.
Unelected powerful groups such as the conservative non-profits with their bogus reports which serve as congress members' recommendations instead of The People's recommendations should be sued. Many in these administrations belong to powerful organizations that are private where major life altering decisions, which should be done democratically by The People in public are: Council on Foreign Relations, Trilaterals (11% of Obama's administration belong), the Business Roundtable, The Federalist Society, The Bilderberg Group (planning doom of U.S. fate full steam ahead since 1950s).
There are plenty of factual and statistical government and United Nations reports to support the silent attack on the People from our world rating on equality (#76 out of 110; #1 in 1963), health coverage vs. other industrialized nations (the bottom), our real wages (in 2010 a family of 4, 1 person working MADE LESS THAN IN 1972) , etc.
Don't believe me. Do the research.
It is worldwide class warfare by the wealthy against the rest of us.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The whole EU and US
economy feels like a shaky house of cards to me right now. I think
the main reason China decided to adjust its currency values relative
to the dollar is because they fear the ramifications of the corrupted
banks in the EU and US as well, including the "shadow bank" hedge
funds who are exposed to unknown levels of dubious derivatives
ventures while simultaneously taking up post-2008 slack from the "too
big to fail banks" re: short-term loans to industries to help them
make payrolls. Too many drags on the US and EU economy for it to
hold. Too much resistance to raising tax rates on the super-rich and
insistence on taking it out of the poor and social services--creating
more immediate deflationary lack of demand, inventory and resulting
job losses.
The head of the Congressional Panel on Financial Oversight questioned
little Timmy Geithner the other day and reported on the PBS News Hour that
the Homeowner's Assistance Program that Team Obama created "to help
homeowners struggling with foreclosure" is now 15 months old; that it
was undercapitalized to begin with at $50 Billion dollars, but that
didn't matter anyway because in the last 15 months only $200 million
of that $50 Billion has been actually disbursed to help struggling
homeowners. She predicted that home foreclosures would continue well
in excess of a million per year for the next four (4) years at least
and probably beyond that.
The neo-lib economists predicted that existing home sales would
increase by over 6% over the last month and they increased by only
2.2%.
The pols in Washington are all sucking up to the corporatist deficit
hawks and are in complete denial about reality outside the Beltway.
EVERY major policy Obama has implemented has been a grand short-term
failure. His Afghanistan escalation was the height of folly and only
the most hard-core die hard Pentagon careerists are still clinging to
it. His commander of forces over there is having a 'Truman
firing MacArthur' moment to be replaced by the guy who failed to
stabilize Iraq.
MSNBC is reporting that the wealthiest among us had a 17% increase in our worth in 2009. Thanks to a resurgent stock market, mostly, so the bank bailout is working as intended. They also reported that 15 million widows in the U.S. are living at or below the poverty level. Yet we must listen to deficit hawks spew their propaganda about " the lazy, lesser people living off the hard work " of their future grandchildren. This is what panic looks like to the rich. They must find an enemy, like the old and unemployed, to blame and punish for the sins of the warmongers and war profiteers. By dividing and scapegoating, as Hitler was able to do, they will try and deflect fair criticism and truth away from their greedy selves. The propaganda, like manure, will be hurled at the " lesser people " with abandon. The money they wish to steal will not go to " deficit reduction " but to tax breaks and war planning in a pulverized and disintegrating world. The beatings will continue until the patient's morale improves(that's you 55-66 yr olds) or you die before ever collecting your 1st check. The powers that be could care less at this point: they have an imperial and corporate empire to feed with your hard-earned and guaranteed retirement funds. Now sit down and shut up!
The Trillion++ dollar total military-corporate complex and perpetual war profiteering budget is the huge money black hole that must be plugged. Pentagoon brass have bankrupt our country over the last 60 years. Exceedingly bloated and wasteful military contracts and profiteering from perpetual wars on small countries is the big reason the US has borrowed 13 Trillion. The bush administration could not even explain where Trillions went in that military-corporate hole.
HR 5353 -- war is making you poor act - would start to plug the military spending black hole by restricting the pentagon to its 549 billion regular budget (That alone more than all the rest of the world combined spends on military). 159 billion of extra military spending would be returned to taxpayers by making the first $30,000 of each person's earnings tax free. And there would be 16 billion left over. The entire afgan gdp is 13 billion -- We could win friends by doubling all their incomes with less than a tenth the 159 billion now spent on war profiteering pentagooners who win friends by dropping bombs on them.
"Nevertheless, many contend entitlement programs, which make up the government's largest expenditure, need to be reformed."
This sort of statement, repeated from the article, tells what is wrong with "journalism" in the MSM. Who contends? Can't you give us names? Why not? Why not make a parallel statement "many contend taxes need to be raised on the wealthy to pay for Medicare and SS? A perfect example of the MSM getting to frame issues in the language it chooses.
Besides which, it isn't true that entitlement programs make up the government's largest expenditure.
starve the poor
to feed the rich
soon there won't be
any poor no more
tell me where's the sanity
that's the plain
We simply must terminate these welfare entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. We need the money for never ending warfare. It's just a matter of priorities, you understand. We fund the most important needs first. We need to convince our sons and daughters to join up and go to foreign countries and kill children.
Ah, yes, Dec., just after Nov. And what happens in Nov.? Why, elections, of course! And who is the public told it can count on to save SS and Medicare? Why, the Dems, of course! So this is another reason to put Dems in Congress. LOL.
The sad fact is, this ploy, though obviously so transparent, still seems to work all too often. The Dems don't want to whack SS/Med BEFORE the election, and blow their cover, wait 'til after, and then, when they, hopefully for them, will have squeaked by, they can continue to carry out their "program".
Well, all you froggies out there, is the water getting hot enough for you to jump out of the pan, or do you wish to stay and boil? And no, the only choices are not the pan or the fire .....
I have to laugh. I put in to my bank to try to reduce my mortgage payments so I can put some money into my other debts which are killing me.
They want copies of all my financial stuff, sometimes copies of the last two month's pension statements, the last two months of all my bank statements (which they have) all of my bills, all of my credit accounts, a statement of hardship. Every page of this has to be signed and dated by both my wife and myself.
You send this huge packet in and hear nothing. The next month, you have to do the same thing all over again, sign and date each page, send it in and hear nothing. The next month, you are supposed to do it again. My theory is that you are expected to keep doing this until you lose patience and drop the whole thing. Then they'll tell the Fed, "Well, we tried!"
By the way, even though the cost of living is running us deeper in debt, I have never missed a payment. I wonder how they treat people who are months behind. I suppose I'll find out, eventually.
Long retired and tired.
Thank you for describing how the system actually works, in practice. It's true, they simply outlast you. I think it's important for people to test the system by actually trying it, that is the only way you can demonstrate to its defenders that it doesn't actually work.
The devil is always in the details ......