"Has Obama Created a Social Security Death Panel?" reads the headline. But it's not in the National Enquirer -- it appears atop an article in the Nieman Watchdog, the Harvard's journalism review.
Rhetoric like that is usually the reserve of unruly hippie bloggers, so it's notable that the academic world is talking about Obama's Deficit Commission in that way. Even more notable are the article's authors: Altman and Kingson both served on the Obama Campaign's Retirement Security Advisory Committee, and then on the Advisory Committee to the Social Security Administration Transition Team.
Altman was on the faculty of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, has taught at the Harvard Law School, and was Alan Greenspan's assistant when he chaired the commission that developed the 1983 Social Security amendments. She also served as a legislative assistant on Social Security issues to John Danforth, whose Danforth-Kerrey Commission was the predecessor to Obama's commission. Kingson was also a staffer on the Greenspan Commission, and was Social Security Advisor to the Kerrey-Danfoth Commission.
Alex Lawson has been livestreaming the closed door of the Deficit Commission on FDL. They have refused to conduct their deliberations in public, but the committee is stacked with enough votes to cut benefits. It takes 14 out of 18 votes to pass any recommendation on the committee, and there appear to be a sufficient number of votes to do so based on the past positions of individual members. So Altman and Kingson raise important questions, but to my mind, none more important than these:
Q. Why is the Commission apparently working so closely with billionaire Peter G. Peterson, who served in the Nixon administration and who has a clear ideological agenda?
Q. Mr. Peterson has been on a decades-long crusade against Social Security. The day after the first meeting of the commission, which focused heavily on the need to cut Social Security, the co-chairs and two other members of the commission participated in a Peterson event that reinforced the same message. A Peterson-funded foundation is supplying commission staff. And Peterson's foundation is funding America Speaks to develop a series of high-profile town halls across the country to host "a national discussion to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget." (For more background about Mr. Peterson, see William Greider in the Nation on Looting Social Security -- Part 2.)
One important lesson I learned from the health care fight: the health care industry had been laying the groundwork for this for years, and that should have been an early focus. It wasn't until the Gruber incident that I learned how the medical industrial complex had been working through foundations like Kaiser for over a decade to basically buy the academic underpinnings of their plan (and probably longer if you count the GOP/Heritage response to HillaryCare as its roots). They ran a nice back-and-forth between Congress, the White House, the CBO and Gruber to make it look he was supplying independent confirmation of the health care bill, when in fact it was all part of the same carefully orchestrated plan. It bought them a lot of credibility that they otherwise would not have had in the academic world.
Pete Peterson has been serving the same function on Social Security that Kaiser and others did on health care. From the Concord Commission to the Peterson Foundation, cutting Social Security benefits and diverting as much money as possible into Wall Street's coffers has been Peterson's holy grail. He himself was on the Danforth-Kerrey Commission, and was set to be the key note speaker at Obama's first fiscal responsibility summit shortly after the inauguration. After we reported it, the White House canceled him then denied he had been scheduled to speak, but Robert Kuttner subsequently confirmed it in the Washington Post.
The current budget deficit will be used to justify cuts to Social Security benefits, just as the surplus was used to justify cuts during the Clinton era. As Steven Gillon said the other day when he was here talking about his book on the secret Clinton-Gingrich deal negotiated by Bowles to cut Social Security in the 90s, Bowles is running the same play.
Peterson plays a huge role in the world that shapes the thinking that drives the commission. Bill Clinton simply gushed about him at Peterson's own recent fiscal summit. As long as Peterson is allowed to hide in the shadows and pull the strings, the choices that the Commission will make will come from a very small menu. Defense cuts will not be a factor. They won't be talking about the trillion dollars they could save over the next decade simply by expanding Medicare to cover businesses. They're only going to ask the questions that drive them to the same answer: cut Social Security.
It's going to be important to tell the tale of Peterson's inexorable march and diffuse the notion that the Commission is simply responding to temporal economic factors. This is class war, pure and simple. The rich against the poor. Hedge fund billionaires and defense contractors against senior citizens struggling to get by. Altman and Kingson have done us all a tremendous favor by opening up the discourse and asking important questions that need to be answered before the Commission makes its report on December. That's just in time to jam it through a lame duck Congress before the Christmas break, something both John Conyers and John Boehner have warned about -- and a repeat of what Bowles planned to do in the 90s.
It appears there are no new ideas. Just the long, patient plans of hedge fund billionaires who don't want to pay their taxes to dismantle the social safety net.
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with voters. If he's willing to risk that then he might not make it through the next election. I'm reaching a point where I can't even watch him on tv or listen to him on the radio, not good.
I started as an enthusiastic Obama supporter. I favored him over (Hilary) Clinton because he voted against attacking Iraq. I liked his position on healthcare, I liked his stance on energy independence and he seemed to favor a New Deal-type jobs program to get the economy going.
I became disillusioned watching his performance during healthcare. He lied (no other word) about facts. Though he has said that Reaganism is dead, he is a continuation of it.
Incidentally, I believe Social Security is a high point for American society and that it is fundamentally just and sound. I do not believe benefits need to be reduced. But, if there is anything wrong with Social Security, the fix is to eliminate the cap on FICA taxes. Right now, the 6.2% tax rate goes to zero after the taxpayer earns $106,800. So, Peterson pays $6,622 in FICA taxes -- the same as all wealthy people and anyone who earns $107,000 or more.
If you believe that Social security is broken and needs fixing, you simply eliminate this cap so that FICA becomes *flat." (It's much worse than flat now.) You don't need to reduce benefits. I wanted Obama to fix this on his first day in office. If he was who he should be, he'd do this instead of reducing benefits. More proof that he's not what or who he pretends to be.
Enough about Obama. I think Social Security "reform" will be the next target of those who think the wealthy have too little and the poor too much. I believe that the instant response to anyone who suggests that Social Security benefits must be cut is to state that the first thing to do is to remove the FICA income tax limit -- to make FICA flat. It is absolutely true that this will fix anything that is "broken" about Social Security. It also has the benefit that it puts the wrong side on the defensive -- instead of taking away benefits to the poor, they must worry about their own taxes going up. (No effect at all on people earning less than $107K. It *does* affect middle class people but the overwhelmingly greater effect is on the wealthy.)
If enough people push repeal of the FICA tax cap, then (a) it may happen, which would be great, or (b) it may get people to shut up about taking away benefits, which would also be great.
Blackwater and Halliburton keep getting billions.
The big banks will not be broken up.
W and Cheney walk around as free men.
And the public option and drug negotiations were sold out so the president could keep getting campaign contributions form the wealthiest 1%
Now he has a d.e.a.t.h. panel for social security.
Kucinich 2012.
there are just too many red flags.
Social Security is not in financial trouble. It is however in mortal danger. A group of wealthy elites seek to destroy Social Security either by privatizing it or welching on the debt secured by the Treasury bonds.
In reality, simple adjustments to the tax structure will sustain the fund indefinitely. Removing the cap on wages is one easy fix. There are others. But the members of the commission have a history of Social Security hatred and they are determined to destroy the program. In Obama, they may well have a loyal disciple.
It is now time for liberals to accept the possibility that Obama may well become the most dangerous president in our history. After all, he stacked the committee against Main Street.
So they are only in good shape as long as the government can continue making payments on those bonds.