Politicians who signed off on TARP lived to regret the day they did (especially Republican ones, just ask Bob Bennett and Mike Castle). Those votes will haunt the congressmen who supported the bailouts for years to come. That's the same exact thing that's going to happen to politicians who sell out the middle class by agreeing to cut Social Security.
The chairmen of the Deficit-Reduction Commission just released a report that recommends that we cut benefits for current retirees by 3 to 6% and eventually raise the retirement age to 69. Why not make it 89 while you're at it? At that point, Social Security will be completely solvent forever because only three people will live long enough to collect it. Remember, it's not just that you can't retire till later, it's that you don't get benefits for those extra two to four years - that's a huge cut of your Social Security.
Plus, to add insult to injury they also propose to cap Medicare. Some worry this might even lead to rationing. This helps because the cuts to Social Security didn't hurt enough.
These are all non-starters. Social Security currently has a $2.5 trillion surplus. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying. They have created a fake crisis about Social Security not being able to pay full benefits by 2037. So, the answer is to shred benefits now? How does that help?
Of course, this proposal doesn't help you to collect the Social Security payments that you're owed after a lifetime of paying into the system. It helps them rob you. Now, those are stark terms, but totally justified when you consider the second part of this so-called Deficit-Reduction Commission. Instead of addressing the deficit by doing spending cuts and tax increases (both painful and both necessary to reduce deficits), they actually cut taxes. That's mental. That makes the deficit much, much worse.
They propose to cut the top rate from 35% to 23% for the personal income tax, and the corporate tax rate would get cut from 35% to 26%. What an unbelievable joke. So, you have to cut Social Security and Medicare because you just had to give the rich one more gigantic tax cut? They'll claim they are getting rid of some tax exemptions and credits, but that doesn't come close to making up for the tax cuts they have proposed.
But we have to thank them for making their intentions undeniably clear. This Deficit-Reduction Commission has nothing to do with the deficit. It never did. I was always thought it was an excuse to cut Social Security to pay for the tax cuts that went to the rich and ate up the Social Security surplus. It turns out, it's more audacious than that. It cuts Social Security to pay for whole new round of tax cuts for the rich. The balls on these guys.
A new poll out by PPP indicates that when asked how to balance the budget, 43% of real Americans said tax the wealthy, 22% said cut defense spending and only 12% said cut Social Security. They didn't stutter. That's crystal clear. If some of our current politicians make the mistake of backing these cuts for Social Security, those numbers are going to come back to bite them. And they'll be our former politicians. I, for one, will work the rest of my life to kick out of office anyone who signs off on this robbery. I don't give a damn what party they claim to be from. That includes the president.
Through all of my frustrations with the president, I have never called for a primary opponent against him in 2012. And I don't know any other established progressive that has. If he pushes for this plan, he should definitely get a primary challenger. Because I couldn't vote for a guy who agreed to rob the middle class like this. This is definitely the last straw. If he does this, then he was never on our side to begin with.
UPDATE: Here is a petition that tells President Obama that he'll lose our vote in 2012 if he cuts Social Security.
Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks
Rob Johnson: Deficit Commission Recs: We Gotta Get Out of This Place
Money cannot run any free natioin. Only godly ideas can produce a progressive nation. These godly ideas are coming from a panetheism God, not from Congress, atheism, deism, materialism, and evolution. Yes, there is an alternative to the stinky money that is controlling our nation.
George Shollenberger
appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to
dictate Energy policy and push us to invade Iraq.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no
threat to us.
You didn't get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on
said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources
than the previous 42 Presidents combined.
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn't get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies
that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping
Americans.
You didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.
You didn't get mad with the worst 8 years of job creations in several
decades.
You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives
because they had no health insurance.
You finally got mad when a black man was elected President and decided
that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are
sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the
millions, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the
worst economic disaster since 1929 are all okay with you, but helping
fellow Americans who are sick...Oh, Hell No!!
IT'S ABOUT TIME SOMEBODY GOT MAD! LET THE TEA PARTY KNOW YOU'RE MAD!! STAND UP,AND MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN!!! "PEOPLE GET READY THERE'S A TRAIN A COMING, PICKING UP PASSENGERS ALONG THE WAY! YOU DN'T NEED NO TICKET, YOU JUST GET ON BOARD!!"..(FROM SONG BY PERCY MAYFIELD-THE IMPRESSIONS)..
Of course, creating fear is one of the best ways to justify a desired end. Whether it is lumping terrorism with any religion, doctoring stats to support global warming, or creating some amorphous fear targeting the sensitive area of one's finances. Fear is one of the best weapons ever devised, a paralyzer that takes away one's sense of reason.
It's always a matter of priorities. If all governments would re-prioritize and shift emphasis on armaments and defense spending (or space programs) to social-oriented education, healthcare, personal development, infrastructure, etc., there would be far more productivity and reception to the positive. Health and ageing would be discussable matters, part of debate, but not fear-driven. Just an ideal world I guess, but utopia can form standards to aim at.
Unless a proper audit of Social Security is done and results availed, no debate would be complete. It would all boil down to needless and endless speculation. Fear is part of what fills the information vacuum currently there.
To pay back the money of all of us who have paid into SS for all of our lives, they will have to raise taxes on the very rich.
The entire argument is ridiculous. There are many areas to cut. Cut defense spending. They don't need $500 hammers and $2000 toilets. Cut the benefits of Congress. Make them pay out of pocket for their own health expenses, like I do. Cut the aid we give to other countries. Perhaps our citizens should benefit from our money.
I am angry at the very suggestion that my money should not be paid back to me, as promised when I sent the money into the government's keeping over the years. This is not an argument we should be having. Our elected officials are supposed to represent us and protect our rights. They need to do their jobs.
>>I don't get why these politicans call SS entitlement or socialistic.
Because it's a welfare entitlement.
>>>>It's retirement insurance is all. All insurance pays only if you need it and not everybody needs it, although most will take it even if they don't need it - and that's wrong. We've been paying on our SS insurance our whole lives, so if we need it it better be there. IMHO.
Nope. The average worker entering Social Security receives all his contributions, his employer contributions and imputed interest within six years. After that it's pure welfare.
Do the math. How can you work for forty years, draw social security for 20-25 years, all from a payroll tax of only 15%. And today's retirees (like me) paid a hell of a lot less than the 15% (combined with employer).
And SS is running a deficit this year of roughly $50 billion, which must be financed on top of the ruinous Bush/Obama deficits.
Pick a party. Either one. They all been lying through their teeth, pandering for votes. Now Social Security and Medicare face nearly $100 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities.
What are your sources for those assertions?
This is the easiest one for amateurs to read, from the Dallas Fed
http://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2008/fs080528.cfm
"Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percent. "
Just do a page search for "$99.2" and you'll go right there.
I said "nearly $100 trillion" -- which is precisely what I've proven.
Deal with it.
This is the easiest one for amateurs to read, from the Dallas Fed
http://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2008/fs080528.cfm
"Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion ... "
I suggest you expand your sources beyond HuffPost, NPR and Salon.
If this bold idea is pursued aggressively, it would prevent future oil spills and save jobs, the budget, the economy and the environment and cost nothing.
For links to Youtube and iReport videos go to
http://whiÂÂtecollargÂrÂeenspaceÂ.bÂlogspotÂ.coÂm/
I shared this plan with the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming and Secretary Chu's office at the Dept. of Energy. It is out of the box thinking that is based on proven principles, low cost, and with no negative environmental impact. Aggressively implementing it would be much less costly that another oil spill. This initiative is even more relevant since Bernanke stated that we must get the Federal deficit under control and Obama is ordering all dept's to cut budgets by 5%.â€â€
Anyone who votes for it needs to be removed from office. Anyone. NO compromise, no incrementalism. NO CUTS, or OUT you go.
George W. Bush always cried about how dividend paychecks were DOUBLE taxed. The first tax was the corporate tax on profits, and the second tax was the personal tax on dividends. Perhaps its time to TRIPLE tax dividends. Let's deduct social security taxes from them.
Sorry, wrong. There is never a tax on Social Security benefits. Ever. I'm on it. There is a tax on EARNED income above a certain level -- about $10,000 if I recall correctly.
Say you retire with a part-time job as many folks do these days. Assume your job pays $15,000. THAT income is the only one taxed.
We are the only major industrial nation that taxes corporate profits twice. Plus we're only 0.5% below the highest corporate income tax rates in the world. We have the world's longest depreciation writeoffs on new investment that creates jobs.
There's a special loophole for small-business corporations --corporations but 100% exempt from the double-taxation of corporate profits. The IRS manual for small businesses advises us to form a SubChapter S Corporation - "to avoid the double taxation of corporate profits."
Now you know why all our jobs are disappearing. And that most Americans are totally clueless how these programs actually work.
Birthers aren't the only one who believe in fairy tales.
Simply have the Federal Government take over the credit card business.
They will issue EVERYONE in America a no limit, no interest, no payment (if inconvienent, like the Corps) card. Since no one will have to work, you have also cured the traffic problem. What rush-hour? And we won't out-source any jobs because we don't have any to out-source. Take that,China!
Your purchases will be limited to anything you think you need. Times two.