social security

By now you have heard that President Obama has chosen to throw Social Security and the Medicare and Medicaid Programs over the side of his proverbial fishing boat as bait to see if he can get Republicans to give him another really lousy compromise, much as he did last December when he gave up billions upon billions of deficit reduction in order to help Republicans preserve tax cuts for billionaire more »

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Although specifics have yet to officially emerge, there is little doubt that among the Social Security benefit cuts the President is proposing will be a reduction in Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) through an obscure change in the COLA formula known as the chained CPI. more »

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Do you hear a noise like power saws cutting away at your Social Security benefits? That's the sound of the politicians working on the "Chain Gang."

They're promoting the "chained CPI," Washington's latest gimmick for tricking voters and cutting their hard-earned benefits to protect the wealthy. That may sound like inflammatory rhetoric, but the numbers don't allow for any other conclusion. People retiring today could lose more than $18,000 in benefits over their lifetimes - and people who are already retired will feel the pain too.

What's wrong with this idea?

1) It's an underhanded way to cut Social Security benefits (its true intent).
2) It's unnecessary.
3) It's unfair to women, the poor, minorities, and the very elderly.
4) It reflects a un-American political culture of pessimism and lost faith in the future.

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Giving companies money does not mean they'll hire. more »

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t's one of modern political life's strange ironies that defending Social Security and Medicare is considered an "old people's issue." Old people are doing just fine with these programs, thank you very much -- at least so far.

Anti-government hawks like Alan Simpson and Pete Peterson also made a deft (if deeply cynical) move by framing these programs as a war between baby boomers vs. Gen X-ers, since some of their cuts would hurt boomers too.

But young people will take the worst of these cuts, since their impact increases over time. When you combine this assault on "entitlements" with other forms of austerity economics, the result is a plan to hand the next generation a nation with crumbling infrastructure, collapsing government services, and bleak economic prospects. It's an all-out assault on the future of the young.

That's no accident. Politicians know that seniors would rise up against any politician who crosses them. And seniors vote. They're also aware that baby boomers are a large and powerful voting bloc, not to be trifled with.

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AARP’s damage control did little to dampen the significance of Rother’s leak to the Wall Street Journal. It wasn’t the content of Rother’s remarks to the Journal that had progressives up in arms. It was, as Roger Hickey has pointed out, the timing.

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AARP claims that their openness--read: support--for cuts to Social Security benefits is based on an understanding that tax increases alone will not close the program's modest funding gap. But that's just not true.

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The front page of today's Wall Street Journal features an article [Key Seniors Association Pivots on Benefit Cut] reporting that AARP "is dropping its longstanding opposition to cutting Social Security benefits." The piece is based on a conversation with AARP policy director John more »

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Retiring U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-No Shame, TX) today unveiled a plan to steal Social Security from Americans by cutting their benefits and lying to them about it. more »

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If the Administration so much as puts another Social Security tax cut on the table, they will be throwing Social Security under the bus for uncertain—indeed, unlikely—economic gain.

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