As most of us are preparing for the holidays a small clique in the Senate, with their collaborators in the Washington punditry, are planning for a dramatic hostage-taking event. Their target of opportunity is a bill to increase the nation's debt limit. The hostage-takers propose to obstruct the bill's passage unless the rest of the country gives into their demands to cut Social Security and Medicare and takes other steps to meet their warped sense of fiscal responsibility.
The debt limit must be increased at regular intervals in order to allow the government to function normally because the government is currently operating at a deficit. If the debt limit is not passed, then at some point the government will not be able to pay workers and contractors. It won't be able to send out Social Security checks or make payments for Medicaid and unemployment insurance to state governments. And, it will not be able to make interest payments on government bonds, effectively defaulting on the national debt.
As a condition of allowing a bill to increase the debt limit to pass the Senate, the hostage-takers are demanding that Congress agree to establish a special commission to make recommendations for reducing the long-term budget deficit. This commission would be stacked with people who want to cut Social Security and Medicare.
When the commission makes its report to Congress, which would include huge cuts for these programs along with some tax increases, the report would not be subject to regular Congressional procedures. It would be fast-tracked, which means that it could not be amended, debate would be limited, and there would not be the usual 60 votes required to bring the report to a vote in the Senate. In short, the deck would be stacked toward approving large cuts in ways that would not ordinarily be the case.
The hostage-takers argue that such a commission is necessary because the current system is broken. This is another way of saying that the hostage-takers have been unable to get what they want through the normal democratic process. Rather than trying to organize popular support for their position, like people pushing for health care reform, restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, or an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this group of senators and their collaborators prefer the route of hostage-taking. They hope that by threatening the passage of a vital bill, they can advance measures for which they lack public support.
This adventure in hostage-taking is especially infuriating since this gang did so much to push the country into its current economic crisis. At a time when some of us were trying to warn of the housing bubble and the economic disaster that would inevitably follow in the wake of its collapse, this crew was filling the airwaves and newspapers with their scare stories of huge deficits in 2050. Of course, these deficits were driven almost entirely by the cost of maintaining a broken health care system, a point that they rarely chose to highlight.
As a result of the bubble and its collapse, we have enormous deficits today, in addition to 15 million unemployed and tens of millions of homeowners underwater in their mortgage. But the hostage-takers act as though nothing has changed. They acknowledge no responsibility for this disaster and just press on in their drive to gut Social Security and Medicare, two programs that are now more important than ever as a result of the economic mismanagement of the last decade.
The key here is to refuse to give in to the hostage-takers. This is a high stakes game of chicken, but at the end of the day, the hostage-takers, many of whom are financed by Wall Street money, stand to lose far more than the rest of us. None of us should want to see the government defaulting on its debt, but if this crew wants to press the matter, the Wall Street gang will lose much more than those of us who don't possess great wealth.
The Wall Street gang may have suckered us with getting the TARP bailout money last year, but we don't have to let them get away with the same trick again. If they want to threaten to crash the financial system with their irresponsible hostage-taking, then we should steal a line from a former president: "bring it on!"
Social Security Surplus fund holds $6.4 TRILLION in US Treasury Bills (T-Bills) securely filed away in the Federal Department of US Government Debt located in West Virginia. This money has been borrowed by Congress from the Social Security Fund to cover expenses for government costs of running non SS activities like wars and bank bailouts. The S S Surplus has run between $700 and $800 Billion annually since 2000.
If Congress thinks they can ignore this $6.4 TRILLION owed to the Baby Boomer's safety net, SS benefits, they will have a Second American Revolution on their greedy hands.
Th $6.4 Trillion does not belong to the US Government, it belongs to the Workers who have paid into the SS System. Congress beware! this is a 'Line in the Sand' you don't dare to cross.
Thanks for the article.
Instead of using the power of the government to serve the needs of its citizens they use it to enrich themselves exclusively. What happens when they finally rob us of all hope. Will there be anyone left to support their madness.
There have been times when our greatest strength was in uniting to resolve serious issues. Now is such a time.
and stop the crazy...
start putting ourselves before wall street and corp. america...
turn the table on them and start treating them like they treat us...
Congress is independent of the people who elect them but they are servants of the corporations and banks that fill the government troughs they slobber from.
We could IMMEDIATELY extend Medicare to the uninsured as a matter of national emergency - what with the flu and all. Forget about giving 800B+ to subsidize insurance corporations.
We would have to increase the interest rate immediately on all that taxpayer money sloshing around on Wall Street.
A 5-cent gas tax increase wouldn't even be noticed with the manipulation of prices by the oil companies.
A 10% luxury tax on all those limos, yachts, mansions, jewelry, etc. would get their attention and I'm sure that the "deficit" discussion would fade away.
the national debt is about 12 trillion
total personal income taxes collected by the govt are about 1.5 billion--(half goes to the military 700 billion)
interest rates at 5 percent on the 12 trillion debt is 600 billion for interest expense
if interest rates rise america is in deep trouble.----
We fought for the right to have our own money system in something called the War for Independence, when Britain refused to allow the Colonies to have their own money system.
The right to create, control and regulate the money system belongs to the people.
The Congress has transferred that right of the American people to a group of financial corporations who are having a field day by using the money system to extend debts deeper and further into the American economy.
Had the Congress used the people's power to create money, we would not have the national debt.
See Pete Young's Mother of All Free Lunches here.
http://www.economicstability.org/current-events/the-free-lunch
The Money System Common.
Think on it.
Ending the wars, trimming the defense-military budget, and getting rid of those private no-bid contractors who have pillaged our treasury would help balance the budget. So, too with our foreign aid policies. We give way too much (disproportionately) to Israel, and we're paying clerics and tribal leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to to fight, while we're still losing on all fronts. The governments of those nations are corrupt, deemed illegitimate by their people, and weak, as they can't even control their own security forces, much less the local civilian populations.
The net result for those wars is we raided and looted our treasury, the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and went into serious debt, lost nearly 5,000 American lives, disabled another 45,000 US personnel, with nothing to show for it. There's no democracy in those countries, and none are allies.
If you could wave a magic wand and make all that go away, we'd still be deep in debt. And the economy would still be in the tank.
The higher debt limit is a fact of life, for now.
Put some work into ending the wars, enact health insurance reform and financial sector reform and maybe we can talk about debt reduction.
There's a reason they call it the debt-money system.
economicstability dott org.
Simply point out that overseas bases and expeditions are draining the treasury. When "they" say social security we say bloated defense. Pay for SS and health care through military pullbacks.
We should advocate a homeshores defense and prosperity policy that keeps our jobs, troops, capital and creativity within our homeshores. No offshoring. Stop all foreign aid related to arms. The Peace Corps (minus intelligence service staffing) should be our foreign thrust. Dig wells and promote appropriate technology for self sufficiency of emerging economies. You know - make friends and make them resistant to tyranny.
Letting them linger on, I think, will be a long term problem for us because they are trying to inflict a death of a thousand cuts on this country. Many people aren't noticing the small mean things they are doing.
Let them have at it again and make the big deep fatal blow and truly horrify everybody with how wicked they are and lose whatever credibility they have. Those of us who survive their second coming can cobble together a better tomorrow.
Did any of them vote to stop funding the Unnecessary $$$ TRILLION-dollar fiasco in Iraq???
Stop funding the Wars Now - fund only for the troops to bring them home and support them in the future. Stop the payments to Halliburton and Blackwater, etc Now.
Then we'll talk reasonably about the deficit - After We Stop the TRILLIONS FOR WAR.