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A "Pledge of Resistance" to Defend Social Security (and Defund the Empire)
For the third time in the last 20 years, establishment voices, with
high-profile slots in traditional media, are trying to convince the
public to accept cuts to Social Security by endlessly claiming such
cuts are necessary without giving coherent evidence to justify the
claim. Twice, under President Clinton and the second President Bush,
these voices were defeated. But they didn't give up. And now they are
in striking distance of their goal: the fact that Republicans have
taken over the House, combined with the fact that the President
appointed a deficit reduction commission which nearly recommended a
cut in Social Security benefits, and might well have done so if Rep.
Schakowsky hadn't worked to undermine the co-chairs' plan, means that
one can't be complacent; some reports have suggested that the
President may indicate support for cuts to Social Security in his
State of the Union speech. Of the two principal Washington political
actors who will shape the outcome - the Republican leadership and the
President's team - one is a determined adversary of the public
interest, the other a very uncertain ally. The most successful
anti-poverty program in U.S. history is again in grave danger.
Twenty years ago, Social Security was called the "third rail" of U.S. politics. Touch it, you die. But it turned out that was not true. The Establishment greedheads were not, in fact, afraid to try to mess with this wildly popular program. Maybe Wall Street political power is the third rail.
In these two decades, Social Security hasn't been the third rail. Instead, it's been the Grey Goose of folk song legend. The knife couldn't cut him and the fork couldn't stick him. Try as they might, they couldn't kill him. Can the Grey Goose survive the next assault?
You might think that this would be the worst time to try to cut Social Security, with 10% measured unemployment, with many people's private savings having been wiped out first in the stock market collapse and then with the collapse in house prices. You might think is a great time to remember why we have Social Security: because it's secure. Housing bubbles and stock market bubbles may inflate and burst, industries that paid living wages may be shipped to Mexico and China, but since the program was established during the Great Depression, Social Security has never failed to pay scheduled benefits.
But this reality is being turned upside down. The presence of unnecessary suffering is being used not as an argument to alleviate suffering, but as an argument for creating more unnecessary suffering. "We all have to make sacrifices in these difficult times," although of course the people at the top of the income and wealth distribution - in particular, the high rolling gamblers on Wall Street who brought down the economy - are not being asked to make any sacrifices.
So far, the public has not yet been rolled. In a new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll, asked "what would you do first," 61%? say raise taxes on the wealthy. Twenty percent say cut military spending. Three percent say cut Social Security.
If there were ever an issue and a time that seemed ripe for militant protest, this should be the issue and the time. It's the broad public vs. the establishment, and for the establishment to win, they seek an environment of unquestioning obedience, like in the Milgrom experiment, where people obey instructions to subject someone to torture (so they think) because that's what Authority says to do. As in the Milgrom experiment, a little bit of protest can go a long way to disrupt the power of Authority, because intuitively, most people know that what Authority is saying is wrong. Authority says we have to accept Social Security cuts. It ain't so.
In the 1980s, during Reagan's war in Central America, there was a movement called the Pledge of Resistance. The basic idea was that you sign a pledge that if Reagan invades Nicaragua, you're willing to get arrested in mass civil disobedience. Of course, people involved in the Pledge of Resistance did not just sit around waiting for Reagan to invade Nicaragua to take action. They lobbied Congress to cut off funding for the US-organized Contra terrorists who were killing Nicaraguan civilians; they wrote letters to the editor; they gave talks in church basements; they organized material aid to Nicaragua; they opposed Reagan's air war in El Salvador and US military aid to the death squad government there. The pledge was to "resist" US "intervention" in Central America by all the nonviolent means at our disposal. But the willingness to participate in mass arrests in the event of a US ground invasion was a fundamental animating idea.
We need a Pledge of Resistance now to defend Social Security from cuts to benefits, including raising the normal retirement age. If Members of Congress know that if they refuse to pledge to vote against cuts to Social Security, their district offices are going to be occupied, that they and their staffs are going to be dogged at every public appearance, that their names are going to be mud in local media, support for cutting Social Security will evaporate.
Moreover, a Pledge to Resist cuts to Social Security will allow local activists to force a national discussion which traditional, establishment media have so far largely excluded: the one in which proposed cuts in domestic spending and proposed military spending are examined on the same chalkboard, so everyone can see and discuss the trade-offs that are implicit in the choices that are being proposed. This will allow anti-war activists to pursue the Holy Grail of anti-war activism: connecting the cost of the endless war with cuts in domestic spending for human needs.
There are two ways to think about Social Security. One way is to recognize that Social Security is a separately funded program with its own dedicated tax stream and its own Social Security-tax funded Trust Fund. According to this way of thinking, there is absolutely no urgency to do anything about Social Security in terms of the budget, because without touching the system at all it is projected to be able to pay scheduled benefits through 2037, and if revenue adjustments are needed before then there is plenty of time to enact them, and it would be far more sensible to consider doing so after the economy has recovered.
The other way to think about it is that there is one government budget which collects all the taxes and pays out all the expenses. According to this view, the (combined) government deficit is too big, and although Social Security is not the cause of projected deficits, nonetheless Social Security is a good place to cut.
But, in the second view, in which the advertised goal is to cut the deficit in the combined budget, there's nothing magic about Social Security that indicates that it's an especially worthy place to seek cuts, except the fact that some folks are just looking for any pretext to cut it, and these same folks want to protect other parts of the combined budget, like the spectacularly bloated military budget that funds their beloved Empire, from any meaningful cuts. You will notice that op-eds and editorials demanding cuts to Social Security typically will omit the crucial fact of how much money will be saved by the proposed cuts; still more they will typically omit any consideration of what cuts elsewhere in the budget - like the military budget - would achieve the same savings, while leaving Social Security alone.
Consider, for example, proposals to raise the normal retirement age. How much would that save? How else could we save the same amount of money?
On September 29, the Washington Post editorial board - Fox on 15th Street - expressed outrage that President Obama, as portrayed in Bob Woodward's book, "repeatedly cites the cost of the war and the need to shift resources to domestic priorities," despite the fact, the Post assured us, that "spending on Afghanistan is well below 1 percent of U.S. gross domestic product." Thus, for the Washington Post, when considering the war, spending of less than 1% of US GDP is not a big deal.
At the time, I asked economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research how much then-current proposals to raise the Social Security retirement age would save. He said they would save about 0.7% of GDP. For example, a proposal to raise the retirement age to 70 by 2040 would save $155 billion by 2020. [This is shown in CEPR's Deficit Reduction Calculator.] Thus, less than 1% of GDP is not a big deal when it is spending for the war that the Washington Post supports, but it is a very needed savings when it comes to proposals for cutting Social Security benefits by raising the normal retirement age, a proposal that the Washington Post - Fox on 15th Street - supports.
This is not a mere rhetorical point. In the next few months, the Obama Administration is expected to make a decision about the war that is likely to dramatically affect its future cost: how fast to draw down troops from the military escalation President Obama ordered a year ago.
The rough estimate is that it costs about a billion dollars, all told, to put 1000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a year. Right now, there are 100,000 U.S. troops, for an annual cost of about $100 billion.
Consider two scenarios for 2012-2014.
In scenario one, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan until 2014 remains about the same as it is today, for a total cost of $300 billion over 2012-2014.
In scenario two, starting July 1, U.S. forces in Afghanistan are drawn down over the next year so that when President Obama runs for re-election in mid-2012, they are at roughly the same level as when he took office, about 40,000. They remain at roughly this level - about the same level as we currently have in Iraq - until the U.S. fully hands off responsibility for security in Afghanistan to a Karzai-Taliban power-sharing government at the end of 2014.
Even putting to the side all the savings past 2014 that scenario two would imply if there are zero U.S. troops there at the end of 2014, as opposed to tens of thousands of troops, and also ignoring reduced future costs for veterans' health care, scenario two would save about $150 billion over 2012-2014 compared to scenario one.
By comparison, cutting Social Security benefits by lowering the cost of living adjustment as called for by the co-chairs of the President's deficit commission would save about $70 billion by 2020, Dean Baker says. The co-chairs' proposal to raise the retirement age wouldn't even go into effect until 2027, so no savings from that would be seen for 17 years.
So, far from being uninformed, the public opinion to cut military spending rather than Social Security makes much more sense than the position of the Washington Post editorial board.
But what makes most sense won't necessarily carry the day, if a media jihad for cutting Social Security isn't disrupted. We need to disrupt the Milgrom experiment for throwing Grandma off the bus. If you would sign a Pledge to Resist cuts in Social Security benefits, tell us in the comments.
Comments
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82 Comments so far
Show Allyeah, I'll sign it and write my rep and senators and Obama and I'll hassle anybody who thinks that Social Security is "in jeopardy". But if 10s of millions of other people don't do the same thing we'll be seeing old folks boiling their old leather shows for beef broth soon enough.
Hey Obamabots! Barry just fired the first successful funding cut salvo at Social Security since its inception. W couldn't get away with it but your hero did. Still have any questions about whose team he is playing on? and BTW - do you think it will help him or other Dems get re-elected in 2012? Keep dreaming.
I'll sign and I'll keep writing to the White House, the DNC, my reps and anyone else who'll listen. Sooner or later someone has to download the email scanner and take some notes. It may not actually take tens of millions of people to convince the Republicans and their friends in the administration that cutting SS is a huge poltical mistake -- but those of us who do take the pledge need to 'show up' and keep showing up.
yes i would sign please stop the insanity
How about making Congress make good on the estimated $3.5 Trillion in real money taken from our paychecks and then "borrowed" (or rather stolen) from the Social Security Trust and merged into general fund use and then replacing our money with treasury bonds, which are essentially I.O.U.'s ?
The various plans to cut Social Security are simply ways for Congress to avoid repaying the money they have taken from the S.S. fund which is supposed to be a public retirement account protected by the Federal government.
Raising taxes on the rich and corporations is about the only way that much debt could be paid back. Another way to help balance the fund would be to force the rich to pay S.S. taxes on all of their income rather than just the first $100,000.
It could also be said that Congress robbed Social Security to indirectly pay for corporate imperial war crimes and they now expect the majority to suffer the consequences.
More Congressional crimes against humanity.
I don't think that peoples' letters would do much good unless there was some kind of a big visual to go with it.
Here is another hare brained idea, but I did read that a person can buy his own drone for around $400.00 Maybe a few can be bought and then filled with tons and tons of letters. Perhaps a person with similar military skills or experience could train people to fly them. I wouldn't want an actual military person or even retired military person to do it because then some crazy congress person would want them assassinated, or take their pension.
Maybe the media would cover this! Three or four drones ( small ones) circling Wall St. or better yet, Congress and dropping all of that mail like confetti on their heads. It would probably be too hard to get them to fly into the chamber, but that would be really worthwhile. Besides, if they are small enough drones they would not be interfering with air space.
Or, if that wouldn't work, as it might be too scary, then people could surround the White House and keep walking around it with drone models on sticks and these would also contain lots of letters. Then visit the White House and dump them on the front lawn, or in the lobby entrance. We just had a Rose parade, so why not a Drone Parade?
Maybe this sounds completely stupid, and it would be, but fun too, and this might be something that the media would give coverage too. If not, people have enough cell phones to cover it themselves and get it on youtube.
I chose drones because this attack on Social Secuirty does seem like a real attack on so many people in the United States. Inflatable drone hats, like the Wisconsin cheese heads wear, would be good too. T-shirts, saying "Don't Bomb Our Futures." would be nice also. Be sure to bring your grandchildren as this will make it more confusing for the police as it will look more like grandparents day with kids, rather than those "scary" uppity citizens. Besides, it would be fun for the kids too. Is it ever too early to train picketers?
I suppose that some may think that I am making this issue trivial , but the government is making peoples' lives and futures trivial too. Besides, if you can make fun of something and have fun too, then more people will probably get in line. A conga line of drone heads circling the White House and Congress and Wall St. It would be more fun than listening to "Truthiness."
It also has the added value of reminding people that we are at war and that drones are all around us, and too, that WAR is one of the reasons that we don't have any money to pay for the all obligation to the people, such as health care and jobs and peace of mind for all ages of citizens. Besides, once you get people out into the streets and make it worthwhile, then it's so much easier to get them out there a second, a third and even more times.
Well, that's my suggestion and maybe it could work, because logic and patience don't seem to be working. Isn't it time for you to make a Woodstock Part Two?
Too cold for outdoor sex.
Yes, yes, yes. A resounding yes. I would sign such a pledge.
The SS Trust Fund special issue bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the USA. The Trust Fund bonds are just as valid as the dollar bills in your wallet, just as valid as the treasury bonds purchased by foreign countries like China and just as valid as the treasury bonds which millions of Americans own. They are all just "IOUs." And yet somehow only the SS Trust Fund treasury bonds are fake, are just IOUs; the thought seems to be that it will be OK to default on them and not the other treasury bonds?! Huh? The other treasury bonds owned by foreign countries are IOUs, are we going to default on them, are we going to default on the currency in our wallets? If we default on the SS Trust Fund bonds, we will have bigger problems than a shortfall in SS.
I am so damn sick and tired of hearing people say that the SS Trust Fund treasuries are just IOUs and they can't possibly be repaid. But the treasuries that the Chinese own are A-OK peachy keen. So we will honor the treasuries (IOUs) that foreigners own but we will not honor the treasuries in the SS Trust Fund which represent the blood, sweat and tears of millions of Americans over many decades??
The treasuries owned by foreigners are owned by "The Investor Class".
The treasuries owned by US Citizens (In the form of Social security) are owned by the working class.
The working class will always get screwed by the Investor class. Its the nature of the beast called Capitalism .
This is a Class war. The Nationality of the "Investor" is immaterial.
Yes indeed, I'd sign a Pledge of Resistance! I had already imagined that I was going to have to form a lonely demonstration of one outside my representatives' office if any measure to cut SS benefits comes before Congress. I'd welcome a vehicle such as Robert Naiman proposes to offer people a visible, public way to resist. Great idea. This really is one place we have to draw the line, folks. I welcome additional info at saponac@gmail.com.
Since I exist on Social Security Disability I'll gladly sign the pledge. If the Democrats don't heed this warning, what good are they? FDR is spinning in his grave.
Maybe the REVOLUTION is about to explode!!!
I would sign but I would also ask that we have a similar action about problems caused by the US that affect other people, not only ourselves.
Sure, fight for our own social security, but we must adamantly fight for justice for people who have been wronged. Petition for apologies and reparations for natives, US slave descendants, and war crime victims, to start on the right path.
How could we finally demonstrate for our own pocketbooks while atrocities are being carried out in our name.
I would sign and pass the petition to people I know who would sign. I would also pass the article with the petition along to everyone else I know just in case one of them decides to sign. :) And ask for letters too.
Woodstock II -- yes it's time! Start organizing for summer. How about near a lake or river or beach.
My Pen is in my Right hand and my Pitchfork is in my Left ...
Signed,
Pen & Pitchfork
I would sign.
One contributor included the acronym FICA which translates as Federal Insurance Contribution Act. Insurance premiums were taken from my wages in all the years that I was employed so that I would be able to receive the benefits when retired. Social Security pays my mortgage. I can believe that many need that money to put food on the table. There was so much money in the SS Trust Fund that at one time that the government removed (stole) $2.5 TRILLION from the senior citizens who had paid that money as premiums. A monthly premium for Medicare is currently removed from Social Security check, another insurance program. The COLA has been eliminated for two years now. Who has decided to call this program instituted by FDR a "tax" and "entitlement"? Why should the elderly of the U.S. be under assault?
I will sign the pledge in a minute -- just tell me where and when. I'll sign and then I'll get everyone I know to sign, because everyone I know is outraged at having the money they earned over their lifetime taken away from them and used to fund Wall Street and perpetual war. And when I'm done signing, I'll join any and all protests, marches, demonstrations -- and stay busy writing my reps, the White House, the DNC, the DoJ, to the newspaper editors and in response to columns like this one.
What the powers that be want is passivity and compliance. They ignore us in order to frustrate us into acceptance and silence. We must refuse to agree to any of their terms. Speaking up and speaking out repeatedly in every venue I can find keeps me angry and active and loud -- the last thing that those in charge want.
This is a fight and the sides are drawn. The only thing that's left to determine is if enough people care enough to show up and fight back.
How many signatures would it take to get some results? I would sign immediately and would promote it with lots of other people.
It is absolutely incredible that people in the US are willing to sacrifice the possibility of a viable and dignified life style in their old age to the gods of death-dealing military budgets and bank bail-outs for the crooks who caused this economic mess to begin with. I consider myself fortunate to have lived outside of the USA for about forty years, able to miss a lot of the brain-washing by the mass media, etc, but it still stymies me how most people in the US are so passive about it all. There doesn't seem to be much opposition to the forces that are taking away thier freedoms, undermining the pillars of democratic functioning, killing and maiming all over the world in our names in order to steal oil for running obscene SUVs, etc. etc. not to mention destroying our planet's ability to sustain life! Where is the resistance? It sure doesn't feel any more like the country in which I grew up,able to mobilize thousands of people to demonstrate for civil rights and against the absurdity of the Viet Nam war.
The only thing to do with Obama and about 95% of the Congress is to "throw the bums out"! They have totally capitulated to MONEY and sadly that's what rules their corrupted minds and hearts. The few very protected "haves" keep getting wealthier and the number and depth of "have-notness" grows daily without so much as a whimper of disagreement from the vast majority who don't seem to notice or care about being royally screwed by the rich. Is more of the country out on drugs than is reported??? Dubbya looked to me like he was stoned most of the time (unable to speak coherently and tripping over his own feet etc.), but now it seems really rampant in the general population! What the hec is going on?
'course i'll sign it.
I'll sign it right now. But, you know, I would sacrifice my SS payments if I thought it would hasten the collapse of this Evil Empire and make it impossible for the Peace Laureate to continue his wars for profit.
I listened to ?Dick Army?, I think, it was on CNN tonight. He was a Republican at any rate. He stated that people should be able to decide whether they want to put their money into social security and Medicare or have a choice in putting that money into private retirement and insurance policy of their choosing. In other words the rich can get subsidized Cadillac plans and the rest can eat cake. Kind of like the school voucher plan. The deflation will turn the social security and Medicare programs into the inequality similar to public schools based on property taxes. The schools on the poor part of town are defunded and have mobile trailer classrooms while the rich section of town has brick schools which have climbing walls and tennis courts. Basically, those who can afford private insurance and retirement would get a rebate for being rich like Obamas cash for clunkers did for people that could afford new cars.
The folks that can’t afford good insurance and decide to drink the corporate insurance Kool-Aid will find that these programs often have much more stipulations when it comes to returns than government agencies.
Google “The Hartford disability insurance sucks” and see what people think of private disability insurance or check out this link.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3TedfW5zabgJ:insurance.freeadvice.com/reviews/10/comments/Hartford%2BInsurance/+The+hartford+disability+sucks&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
The promise of the general fund payback could have several bad outcomes. The most likely is the next guy in charge will pull the rug out from under the original plan. Obama would just shrug in a theatrical way and say "How was I to know they would put stipulations on paying it back?
A protest is certainly in order.
One thing killing Social Security would do - just as the Nazis did - is get rid of "undesirables," that is, those of us too long in years to work really hard at physical labor.
The emphasis on youth in the corporate media is not a simple mistake - it's a plan. Get the young to hate the old so they'll help get rid of us for taking "their" money.
They pretend we don't deserve this money, and imply that we're living too long.
That corporations have to make equal contributions into Soc. Sec. when we pay our share is incentive enough for the propaganda machine to get into gear - eliminate the old! Worship the young and able!
The unspoken ruling class agenda (excluding themselves, of course): Get rid of all "undesirables" in the world's populations, that is, the Elders, the disabled, those not of the proper nationality - just as Hitler preached and tried to finish.
How to fight this - well, I've found over the years that Petitions are not a very effective tool. They can and do instantly drop them into the wastebasket.
But insistent phoning and creative "visits" seem to have good effect. Also threatening to vote for the other party (doesn't matter which) helps, too, if done massively.
The secret is to do whatever one does massively. And keep it up. Doing something just once can be ignored or smashed, but persistence and determination can win the day.
The more money the USA government takes from tax payers, the more they leverage the money taken into bigger loans from the FED.
We owe the FED 14 trillion dollars, if not more, and we have a 5 trillion dollar tax income.
Even if they tax the rich an extra trillion a year, unless we cut spending by 2 trillion a year, there is no way to pay the interest and pay down the debt.
Cut all the pork, shut down 700 of the 800 military bases, trim the military spending to 250 billion a year from 1.2 trillion, shut down the 72 fusion centers and FEMA camps, repeal the Patriot Acts, shut down the police state stasi and all the data collection networks.
Stop the wars. thats 12 billion a month, that we know of, Hello , any body home.
Create a fair tax system on commerce , not on wages, get rid of the IRS and all the ridicules infrastructure and paper work that costs us 800 billion a year.
We could shave off 3 trillion a year, increase tax revenue to 8 trillion a year. and all Americans and employers would get an instant increase in cash flow, because they would not have to pay taxes and social security on wages
Some one earning 40000 a year would have a 5000 raise and employers would save 2500 in not paying matching social security.
The commerce fair tax would collect more than enough money to pay on the entitlement programs that Americans need, and pay off all debt to the FED.
And once and for all, the FED is the 13 richest banks in the world, why do we allow them to print money for us, and not able able to audit these crooks. They just print money out of thin air , and we pay them back plus interest.
Americans need to take back control of the mint. We have been getting robbed since 1913.
This must be too much common sense for our elected officials to understand, for they seem to enjoy keeping us in abject servitude.
America , land of the free, and home of the elected criminal elite.
YES....YES....YES NOW....before it's too late
I'll sign it.
I'll sign it.
THIS is the most important thing to remember about this Pledge to Resist ( with the key word being RESIST):
In explaining the Pledge to Resist during the 80's, Naiman wrote: "The basic idea was that you sign a pledge that if Reagan invades Nicaragua, you're willing to get arrested in mass civil disobedience."
So, it's not as simple as just lending your signature. When you make this pledge, you promise to resist, and not just with letters to the editor, to the Congress, White House, etc., which rarely achieve anything. If I read Naiman right, he is calling for that, and much, much more. We will actually be required to SHOW UP for this fight. In person.
And someone's suggestion of a multi-generational Woodstock II for Social Security is not an off-the-wall idea. It's the kind of event that would draw a lot of us to one place.
The Tea Party organizers figured this one out already, and beat us to it. They held "picnics" and "socials" where they invited people to come dressed up in red,white and blue "patriot" costumes, where they had angry speeches, country music, pot-luck food, and lots of guns...oh, what fun. And initially, we all laughed at it. (Except for the gun part.)
But it worked.
So, Mr. Naiman, where is the website I can go to to lend my name and my promise to resist in person when called upon? Can we use this website as a jumping off place for organizing our own Woodstock II? If so, I will dust off my headband and my old tie-dieds and rev up the VW bus. Maybe we can get Country Joe, Richie Havens, and CSN&Y to join us.
I would gladly sign a pledge. I have been paying into social security all my working life and it better be there when I retire. I really think the politicians and wall street have gone way to far. The anger against the 'plutocracy' is palpable. The 98% of us that are not wealthy are aching to be heard.
I would definitely sign a pledge; I spend a lot of time now on email & calls to my Senators & Congressperson, emails to President Obama & I really don't know how much good it does, since I live in the "liberal" NE. It has to be the combined might of hundreds of thousands of us to make a difference. If those who live in the 'red' states aren't willing to stand up as well, the odds are against accomplishing anything. I'd like to see some consolidation of organizations such as this one, MoveOn, OFA, OMBWatch, Public Citizen, Common Cause, etc, etc.... perhaps united effort would accomplish more.
I'll sign. We gotta do this! Say when, and where. Q
I'll sign
I am nearing retirement myself. I'm a baby boomer who has been paying social security taxes every paycheck for myself and for my parents. Yes, I am ready and willing to occupy my congressional representatives offices and, if necessary, get arrested. This is for my children (who are paying, too) and my grandchildren. We cannot allow our government to be manipulated into giving away everything that we have worked for and saved.