How deceptive for politicians to stress "entitlements" when they talk about gutting Social Security and Medicare, two programs long paid for by their beneficiaries. The Republicans make it sound as if they're doing us a favor, cutting government waste by seeking to strangle America's two most successful domestic programs. And now Barack Obama seems poised to join their camp in undermining the essential lifeline for most of the nation's seniors, many of whom lost their retirement savings in the banking meltdown.
These threatened programs are not government handouts to a privileged class, like defense contractors and bailed-out bankers, who do feel eminently entitled to pig out at the federal trough. On the contrary, Social Security and Medicare have been funded by a regressive tax that falls disproportionately on working middle-class income earners, while caps in the system leave the wealthy -- most notably the hedge fund hustlers who helped cause today's economic crisis -- largely untaxed.
While there are many plausible ways to ensure the future of Medicare and Social Security -- and extending a fair share of the burden to wealthier individuals is a good place to start -- such changes should not be considered in the context of a bargain to raise the debt ceiling. These programs have nothing at all to do with a national debt that has spiraled out of control in the past four years as a result of untethered corporate greed. In that time the debt -- already inflamed by two wars fought on the credit card while President George W. Bush cut taxes for the wealthy -- rose a whopping 50 percent as a consequence of the deepest recession in 70 years, brought on by the banking collapse.
Indeed, the economic turmoil has put considerable pressure on these programs. In the past two years, expenditures for Social Security exceeded non-interest income for the first time since 1983, as the trustees of the fund reported the deficits "are in large part due to the weakened economy. ..." The interest earned on the more than $2.4 trillion in the Social Security trust fund held by the Treasury more than made up the shortfall, and the fund will be able to fulfill its projected obligations, even given the strain of the baby boomers' retirement, until 2036.
Social Security is a particularly weird whipping boy for what ails us, since the program has been solvent since its inception and will be so for the next quarter of a century. Is there any other public or corporate entity that we can guarantee will be in as good shape for the next 25 years, and even at that point be able to pay 75 percent of its obligations? Presidents both Republican and Democrat have routinely dipped into the Social Security trust fund to float the national debt, and yet critics from both parties have the effrontery now to treat as some sort of indulgence a program for which seniors, current and future, have paid. Seniors are as much "entitled" to the payback on their investment as the folks who buy Treasury notes, people who will be at the forefront of those protected by a rise in the debt ceiling.
Yes, there are more pressing issues with Medicare. Those have to do with cost containment in the medical industry, a situation aggravated when the Republican Bush expanded prescription drug coverage. Unfortunately, health care cost containment was not a serious focus of Obama's health care reform, and without a national policy alternative it is difficult to contain the cost for seniors who are medically the most needy and therefore the most vulnerable.
As with the problems of Social Security, the problems of Medicare can be dealt with handily by increasing payments from the wealthier segment of the population. A very limited effort in that direction was included in the Obama health care law, which requires a 0.9 percent increase in Medicare payments beginning in 2013 for couples earning above $250,000.
Even more troubling than potential Medicare cuts is the threat to Medicaid, a program that provides health care to 68 million needy children, disabled individuals, pregnant women and poor seniors. These people are "entitled" to such aid only as a matter of government-recognized decency that has historically been supported by both Republican and Democratic presidents. That Obama is now even considering reducing support for the most vulnerable in the current harsh economy has brought written opposition from two-thirds of Senate Democrats.
It is absurd that Medicaid, along with Medicare and Social Security, is on the chopping block when there is no serious effort to find savings in a defense budget equal to that of the rest of the world's nations combined, and still at Cold War era levels despite the lack of a sophisticated military enemy. And that the GOP-led House has gotten a supposedly progressive president to consider doing serious damage to our most vulnerable population in order to placate Republicans determined to continue massive tax breaks for the wealthy is morally obscene.
Robert Reich: Why Mitch McConnell Will Win the Day
Why are you protecting the real FREELOADERS....the Tax Evaders tht you are defending..the "job creators" tht dont create jobs, the top 2% tht loophole their profits....Unless you have a portfolio, you are fighting the wrong side....
1) raise the limit on which we pay social security from $106K to 200K.
2) convert all medical care to a single payer system with more eficient methods and less paperwork, like almost other countries in the world.
The individual liberty that "progressives" want to suppress in fact was, and still is, the most progressive idea in the history of human government. It was conservatism, not liberalism that made America great.
Of course to "conservatives" facts are merely inconvenient.
:-]
I would truly like to see President Obama take SS and Medicare off the table. He's doing a great job by stating: "This process is confirming what the American people think is the worst about Washington: that everyone is more interested in posturing, political positioning, and protecting their base, than in resolving real problems." Stay strong Mr. president and help us all live a better life.
If you believe that government has a role in feeding people, that doesn't make you a better person than the other that believes that government should have a limited role in people's lives.
A conservative does not want people to live in poverty or disease. A conservative just sees that this country was founded on the principles that government handouts are not the solution to life's problems.
Conservatives have stressed personal responsibility and the local community in developing private solutions to social problems, while Liberals have emphasized the redistribution of wealth through the federal tax system and bureaucratic regulation.
Please stop pretending that if government doesn't provide a service for the poor or needy, then there will be no help for the poor and needy. Americans are the most generous people in the world, and there are local programs that already exist, or will fill the vacuum of need if the federal government returns to it's constitutional limits.
Liberals advocate that the government do something and the "wealthy" pay for it. This allows them to feel superior without ever having to do anything themselves.
Your other statements are not worth commenting over.
Liberals want the government to rule and take care of the collective.
For the American system of government to work, there’s an assumption that individuals will take care of themselves. This calls for individuals to have a sense of personal responsibility.
The assumption is that an individual will take the steps necessary to be self-sufficient by working in an occupation that they can contribute and be compensated to pay their own way.
In the past, the American culture prized personal responsibility and looked down on the willingness and desire to take without producing more than they consumed.
(Source: Congressional Budget Office, Office of Management and Budget.)
(Oct. 1, 2009 to Sept. 30, 2010 = U.S. Government (Fiscal Year) FY 2010, etc.)
FY 2008: $2.5 Trillion
FY 2009: $2.1 Trillion
FY 2010: $2.16 Trillion: of which:
.......... 42 % came from Individual Income Taxes
.......... 40 % came from Social Security/Social Insurance Taxes
.......... 9 % came from Corporate Income Taxes
.......... Other: Excise, Estate and Gift Taxes, Customs Duties, Misc. Receipts
Ya do know that big oil, big pharma, and big agriculture and defense contractors are getting far more handout money than the widows and orphans - yet it doesn't seem to bother you.
go die in a dumpster? The people that created the economic meltdown just love it when the poor fight among themselves for scraps. SS is in trouble because politicians used it as a piggy bank to give HUGE unsupportable tax cuts to the demanding greedy who want to plunder even more from the needy. Green Day had it correct: Gotta Know Your Enemy!
What is worse is that too many sheeple actually believe that SS is a bad idea, even many without a pot to pizz in themselves.