Deficit Commission: Hands Off Social Security

Social Security supporters announced today that over 100 members of Congress are signing a letter to President Obama demanding that the Deficit Commission keep its hands off Social Security. They say that if the deficit commission tries to cut the program they say it will not make it through Congress. more »

Last month Former Senator and Deficit Commission co-chair Alan Simpson said this about Social Security, and by extension about government itself,

"We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits!"

more »

It's election season and candidates who once hated on Social Security are hearing from the public and switching positions. more »

Update - please see RJ Eskow's post, As The Aging Stoop To Their Labors, Prosperous Pundits Lecture Them About Sacrifice more »

Lots of kids believe in Santa Claus. This is because people repeat the fable to kids over and over, telling them that Santa Claus will deliver presents to them if they're good. And then there's the Boogeyman, the "amorphous embodiment of terror." In some regions stories of the Boogeyman are repeated and repeated, and to keep the Boogeyman away little children do what they are told. more »

If back-channel sources are correct, the White House deficit commission is finalizing a deal that would increase Social Security benefits slightly for low-income recipients while cutting them for everyone else. The Commissioners apparently believe that putting this "progressive" gloss on a package of unneeded cuts would allow them to move forward with their predetermined anti-Social Security agenda.

This new proposal would pit middle-class seniors against the elderly poor, forcing them to compete for a stripped-down pool of dollars. The end result would be the one that many Commission members have pursued for years: to cut the most stable and successful program in the Federal government's history. more »

Sam Seder and I guest-hosted The Young Turks yesterday and spent our last few on-air minutes talking about Social Security and the Deficit Commission. We were discussing the fact that Simpson's personally objectionable behavior is only one aspect of the problem. There are more fundamental problems with the composition of the Commission, as well as its biased approach to Social Security. more »

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have now called for Senator Alan Simpson, co-chair of the White House deficit commission, to step down – after he insulted the head of the Older Women’s League, Ashley Carson, by implying that her dedication to protecting retirees was not “hone more »

The President has a commission looking at ways to reduce the budget deficits which were caused by tax cuts for the rich and military spending increases. Social Security – which has no legal authority to borrow money, so it can't contribute to deficits – is on the table for cuts, at least as far as We, the People are allowed to know. (The commission meets in secret.) That's BS. more »