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The Latest Bi-Partisan Attack on Social Security: Let Them Eat Cat Food
In fact, the true intent of the Deficit Commission was evident before it was even formed. That intent was only driven home when Obama appointed as its co-chair Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming who is well known for voicing, in the most colorful terms, what Paul Krugman calls the "zombie lie" that old-age entitlements will soon bankrupt the country.
So why the big show? Because neither Obama nor the Congress wants to get caught cutting Social Security and Medicare in public, certainly not before the November elections. (Medicaid will be cut as well, but politicians tend not to worry so much about poor people, since they don’t go to the polls in the numbers we middle-class geezers do.) So instead, they are foisting off this unpleasant task onto the Deficit Commission, showing what the lawyers call “due diligence,” sucking their thumbs and pretending to study how to cut the deficit. They’ve got $1 billion in walk-around money to pay for propaganda so the PR industry ought to be plenty happy. So too should billionaire Pete Peterson, as he and his foundation lackeys push forward towards a victory in their longstanding attack on so-called “entitlements.”
Quite frankly, if the Republican Right could get itself together and shove the Tea Party nuts back into their cave–as Reagan did with the crackpots hanging around him–they too could reap the benefits of the Cat Food Commission’s work. Ever since the New Deal, the Right has been kicking and screaming about Social Security. Things just got worse in the 1960s with Medicare and Medicaid. And now, thanks to our supposedly “socialist” president, they are within a few inches of cutting a nice hefty hunk out of the largest social programs this nation.
But just when it looks like the right wingers have collected themselves, the nutcases throw spanners into the works. This time it’s not the Tea Party, but economists from the Federal Reserve and intellectuals from NYU and Harvard. Four of these people have united to publish an 8-page paper via Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research last month entitled ``What is the Age of Reason?’’
This paper is about what to do when old people start losing their marbles, plunging into dementia, euphemistically called ``Cognitive Decline among Older Adults,’’ and simply aren’t up to such basic tasks as investing their own money. To save these poor fools from themselves, the intellectuals propose ``possible policy choices,’’ including such anemic remedies as full disclosure in such things as mutual fund and 401(k) fees.The authors doubt disclosure will have much import. Then there is the intriguing prospect of ``Financial `Driving Licenses,” which would require ``that individuals pass a `license’ test before being allowed to make nontrivial financial decisions,such as opting out of `safe harbor’ investment products.’’ Another scheme envisions ``mandatory advance directives. It is described as follows:``One direct way to address the impact of cognitive decline on financial decision-making would be to require older adults to put in place a financial advance directive before reaching a certain age, so that the management of their assets could be transferred to a third party in the event of incapacity.’’
Get the picture? Cuts in entitlements, including Social Security and Medicare, will be accompanied by a push to get people to invest part of their Social Security income in Wall Street so as to make up what is being lost in the cuts. And since we are to believe that old people are going crackers, why then, wouldn’t it make more sense to let Wall Street take charge and invest the money directly? That would save a lot of hassle and bring about a windfall in earnings. Remember how we made so much money in our 401(k)s in the recent recession that we all went broke? Wouldn’t it be fun to do it all over again?
It’s going to take a lot to waylay the likely course of future events: The Cat Food Commission will undoubtedly recommend, and a lame duck Congress will pass, legislation that looks fairly innocuous: trimming Social Security a bit, maybe by upping the age by a few years, and cutting a little from Medicare–none of it affecting anyone who is over 65 right now. That will enable the politicians now in office to look like they are protecting seniors and fending off any drastic cuts, while at the same time appearing “tough” on the deficit. But the legislation, in the usual Washington mode, will gradually widen as the years go by, so that by the time this bunch of pols are retired (on their fat pensions) and out of the fray, the new rules will be eating into entitlements in a big way.
The other side of this Faustian bargain would appear to be Congress passing some tax increases. ”In setting up his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform,” William Greider recently wrote in The Nation, ”Barack Obama is again playing coy in public, but his intentions are widely understood among Washington insiders.” As Greider puts it, “The president intends to offer Social Security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks into a grand bipartisan compromise in which Democrats agree to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees while Republicans accede to significant tax increases to reduce government red ink.”
It remains to be seen how “significant” those tax increases actually turn out to be. But even former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan seems to be on board with this general plan. Greenspan’s credentials include chairing the first major entitlement-cutting commission back in the 1980s, as well as promoting the Bush-era tax cuts that helped the deficit grow to its current proportions. He still says that reductions to Medicare benefits are necessary–but in a recent interview in the New York Times, Greenspan also says that he now wants to remove all the Bush tax cuts. Seeing as it comes from the champion of “let them eat cake” economics, this pronouncement must be seen as predictor of how conservatives could end up voting. In short, the old and the poor will have to eat cat food, but the rich might kick in a few crumbs as well.
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Show AllThe only way Democrats' intention to gut entitlements after the election will get any significant public attention is if third party Congressional candidates address the issue in the current campaign in such a way that the mainstream media can't sweep it under the rug.
Unfortunately, the only third-party candidates who get any press are the Tea Party nuts. And they are quite capable of agreeing to what the commission recommends without realizing that it involves reducing Social Security benefits.
The recommendation that will involve reducing benefits for only those not now receiving them is like a game of three card monte. Before you realize it, everyone's benefits will be reduced. Of course people like Pete Peterson won't mind because their incomes are so great that they won't even notice getting less.
Remember when Paul Tsongas let good ol' Pete into the Big Tent of the Democratic Party. That s.o.b. should've been made to sleep in the lion's pen in '92. He's the worst!!
Paul craig Roberts seems to think a plan in place as part of "Social Security Reform" to tap existing savings plans (Ira's 401k and other such vehicles) wherein they are taken under control of the Government and then directed to buy US treasuries.
This will be coupled with "reform" of Social Security itself wherein using the tactics of fear where it will be claimed people will not have enough for retirement, another forced levee will be made on pay checks with the money to go to a "forced savings plan". This again to be used to buy US Treasuries.
The reason he claims they are doing this is because the USA is all but bankrupt and as China and Japan cut back on buying US treasuries and other such instruments out of fear of default, they need SOME sucker to buy them in order to finance the Debt and the Wars.
He also suggested that the recent "Euro Crisis" was orchestrated in part to help stave of the day of reckoning and get investors to abandon the EURO in favor of the US dollar.
"Paul craig Roberts seems to think a plan in place as part of "Social Security Reform" to tap existing savings plans (Ira's 401k and other such vehicles) wherein they are taken under control of the Government and then directed to buy US treasuries."
Wishful thinking on their part. Not happening.
Roberts was stating the government would leave people *no choice*, but would legally mandate purchase of treasury bonds.
http://counterpunch.org/roberts08162010.html
Have youse guys seen the price of cat food lately?
>>>>>>>"Some opponents have taken to calling it the Cat Food Commission, since that’s what its victims will be forced to eat once the commission gets done slashing away at their modest entitlements."
Have you seen the cost of cat food lately? Might as well be dining in a four-star restaurant. No, if they cut SS most seniors will have to resort to dumpster diving outside their local fast-food chains. We'll have to get in line though, and the early birds will certainly get "the worms".
:wink:
Hence the phrase "Early Bird Special."
Many fast food places pour bleach over the garbage, ostensibly to control the rat population.
Or is it to discourage the human population...?
they won't be eating cat food...
If they can catch them, they'll be eating cats.
All this nefarious bamboozling going on.
Meanwhile, solving the whole problem, forever, by simply removing the income ceiling on SS taxable income - a proposal supported by 85% of the US public, is sooooo unspeakably bad why?
Just as it was with blocking single payer medical insurance, gutting social security and medicare are all about the reverse Robin Hood strategy being applied by the DC electeds...maximize transfer of wealth from 98% of the population to the wealthiest 2% of the population.
Just as there is no question that single-payer would have covered ALL Americans at less cost than Obamacare (no way to tell what % of the population it will cover), which uses taxpayers' money for corporate welfare, gutting Social Security and Medicare will also result in boatloads of additional corporate welfare.
Agreed, a majority of USAns supported single payer too. Although if it had ever been seriously proposed - something as simple as phasing Medicare in to cover everyone, the "socialism" attack machine would have been revved up - but then - even the useless bill we got is being attacked as "socialism" too.
The US is a profoundly undemocratic place - a troika of corporations, the media machine and a useless government that wont stand up to them - a complete crooked sham of a democracy really. Corrupt to the core, through and through.
Right on. Nobody gets a benefit cut, only the rich, who can afford to pay, get more taxes, and the problem is solved forever. I would add that if we also taxes investment income for Social Security, we could LOWER the retirement age for everyone to 62, and make a lot of jobs available for younger people who are struggling in this economy.
Dave Lindorff
Visit the new independend newspaper ThisCantBeHappening!, where this article originally appeared, at www.thiscantbehappening.net
"I would add that if we also taxes investment income for Social Security, we could LOWER the retirement age for everyone to 62, and make a lot of jobs available for younger people who are struggling in this economy."
Nowe there, by golly is a pretty good idea.
Or/and we could have some REAL health care reform and that would allow many older workers to retire. How many are still working bevause their spouse would be cwithout insurance if they retired?
Keep it coming Dave!
Its not just medical insurance for spouses that keeps many retirees working, its medical insurance for themselves.
While some retirees get generous medical insurance coverage, most have to pay full price if they are lucky enough to be able to get coverage at all. Millions of older workers would retire tomorrow if Obama would have reduced the Medicare eligibility age to 60 or 55. Since Obamacare increased medical insurance costs, even more older workers delayed retirement, thereby keeping millions of young Americans unemployed for years to come.
When Obama guts Social Security after the election, even more older workers will delay or even cancel retirement, thereby further increasing the the unemployment rate among young Americans.
Another very good point!
I doubt Obama will be doing much of anything after this election other than wondering why he committed political suicide at the request of Pelosi and Pals aided by his own arrogant stupidity.
Obama will never have any regrets.
As soon as the White House gig ends, him and his clan get cushy corporate jobs, he starts a foundation, writes and sells more books to the Obamabots, they will flock to his book signings, even after many of them have taken up residence under bridges.
gnken
The majority of people wanted a Public Option on Heath Care or Single Payer. Didnt happen. Big Insurance won out. Now Wall Street wants the SS Pie and they want it all. Who do you think will win, the citizens or Wall Street? Need I say more!!
Yes, we all saw how this will play out , it's already started . If Obama saves SSI the way he just reformed health Ins. we can kiss it good-bye. This guy is turning out to be a GOP Manchurian candidate.
It is worth mentioning that there was no COLA increase for Social Security OR Veterans benefits last January.
That's because the Consumer Price Index as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was negative. Never mind that all my bills (and no doubt, yours) like the price of insurance, utilities, food, gasoline, any kind of entertainment (and anything else you might have bought at any store) has gone up. And they have the gall to say we have NO inflation?
JJ
"Meanwhile, solving the whole problem, forever, by simply removing the income ceiling on SS taxable income"
Another good idea! Solve it forever, maybe not, depends on a number of other decisions, but for decades, yes.
Can you say class war?
Obama probably received a lot of his "establishment" backing in 2008 with the under the table understanding that he'd cut "entitlements". This has been in the cards all along.
A wholesale uprising of voters might stop it, but that's what it'll take. Many "responsible" politicians like Diane Feinstein refuse to take "entitlement" cuts off the table. Boxer has pledged to "defend" Social Security as part of her reelection campaign, a pledge that I suspect will be forgotten in December as Obama "twists her arm" ...
On the 75th anniversary of Social Security earlier this month Obama told us he will "defend Social Security from Republicans who want to privatize it".
In Obamaspeak that means a shell game where Obama chastizes us for not being grateful that he saved Social Security from total destruction, followed by a document exceeding 2000 pages that delineates who gets the spoils of another of Obama's legendary corporate welfare programs.
Boxer and many of Obama's other Senate and House rubber stamps will "defend" Social Security within the same context.
Anyone who voted for Obama ought to be applauding for their own galactic stupidity. I guess it is time to start paying for Obama's other entitlement programs: No CEO Left Behind, and interminable war off the backs of the poor, marginal, and oppressed.
The self-destruct sequence has been initiated, only the superrich can afford an escape pod. The rest of us will be left to fend for ourselves. The ruling class will once again tell us that "economic realities" are forcing their hand. Bullshit. All of this is the result of the natural consequences of conscious choices, yes it is very complicated, but most of the motherf##kers in charge know exactly what they are doing and why.
Unless they release some virus from a germ warfare lab and inoculate only their "club", there will be an awful lot of unhappy citizens to rebel when the time comes.
The European resistance to "austerity" is interesting and probably a prelude to what's to come here. Just a question of scale.
O.K. Corporate America, wait and see what happens when your largest demographic block of customers starts to retire and has no money to be "consumers". Who is going to buy your stuff?
Let them eat "no revenues".
I would guess the plan is to sell to the emerging Chinese and Indian consumers and let USA consumtion atrophy.
We oldsters should arm ourselves and initiate a massive crime wave to get our money back. These greedy bastards respect only violence. It's not immoral to steal from the thieves who robbed you. I'm not eating out of dumpsters nor will I eat cat food. I'll end with a quotation from one of the greatest American heroes -- Crazy Horse. "Today is a good day to fight, today is a good day to die".
It's unfortunate that violence is the only thing they respond to. Once begun they will not so easily end it. People across this Nation will erupt and I will be among them. It won't surprise me if something erupts any day now. It's long overdue. It's our job, not the job of our kids. We let it happen and we need to clean it up. Times up. Either we act now or we lose. It's time to take back what is ours.
The only thing that frightens me is the ease that people have in speaking of using violence.
I share your concern ....
It's a two edged sword in that it also indicates people are really getting fed up, and don't see hope in much else. I don't think it's come easy ...
Gandhi says that "poverty is the worst form of violence". So violence is being planned in a most deliberate, cold-hearted and deceptive way against old people who have paid, paid and paid again during a lifetime of work for the paltry security provided by Social Security and Medicare.
I say this bogus commission is like a hit squad. What they are doing is planning first-degree, pre-meditated mass murder committed in the course of robbery.
I believe that physical violence is not a particularly viable weapon against these bureaucrats of death. But I am no more outraged at the suggestion than by the actions that cause such anger.
Joe
The people have withdrawn from the U.S. as a sovereign nation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Lakotah
First, they came for my constitutional rights, but I was in an anti-muslim hate frenzy and couldnt give a shit if they tapped my phone and read my emails
Next, they took my 401k, but I was busy listening to Kramer ring his cowbells, and took a greed-bender and threw all my savings into Leiman Bros.
Now, they have come for my social secutity, but I will count on Obama to make sure I can eat when I retire.
FUCK, am I gullible. Pass the Purina
Wow, this concept is truly amazing. This country must be broke, if Congress is going to rob old people. Let's see, the children of the social security crowd are all losing their homes and the grandchildren are up to the ears in student debt....yeah, great time to cut the old people, Congress. This is a stupid and silly and mean action.
Gosh, who ever thought Sarah Palin would be right on something? Well, there you go, Death Panels are coming soon to a grandparent near you. It is also apparent that the corporate lobbyists have taken to heart GW's educational platform of dumbing down the nation. Congress is being prepped for the neo NCLB-2( No Citizen Left Breathing.)
I suppose Congress thinks they can just roll over the nation again; TARP was such a success for them. However, Congress, while you may think that Blackwater/Xe is covering your rears, don't forget that there are 100,000 homeless vets wandering around the country with nothing to do. I'm sure they will mobolize to find a purpose. That's a standing Peoples' Army right there!
Actually, this could be your dumb move, Congress, that truly unites the country. I can just imagine AARP storming the Statue of Liberty to hang a Dante-esque sign in the harbor: "Abandon hope all you who enter here." I think that the 'HOPE "part is kind of catchy.
With all those senior people wandering the country...well it could be a major cultural event. No one working, no one paying taxes. Everyone will be sitting at home looking for some diversion. or, if they no longer HAVE a home, I'm sure that the WAL-MART electronic section will become a favorite hangout.
You know, the media could come up with a new crowd pleaser: American IDLE! A plethora of 24/7 live shows following homeless old people as they try to climb into dumpsters for something to eat, or they could form flash mobs and overwhelm food vedors in grocery stores to steal their samples. Yeah, America would eat this up.
You know, those unemployed parents and their kids would play the LOTTO FOR LIFE game as they searched for their grams and grandpas somewhere LOST in America- land. Yeah, WHERE ARE THE WALDOS? Spot your relatives and win a lifetime supply of Monsanto modified food, or even a beachfront hovel in the Gulf. See? There's a lotto chance in this HELL that some Americans will inherit something after all!
American IDLE, yeah it would replace youtube. Wouldn't it be fun to surprise Google? Comcast would love it, no unions! Oh and let's not forget the old people in those motorized wheel chairs. Oh, another hit show coming to America. "Chariots of IRE," where employed people are stalked and mugged by old folks coming from behind and performing wheelies to grab those pocketbooks and wallets; the grand kids would love this one.
Yeah, Congress , just a few of my ideas when you decide to reduce the old people, who paid into this system and built this country, by robbing them and forcing them into being homeless paupers. I suppose some of my ideas seem silly, but geez, Congress, your ideas are even daffier, plus being heartless and mean spirited.
I don't know though, I'm kind of putting my money on the 100,000 homeless vets and the soon to be homeless old people. getting together. You, Congress are just stupid enought to try this, but you know, like that old guy Heraclitus said, if you do try this then "Expect the unexpected."
Great post!
NCLB-2, American Idle - great Jon Stewart type riffs! He should pick these up .....
Dear Aquifer and Souixrose:
HA! Everything I write on common dreams BELONGS to common dreams, as far as I'm concerned. If anyone else uses my words, I would think common dreams has full rights to say" to those "after users" or "quoters "Show me the money!"
If I use their site, don't the words belong to them? If not, then I give them that right! Besides, common dreams needs the money more than John Stewart or FOX! If these are saleable words, then sell them! Isn't that what the "common good" is all about? Where would America be if the Founding Fathers had all billed by the hour for their words?
Good response! My point in suggesting that Stewart pick up the ideas was not so that someone could make money off them, though that would happen, but so that they would reach a wider, and different audience than CD does. These are great images for conveying the ideas that need to be presented to the public mind and heart ....
STARDUST: Great rant. And "American Idle" sure does have a ring to it. I'll bet you could sell the idea to Fox!
If the world is watching, it just places on stage the moral abyss that American politics has fallen into. With its brutal disrespect for life seen in naked wars of aggression, how long would it take for the same morally depraved indifference to life to hit home?
Good affordable health care and living to an older age is too expensive to Americas social security programs.
Health insurance and health care is intentionality very expensive. The elite want Americans to work , go into massive debt , pay all their lives for the debt and health care issues, and then die young from stress and poor health.
The elite dont want you to retire and collect from social programs, and live to a very old age, its too expensive.
But the rich elite, who run corporations and banks, hospitals and insurance company's, all live very, and can afford any medical insurance , live a long time.
So they can take more money from Americans in this new system of thievery.
I was talking to An American the other day who pays 1700/month in insurance premiums for his wife and two kids, he paid 500 in medical visits last year, thats it.
It cost him 20000 dollars to get 500 dollars of care. He can afford it, but its 25 percent of his income.
Can you say thats a rip off, and insane.
Americans can no longer afford to live in America.
But like George Bush told a woman that was working 3 jobs,and could not pay her bills, " isn't it great that you are living the American dream, the unique experience of being able to have more than one job"
This bullshit from a man whos grandfather made a fortune for the Bush family selling products to Hitlers war machine.
Bush has a silver spoon stuck so far up his ass that his family's shit has not stunk for years.
If allowing the rich elite to lie,steal,throw us into wars for profit , is what it is like to be American, we are one f'd up country.
Hurry up, and die already, we need to bring in more cheap labor, or ship more jobs over seas to cheap labor markets,
American labor and health care and social security is too expensive, I cant afford my new mansions and sports cars.
More tax cuts so the rich can horde more money, or invest in over seas corporations that use really cheap labor,thats the truth about tax cuts.
Trickle down my ass, the last 30 years shows no trickle down, its a flood up and out.
If the rich elite and corporations wont pay Americans more money, create jobs here, or are holding onto hordes of money, tax the living hell out of them.
Don't get me wrong, I don't wants the government to have the money, I want money to start flowing down to Americans , in much higher wages and benefits, either that , or up to the government to help pay for social programs as the country shifts in to a third world nation.
"If allowing the rich elite to lie,steal,throw us into wars for profit , is what it is like to be American, we are one f'd up country."
We do and we are.
"One direct way to address the impact of cognitive decline on financial decision-making would be to require older adults to put in place a financial advance directive before reaching a certain age..."
Up yours, strutting, pretentious, larcenous grifters! Harvard boys. Selfish empty spoiled brats carelessly playing with the world.
Cognitive decline? Is that what happened to "financial decision-making" at Goldman Sachs? Were they rewarded by having to announce their intentions with a public advance directive, or were they appointed to high offices to control our financial and banking decisions?
This is really insulting to older people. It reminds me of the denigration of older people and their common sense that accompanied the S&L debacle. Yuppies in their strutting suits used those type of insults against old people to promote a new brand of scam and theft.
Now it's strutting suits Yuppies and Buppies teaming up with lie spouters and evil old mummies like Alan Simpson against the "lesser people" to so the same, to promote dismantling of all social programs and placing everything on a privatized basis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTZ7BN22vtM
Every responsible analyst says that Social Security is OK for a few decades and could be made secure forever by raising the ceiling on payroll contributions or making some other minor tax adjustments.
Joe, proud to be one of the lesser people, but without too much cognitive deficit