Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
It is probably just me, but it seems that every time we hear about a proposed deal to extend the debt limit and avert a government shutdown and a debt default, the plan does nothing more than cut the taxes on the wealthiest Americans and Corporations. The latest proposal by the so-called Gang of Six is just one more example of Congress attacking the Middle Class.
“The cuts in the Gang of Six plan aren’t minor, either. It proposes a chained CPI adjustment to Social Security, which may not be a bad idea when combined with other measures to boost benefits and strengthen the program, but on its own is tantamount to a $1,300 cut each year for recipients over their lifetimes. Strengthen Social Security co-chair and former Obama adviser Nancy Altman has denounced the idea as an overly harsh cut. “The chained-CPI is poor policy, and given that seniors vote in disproportionately high numbers, it is equally poor politics,” she said.” Think Progress This latest attempt by both sides of Congress to claim victory over the imaginary debt crisis just seems to be another attempt to please their corporate masters.
Does it bother anyone else that a group of Senators from both sides of the aisle would call themselves the “Gang of Six”? These Senators are doing their best to terrorize the Middle Class so maybe the moniker is appropriate. While some of the details of this proposed plan have not been agreed upon, what we do know troubles someone like myself who may be utilizing Medicare and Social Security in the next few years. “These tentative changes include repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax and establishing three simple tax brackets for individuals, while cutting “tax expenditures” and adjusting the corporate tax rate to between 23 percent and 29 percent.” Business Insider How can a tax rate be lowered for major corporations who pay no taxes now?
The proposed cuts to Social Security retirees is especially disturbing. “Lawmakers and the Obama administration are reportedly considering switching to a “chained” Consumer Price Index. According to the advocacy group Strengthen Social Security, the chained-CPI could lead to annual Social Security benefit cuts of $560 for those aged 75, $984 for those aged 85 and $1,392 for those aged 95. “The proposal to shift to the chained-CPI is actually a stealth attack on Social Security,” said Joan Entmacher, director of family economic security at the National Women’s Law Center, during a Friday conference call with reporters.” Huffington Post Is anyone surprised that the Congressional terrorists would be considering reducing payments to Seniors and reducing corporate tax rates? Just why is Social Security being discussed when it has no impact on the Deficit?
I have a novel, Gang of America idea to suggest that would actually reduce the deficit and protect Social Security. Actually, it is not my idea, but the idea of the vast majority of Americans who are repeatedly telling Congress to tax the wealthy and Corporations and to leave Social Security alone. I realize my Gang does not have much lobbying power, but we have millions of votes. Congress, it is time to get on board with the Gang of America’s ideas and you just might save the economy and your jobs. Let’s hear your ideas to “fix” the imaginary debt crisis.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
Henman
“What’s your alternative to Social Security? Give it to Wall Street to invest for you? (And watch it get wiped out every 10 years- if the fees don’t eat it up first). Or maybe do what so many poor people do- buy lottery tickets or go to the casino every week and kiss your future goodbye?”
People never planned for or retired before social security? Why is confiscating people’s money under the assumption theyre too stupid to know what to do with it, preferable to allowing people to keep their money and plan their own retirement? Just because you decided not to blink when the government treated you like a child and told you it knew better than you what to do with the money it stole from you, doesn’t mean you are entitled to a damn thing.
“Social Security is working and working well. It is fully funded and solvent for the next 25 years. ”
Sure it is. As long as all those new members of the workforce get taxed to pay for your benefits i guess you arent going to complain much about the worlds biggest ponzi scheme. Politicians from both sides of the aisle stole your money while you werent looking? Who cares? Steal it from the kids right? It is “your goddamned money” all along right? If it was why werent you so angry and concerned about it 30 years ago when they were stealing it from you and funding their re-election campaigns? Now when its time to collect you dont care who has to pay for it as long as you get what you feel entitled to.
” All we have to do is protect it from the Republicans, and deal makers like Obama, and fools like you who have drunk deeply from the Republican fountain of bullshit. ”
What exactly is there to protect? The entire social security fund is nothing but IOU’s from previous congresses. Is what you want to protect the forcible extraction of money from a younger generation to pay for your ill planned retirement?
“It is probably just me”
No raff,you have a lot of company on this one.
kd,
Go back to George the first….He raided the SS to balance his budgets…Ok, so you say there is no real money in there…If, and say if the government would pay back the money that it has borrowed…do you think that there would be any money? Do you think that there would be surpluses for the next 25 years as projected….I do….But then again it is just numbers….
Say you dissolve Social Security…the money is still owed back to the people…How do you go back to paying them back….Or is your real side concern the amount that business owners actually pay….
I think that you need to come clean of your real intent….of why you think SS needs to be dissolved…is it not because it is a tax on the individual and BUSINESS that you object so much…..The people could better invest in Wall Street and make all sorts of money….You know who makes the money there…the Executives….
Unless you are excessively rich or a greedy business person, maybe you should look into why the program started to begin with…Maybe this is the final stroke of disengaging any meaningful programs that FDR created while in office….
There are so many reasons that people like you act and react…Greed or a Tool or maybe just a shrill….Who knows and at this point who cares…
rafflaw,
I think this is indeed an important story. In fact, I was going to write up a post about it but you beat me to the punch.
Questions: Why isn’t the “Gang of Six” considering taxing hedge fund managers at the same tax rate as the rest of us–and not at 15%? Why not consider taxing corporate jets? Why not eliminate tax write offs for wealthy people who own second homes?
Here are a couple more links for stories on the same subject:
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‘Gang of Six’ Plan? ‘Not So Fast,’ Says Bernie Sanders
John Nichols
The Nation,7/19/2011
http://www.thenation.com/blog/162166/gang-six-plan-not-so-fast-says-bernie-sanders
Excerpts:
With a blessing from President Obama and support even from some deficit-hawk Republicans, momentum is building for the ten-year deficit reduction plan announced Tuesday by the “Gang of Six” Democratic and Republican senators. “Can’t We All Just Get Along” commentators like the proposal, while headlines declare: “Bipartisan Support Builds for Gang of Six $3.7 Trillion Deficit-Reduction Plan.”
*****
But the one senator who has stood most steadily in defense of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—and for fiscally sound budgeting—is not joining the mob.
He is objecting. And he says the American people should join him in challenging a a plan that he says would result in devastating cuts to needed programs.
“While all of the details from the so-called Gang of Six proposals are not yet clear, what is apparent is that the plan would result in devastating cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and many other programs hat are of vital importance to working families in this country. Meanwhile, tax rates would be lowered for the wealthiest people and the largest, most profitable corporations,” says Sanders.
“This is an approach that should be rejected by the American people. At a time when the rich are becoming richer and corporate profits are soaring, at least half of any deficit-reduction package must come from upper income people and profitable corporations. We must also take a hard look at military spending, which has tripled since 1997.”
**********
Gang of Pain: Who Suffers Under the Bipartisan Deficit Reduction Scheme
George Zornick
The Nation, 7/20/2011
http://www.thenation.com/blog/162193/who-will-suffer-under-gang-six-plan?rel=emailNation
Excerpt:
Seniors: Americans over age 65 get hit from several directions under the Gang of Six proposal. First, the plan reduces Social Security benefits by 0.3 percentage points per year by tinkering with the formula that adjusts benefits based on inflation. This could lead to annual reductions of over $1,300 for some seniors. Social Security is solvent through 2037 and does not contribute to the deficit, so this change is particularly misguided.
Medicare also would also face serious reductions. The plan directs the Senate Finance Committee to reduce doctor payments by $300 billion and then cut another $200 billion from the program overall. To achieve that, anything from raising the eligibility age to increasing cost-sharing could be considered and would almost have to be in order to find savings of that magnitude.
The poor: Medicaid will no doubt suffer under the Gang of Six plan, though it’s not possible to put a dollar amount on the cuts yet. The proposal says that the government must “spend healthcare dollars more efficiently in order to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid.” That’s obviously code for spending fewer dollars, which means Medicaid recipients can expect to receive less.
The cuts would be negotiated by another bipartisan group of senators over the next six months, but the starting point for Republicans on Medicaid is downright draconian. In the budget passed by House Republicans earlier this year, supported by a vast majority of Republicans when it came up for a vote in the Senate, the program would be cut by a whopping 35 percent by 2021—even as medical costs skyrocket between now and then. It’s not likely the GOP would win that steep of a reduction, but even halfway to that point would be catastrophic for Medicaid recipients. As none other than Sen. Kent Conrad, a key figure in the Gang of Six, told the Huffington Post in June, Medicaid operates on such low overhead that a cut “goes right to medical services.”
The disabled: The Gang of Six plan completely eliminates a disability insurance program created under the 2009 healthcare reform bill. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, or CLASS Act, provides in-home care for anyone who becomes disabled, as an alternative to being placed in a nursing home. It provides up to $18,250 annually for these costs, with no lifetime cap. Premiums are $5 per month for students or people under the poverty line, and about $123 per month for everyone else, but it’s also voluntary—anybody can ask their employer to simply opt out.
The elimination of the CLASS Act is another example of sacrificing a valuable program that simply does not contribute to the deficit but rather conflicts with conservative ideology. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the program actually saves the government $70 billion through 2019, because people have to pay premiums for five years in order to qualify for benefits. It also keeps people out of nursing homes, which are a major driver of increasing medical costs.
Students: The Gang of Six blueprint directs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which oversees federal student loan programs, to come up with $70 billion in budgetary savings. Given the somewhat limited scope of what the Committee oversees, in terms of areas that actually create federal expenditures, it’s virtually impossible it could find savings of that scale without serious changes to federal student loans.
One idea popular with the Bowles-Simpson debt commission, and echoed recently by Representative Eric Cantor, would be to end the Stafford student loan program, which subsidizes the interest on loans while students are enrolled in college. An outright elimination of the program would save the government $40 billion over ten years, but would force students to pay interest on their college loans while still in school and likely not drawing much of an income, if any.
Pell Grants, which are federal scholarships for low-income students, are also likely to be on the chopping block. The program is already running an $11 billion deficit, and will no doubt be a juicy target for Senators looking to get $70 billion in cuts.
These are the areas currently identifiable based on the Gang of Six blueprint—but it calls for massive, yet-unspecified spending reductions, and possibly discretionary spending caps down the road. Given the current slant towards reductions for needy Americans in the blueprint, it’s hard to imagine future reductions will be any different.
@henman, my private retirement accounts are doing just fine and provide a far better rate of return than my social security “benefit.” And there is no danger of my broker confiscating those accounts, unlike the feds eyeballing my social security money. I just wish I wasn’t forced to contribute $11k a year to such an awful system.
Given that the Democrats have sold their souls for corporate money and the Republicans have no souls it appears as if they have left us with two choices. Vote for the Ds and watch this country slowly descend into a third-world oligarchy or vote for the Rs and crash it fast. There are times I really hope the nutballs in Congress do refuse to raise the debt limit. It would be better in some ways to get it over with quickly. Destroy the economy, set the country on fire be done with it.
Rome had really enlightened the European world for a few hundred years, bringing education, art and civic life to the far corners of its empire. The the barbarians brought it down & there was a thousand years of darkness for the Western world. Welcome to the new dark ages
ekeyra-
What’s your alternative to Social Security? Give it to Wall Street to invest for you? (And watch it get wiped out every 10 years- if the fees don’t eat it up first). Or maybe do what so many poor people do- buy lottery tickets or go to the casino every week and kiss your future goodbye?
Social Security is working and working well. It is fully funded and solvent for the next 25 years. All we have to do is protect it from the Republicans, and deal makers like Obama, and fools like you who have drunk deeply from the Republican fountain of bullshit.
Henman
“It’s not your goddam money, Mr. President. ”
That has to be the funniest thing ive ever seen posted on this blog. Id say thats right up there with tea partiers carrying “keep your government hands off my medicare” signs.
Also perhaps if you had demanded of the politicians you elected 40 years ago that they do away with social security and simply let you decide what is to be done with your money, you wouldnt be worried about them making good on their obliviously ludicrous promise to take real good care of it and then hand it back to you later when you really need it. You and millions of other americans got swindled. Deal with it, instead of expecting everyone else’s grandkids to pay for your retirement because you werent smart enough to pay attention to what washington was doing with your money.
Kderosa-
I ain’t no Commie and you ain’t no lawyer.
You rubes. You have no right to all those FICA contributions you’ve made your entire lives. There is no lockbox. There is no money left. It’s all been spent already. All there are now are debts that must be paid with a budget that spends $1.43 for every $1 collected in revenue. If you were depending on our benevolent government to take care of you in your dotage, your faith was misplaced. I hope you like the taste of catfood. It’s not like you didn’t have fair warning–Fleming v. Nestor was decided 40 years ago. Read it and weep.
Well said Henman. He and Congress, both sides of the aisle, have taken the Middle Class, what’s left of it, off the table.
Is anyone else as angry as I am about the low-life bastards in Washington, including president Obama, working day and night to screw us out of the little we have left in order to give it to the slimy wannabe aristocrats we have worked for all our lives? Cut Social Security? That’s MY money that was deducted from every paycheck I ever got since I started working in a drugstore for 75 cents an hour in 1959. It’s the money deducted from the pathetic $78.00 per month the U.S. Army paid me after they drafted me in 1964. It’s the money deducted from every paycheck I got from my employer of 45 years. It’s not your goddam money, Mr. President.
” I won’t cut Social Security”
” Everything’s on the table”
” I won’t cut Medicare”
” Everything’s on the table”
” I won’t cut Medicaid”
” Everything’s on the table”
Which one is it, Mr President? Who do you serve, Mr. President?- the American people who elected you? Or is it your new “friends” at the Old Boys’ Club who can’t wait to replace you with a White Republican President.
Hope and Change? It’s not on their agenda. It’s not on our agenda any more either. You have taken it off the table.
Blouise,
I believe that I signed that sane petition.
Here, in Ohio, we are actively dealing with the take over of our legislature by teabagging, corporate-loving, republicans … it’s a battle worth fighting
eniobob and I have signed petitions dealing with this social security/medicare matter … there are things one can do to let D.C. know just how messing with social security/medicare will impact on them politically ….
Thanks AY.
Raff,
I listen to NPR today….and the subject was ALEC….If you want something to turn your stomach badly…it was a noon show here so probably 1 EST…. The good rep from LA had no soul, no conscience, no redeeming qualities to sit there…This last election cycle ALEC was touted as have gained more than 640 ( actually 680) R seats and have a trifecta on 21 states…and both legislative bodies in 25….It was more than I wanted to hear…but I needed to hear it…..
Here is the link for you:
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138537515/how-alec-shapes-state-politics-behind-the-scenes?ps=cprs
tis just like dumas and mcphail bumblin idiots!
AY,
You are right, but I did expect that they would disguise their attack a little better, at least.
What do you really expect….