Alan Simpson Must Go

Over 100 Members Of Congress Demand Deficit Commission Keep Hands Off Social Security

Dave Johnson — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:29:15 -0400

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.

I joined a press call for the announcement with Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT), Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), Congressman Dan Maffei (D-NY), Gerald McEntee, International President, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Barbara Easterling, President of the Alliance for Retired Americans and Heidi Hartmann, National Council of Women's Organizations.

The letter to President Obama says, (excerpts, read the whole letter here.)

We write today to express our strong support for Social Security and our view that it should be strengthened. We oppose any cuts to Social Security benefits, including raising the retirement age. We also oppose any effort to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part.

[. . .] If any of the Commission’s recommendations cut or diminish Social Security in any way, we will stand firmly against them. We urge you to join us in protecting and strengthening Social Security rather than letting it fall victim to a misguided attempt to reduce budget deficits on the backs of working families.

In addition to the letter Senators Sanders and Brown have introduced a resolution in the Senate in opposition to raising the retirement age, risky privatization schemes, or cutting Social Security benefits. This resolution now has 11 co-sponsors. This resolution concludes, (please read the "Whereas" reasons leading to this conclusion)

Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate to reaffirm our commitment to the Social Security program, one of the greatest legislative accomplishments in the history of our Nation, without privatizing Social Security, raising the Normal Retirement Age, or other similar cuts to benefits under title II of the Social Security Act.

Here are some of the statements on the call (from notes):

Sen. Bernie Sanders:

There is strong opposition to cutting, raising, privatizing. Over 100 members have signed on. We are on this call to send a loud and clear message to the deficit commission: Do not cut benefits for vulnerable members of society. If you do we will vote it down.

Social Security is not the cause of those problems and has not added one dime to the deficit or national debt. It has a surplus that will grow to $4 trillion. CBO has estimated that SS is able to pay full benefits until 2039, almost 80% after that.

Cutting SS would be a disaster, 45% of workers 58 and over are employed in jobs that are physically demanding and it would be difficult if not impossible to stay on the job until age 70. Plus keeping those older workers in the job market will make it much harder to younger workers to find jobs.

Sen. Sherrod Brown:

We strongly believe cuts to SS benefits must not be part of any recommendations from the deficit commission. SS should never be privatized and retirement age not raised.

A number of conservative politicians, think tanks and private interests would love to see it privatized. But what happens if stocks drop, where would money come from?
Reporters, members of Congress and others sit at desks, but there are many Americans, from waitresses to hospital technicians to carpenters who are on their feet and whose bodies are on the line every day cannot work until 70.

Rep. Raul Grajalva:

I want to just echo all that has been said. We do have 105 signatures on our letter. No privatization, no reduction, no raising the age.

The commission has let it out of the bag what their attitude is. But SS did not create the deficit, the program is universal, is solvent, and needs to be strengthened not cut.

This letter is a clear statement that if this is the kind of recommendation from commission it will have a difficult time.

Heidi Hartmann, the National Council of Women’s Organizations: (Note - earlier I incorrectly attributed the following to Barbara Easterling, President of the Alliance for Retired Americans.)

For women average SS benefits are only $12,000 a year now. SS is the nation’s most important children’s insurance program, 4 million children receiving benefits. Its overhead is less than 1%. Any problems are easily fixed on the revenue side, not the benefits side.

Cutting Social Security hits women particularly hard.

One interesting question came up, what are the added costs to the government if the retirement age is raised and people with physical jobs have to work until 70? Doesn't this increase medical, disability and other costs? This was not answered but will be looked at.

Women Confront Deficit Commission Over Social Security

Dave Johnson — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:44:10 -0400

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!"

Nice. We work and pay into Social Security all our lives, we pay our taxes, but when it comes time to retire our leaders say we're nothing more than freeloaders sucking off the tits of the "milk cow."

The Deficit Commission is meeting today and the National Organization for Women showed up and delivered 1,500 nipples to Simpson's commission. They called it "1500 Tits for an Ass."

From NOW's press release,

"The Fiscal Commission should be led by someone who will actually try to address the federal budget deficit, instead of using it as an excuse to undermine Social Security by cutting benefits or raising the retirement age," O'Neill continues. "Alan Simpson is not that person."

Especially Women!

Social Security is especially important to women because women still are paid less than men and can't save as much for retirement, tend more than men to be in jobs without any pension (only 13 percent of women aged 65 or older currently receive a pension) and women are more likely to be on their own: single, widowed or divorced by retirement age. In fact 42 percent of women over age 62 relied on Social Security for 90 percent or more of their income, compared to 28 percent of men. Any cuts in the program would hit women particularly hard.

Here is video from the delivery:

Social Security is involved in this because, even though the program is fully funded and by law is not allowed to borrow, which means it cannot contribute to the deficit, the program will one day need to draw on its huge trust fund, and the government will have to find ways to come up with the money owed.

This is all outrageous enough, but now word is leaking out that Republicans on the commission have refused to even discuss addressing the revenue shortfall with more revenue, and in fact are pressing for the commission to recommend even more tax cuts.

According to one source familiar with the deliberations, Republicans were even opposed to eliminating loopholes, exemptions, credits and other so-called "tax expenditures" unless the associated revenue increase could be used to lower capital gains and corporate income rates.

"Republicans have not even said that we should get any revenue from taxes," the source said. "Even tax expenditures. They appear to want to use the savings on tax expenditures to cut corporate taxes. So shared sacrifices -- except for large corporations who make out even better."

Simpson Not All That Is Unbalanced

The commissions members were biased toward the right going into this with many members having made previous statements showing they want to cut or privatize Social Security. In addition billionaire Pete Peterson, who is funding a campaign to privatize Social Security, is supplying staff to the commission.

Preempt The Commission!

So the results of a stacked commission are starting to show up. Congress needs to act to preempt the commission from cutting Social Security. Congress: Act Now To Preempt The Catfood Commission

Politicians Sense Which Way The Wind Blows On Social Security

Dave Johnson — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:44:01 -0400

It's election season and candidates who once hated on Social Security are hearing from the public and switching positions. At the same time members of Congress have sent a letter to the President declaring that they will not go along with any cuts to the program. Will the Congress get the message and pre-empt the Decifit Commission, and tell them to actually address the deficit and stay away from a program that is fully-funded and by law can’t contribute to the deficit?

NPR reports. Democrats Hope Tea Party's 3rd Rail Is Social Security,

Social Security remains the third rail. And Democrats are hoping it has as much electricity flowing through it this year as it ever has.

Politicans are sensing that Social Security is still the third rail and that the public is responding to ads, op-eds, blogs and letters to the editor that Social Security's defenders are using to turn things around.

And around they are turning. For example, Mariannette Miller-Meeks is running for Congress against incumbent Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s 2nd district. The Globe Gazette (Iowa) reports, Miller-Meeks changes stance on Social Security privatization

A supporter of allowing younger workers to put some of their Social Security contributions into private investments through personal accounts when she challenged Democratic U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack two years ago, Miller-Meeks now opposes such "privatization."

But not just out in Iowa, not by a long shot. DC politicians read DC's Politico, and Politico is reporting GOP cautious on Social Security,

Twenty of the 26 Republicans who are most likely to oust Democratic incumbents or pick up seats being vacated by Democrats have outright rejected a proposal to allow workers to invest their payroll taxes in private accounts instead of Social Security, and several of them have signed pledges to that effect at press conferences in their districts.

Many of these same candidates are on defense, pushing back against TV ads that associate them with President George W. Bush’s Social Security reform attempt in 2005. Most of these candidates have no problem rejecting trillions of dollars in other government spending. But they realize that senior citizens are the most dedicated midterm voters, so you can’t mess with Social Security — or Medicare, for that matter.

[. . .] The candidates who have tried to touch Social Security have quickly found that it’s better to express support for the program than to risk the wrath of seniors. [emphasis added]

Also in Politico, conservatives are complaining that politicians are taking the low road and representing the wishes of their constituents in this representative democracy. How dare they stoop so low! But this is still somewhat of a representative democracy and politicians understand that Social Security is popular: When in doubt, Democrats turn to Social Security,

With many Democrats running scared from their party’s handling of the economy and health care reform, they’ve returned to an old reliable campaign theme in the homestretch: attacking their opponents for threatening Social Security and Medicare.

Yes, that pesky representative democracy thing, always in the way of cutting Social Security. We, the People of the United States do not want Social Security cut. We need it. It is ours. Congress: pre-empt the Deficit Commission, tell them to cut the deficit, not Social Security.

Social Security Proposal: Make Them Work -- Longer

Dave Johnson — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 13:44:29 -0400

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

Washington is talking about cutting Social Security for working people at the very same time it is talking about extending tax breaks for the wealthiest people in history. This is a result of our county's shift away from democracy and toward plutocracy. This post is about the astonishing change in attitude toward regular people that is the result of this shift.

There is a "Deficit Commission" that is supposed to be cutting budget deficits (that result from tax cuts for the wealthy and increases in military spending) but is instead talking about cutting Social Security. Get this: Social Security is a fully-funded program that uses no tax money. By law it cannot borrow so it cannot contribute to the deficit! At the same time, the huge military budget (we spend more than all other countries combined) is completely unfunded and faces a huge shortfall every year -- but cutting that is off the table.

The real problem: Social Security built up a huge trust fund that was spent on tax cuts for the rich, and that money is coming due. Inside-the-Beltway thinking is to cut Social Security instead of paying back what was borrowed. One proposal under consideration is to raise the retirement age, recently increased to 67, to 70! This at the very time that every social indicator is saying that we should be increasing Social Security and lowering the retirement age. Increasing because people's savings have been slammed by the financial collapse so they need Social Security as their fall-back position, and lowering because so many people over 50 can't find work.

What About The People Affected?

Almost no one has been talking about how this will effect the people whose benefits will be cut. This is because there has been a change in attitudes in America. We are becoming a not kinder, not gentler nation. The crippled compassion component of conservative ideas about citizenship continues to cut into what's left of our consciences.

Kudos to The New York Times for sending a reporter out from a comfortable desk in their air-conditioned offices to look at what cutting Social Security means to actual people who actually work. Retiring Later Is Hard Road for Laborers,

A new analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that one in three workers over age 58 does a physically demanding job ... — including hammering nails, bending under sinks, lifting baggage — that can be radically different at age 69 than at age 62. Still others work under difficult conditions, like exposure to heat or cold, exposure to contaminants or weather, cramped workplaces or standing for long stretches.

A Washington Post story the next day looks at the flood of desperate people trying to get on Social Security disability because their unemployment benefits are exhausted and they can't find work. Jobless are straining Social Security's disability benefits program,

Social Security officials say they are confident that their vetting process screens out most people who might try to get benefits without being qualified. But, they acknowledge, when jobs are scarce, more workers who might otherwise struggle through with their ailments try to secure disability benefits.

McClatchy looked at desperate older people who can't get jobs and are "taking early retirement" even though it means dramatically reduced monthly checks. Social Security surplus hit by joblessness, early retirement,

Led by aging baby boomers and older workers frustrated by the tough job market, record numbers of eligible Americans started receiving Social Security retirement benefits in 2009. . . . Annual jobless rates for men and women age 55 and older were higher in 2009 than at any time since the government started collecting the data in 1948, Johnson said. That forced many to claim retirement benefits at 62, their first year of eligibility, instead of waiting to collect at the full retirement age of 66.

The findings: People really need the help that Social Security offers.

Cut Social Security? Really? We spent trillions bailing out the wealthy Wall Street elite, we gave huge tax cuts to the wealthiest people in history, we spend hundreds of billions on unaccountable "defense" contractors with shadowy addresses concentrated around DC, and we are seriously considering cutting Social Security?

The New American Attitude

But this is the new America. We're helping the rich and taking our frustrations out on the unfortunate and weak: "the help." I wrote about this attitude change in Simpson Social Security Comments Highlight Battle Of Democracy Vs. Plutocracy

These battles over cutting Social Security and extending tax cuts for the wealthy expose the competing worldviews of We, the People democracy vs corporatist plutocracy. Is our country a community of the people, by the people and for the people? Or are we "the help," only here for the benefit of the wealthy few.
In the democracy worldview we are a community that takes care of and watches out for each other. We are each citizens with equal rights and equal value, to be respected equally. Our government and economy are supposed to be for us. In the democracy worldview we should be increasing Social Security's benefits because people really need it.

An effect of moving to plutocracy is that the rest of us need to "know our place." I mean, just who do we think we are? We have been acting like we own this place, like We, the People are in charge here! We think we are entitled to ... entitlements. Things have changed and we need to get with the new program. Our job now is to shut up and be thankful for anything we receive the the behest of the country's new owners.

This is the new attitude: Make Them Work - Citizens As "The Help"

That's right, you have to make them work, or they'll just sit around and wont be "productive." They wont face up to the "consequences" of unemployment. These parasites will just suck the blood out of the producers. You hear language like this all the time from conservatives. The unemployed are "lazy," or "on drugs" etc. They are not "productive." They are mooching off the rest of us.

This is all in sharp contrast to the noble rich, who are an entirely different species biologically and spiritually. They are the "wealth producers" who we must treat with kid gloves and certainly not ask them to pay for their use of infrastructure or government services lest they decide to stop working. They just want to keep working, and what they do is so important, so pure, so necessary to the sustenance of the rest of us that they must be coddled at all times lest we lose their golden-egg magic touch!

This is the new attitude: If You Feed Them They Breed -- And Other Dehumanizing Conservative Idiocy We Should Ignore

The latest nonsense they are spreading is that helping the unemployed keeps them from finding jobs. Good Lord! This is basically the old "if you feed them they just breed" storyline. They say "it makes them dependent" as if hard-working people laid off because of Wall Street's scams are squirrels. Or, to hear the nasty way conservatives talk about these human beings, they are like rats. "Hobos," one Congressman called the unemployed! And the DC elite listen, chuckle and repeat.

This battle over Social Security, at the very same time as DC fights over extending tax cuts to the wealthiest people in history, points out how it will be as our democracy slides away. If we sit back and accept these changes, we lose. To fight this we need to come back to an understanding of what it means to be a citizen in a country where We, the People are supposed to be in charge. A government of We, the People should be about taking care of each other, protecting and empowering each other and respecting each other. WE are supposed to be the boss of you here. And we are supposed to be in charge.

Please add your name to the "Hands Off Social Security" petition. The Deficit Commission should get on to figuring out how to reduce the deficit (clue: it was caused by tax cuts for the rich and military spending increases) and keep their hands off Social Security!

Fairy-Tale Social Security Policy

Dave Johnson — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:41:50 -0400

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.

A popular Boogeyman is "Social Security is going broke." This fable originated from a 1983 Cato Institute Journal document, "Achieving a Leninist Strategy" by Stuart Butler of Cato and Peter Germanis of the Heritage Foundation. The document laid out a long-term strategic plan to dismantle Social Security. Part of the idea was to manufacture public beliefs like those we hear repeated (and repeated and repeated) today, "Social Security is going broke" and "Social Security is a Ponzi scheme."

Meanwhile a popular Santa Claus myth tells the pubic that energy independence can be achieved at low cost if only we would open up more land (and sea) to oil drilling.

Enter Rick Berg, candidate for Congress in North Dakota. Berg is proposing to scare away the Boogeyman by bringing in Santa Claus to fight the good fight. News story, Berg proposes Social Security fix,

Drilling for oil underneath western North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park and other federal lands nationwide could be a way to ensure Social Security funding for the long haul, Republican U.S. House challenger Rick Berg said.

During a meeting with The Forum’s editorial board Wednesday, Berg discussed his ideas for how to make the Social Security system viable for future generations. He said one option is drilling for oil and other mineral resources on federal government land.

Oh yeah, there is one more thing that is repeated over and over. The other day I wrote, "The way a lobbyist argues for or against anything today is to say it will create or cost jobs." And right on queue, here's Berg:

Berg told the editorial board his proposal was just one way the government could add more money into the Social Security system.

“It needs to be solvent, and I’m supporting putting more money in that — mineral money in there — and getting people working again,” he said.

Yes, that's the ticket. Santa Claus fights the Boogeyman, and delivers jobs. All we have to do is open up national parks to oil drilling.

Social Security isn't broke, doesn't need fixing, and the last thing we need is more drilling. We need a Renewable Energy Standard and we need to set a price on carbon to trigger the new green technology revolution, get us off of oil and coal and create millions of jobs.

Deficit Commission's Rumored Deal Would Pit Middle-Class Seniors Against the Poor

Richard Eskow — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:07:47 -0400

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.

Accounts of this pending deal come from the top-secret, behind-a-firewall, inside-the-Cone-of-Silence proceedings of the commission itself, which is why they can't be officially confirmed. (Remind me again: Why are such critical issues being debated in secret, only to be presented to Congress for ratification after the November elections?) But if these reports are correct—and there is good reason to believe they are—some members of the Commission presumably believe this strategy would confuse and divide the many Americans who oppose Social Security cuts, while defusing the growing resistance to their actions among progressive members of Congress.

The commissioners have clearly been stung by the nickname bloggers have given them: the "Catfood Commission." This recommendation would take the edge off that name, since they could now claim they've made sure nobody will be eating Purina Old Folks' Chow as a result of their actions. It would also give them chance to bait their opponents: Don't you care about poor people?

But there are a number of problems with their proposal, and there are fairer and more cost-effective ways to help impoverished seniors. Here's what this new proposal gets wrong.

They're misreading the public: First, progressives aren't the only ones opposed to cutting Social Security. Recent polling by the Celinda Lake organization showed that seven out of 10 voters opposed cutting benefits for people earning over $30,000 in order to reduce the deficit. Among independents, 76% oppose cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit, as do 77% of Republicans—and 76% of Tea Party supporters! Putting an antipoverty gloss on overall cuts won't impress these voters. Nuanced arguments—"we're cutting the program to save it" or "we're not reducing the deficit, we're stabilizing the program"—will be lost on angry voters with finely-tune BS detectors who have contributed to the program for years.

It's a broken promise: This policy would violate a compact the United States government made to generations of its citizens: Pay into the system and you'll receive what's been promised in the end. Social Security is a self-funded system that provides some income security during old age or disability. Using employee and employer contributions to reduce poverty would be a redirection of the money that working Americans and their employers paid to help them when they're disabled or retired. If the commissioners have a new antipoverty mission, there are better ways to pay for that.

There aren't enough "rich" beneficiaries: The commissioners will no doubt make the argument that Warren Buffett and others in his income shouldn't receive the same benefit income as somebody who's struggling to make ends meet. But there aren't enough Warren Buffetts in the system to make a difference. Since Social Security benefits are capped at a relatively low level, Warren Buffett isn't likely to receive any more in benefits than someone who earned less than $100,000 per year.

If benefits are going to be tied to overall income and wealth in the future, cuts will have to reach deep into the middle-class in order to make any real difference—especially if there's a slight benefit increase at the low end. The number of Social Security recipients who are still impoverished (from 2000-2002 data) is 13 million, or 8.7% of the elderly. Since Social Security currently keeps these seniors out of poverty, that leaves a lot of stable or increased benefits that would have to be offset by by reducing benefits for middle-class recipients in order to cut overall costs.

Benefit reductions will have to be deep, wide, and painful. This new proposal bears some resemblance to "progressive price indexing," a Republican proposal that would have left benefits intact for recipients with the lowest incomes while progressively reducing them for everyone else. Unfortunately, a 2005 paper by Jason Furman (now the White House's Deputy Director of the Economic Council) showed that this approach would cut benefits for today's average 25-year worker by 16% if he or she retires in 2045, and would result in a 28% for the average worker retiring in 2075. Any other approach the commission takes will come up against the same challenge: If you're not willing to raise revenues by lifting the payroll cap, you'll need to make deep benefit cuts for the middle class. (And if you are willing to lift that cap, benefit cuts are unnecessary.)

It will cut a needed lifeline for seniors living on modest incomes.Those cuts would hurt a lot of people. Social Security benefits represent 40% of seniors' income, on average and that figure is bound to rise as corporations continue to cut back on employee pension plans. The median income for Social Security recipients in 2008 was $18,001. Cuts would affect people whose average incomes are somewhat higher, but most of them certainly won't be wealthy. The demographics and income statistics show that Commission can't make a meaningful dent in the overall numbers without cutting benefits for people with modest incomes. (Figures are from the Employee Benefits Research Institute.)

Administrative costs would offset a lot of their expected savings. Current administrative costs amount to less than 1 percent of benefits, a figure that's extremely low when compared to other programs. While linking benefits to income or other assets may sound like a good idea, it will add enormously to the administrative costs. It's not just a matter of cross-referencing the Social Security system to the IRS databases - although that's a lot bigger undertaking than it sounds. Any needs-based system will require appeals processes, exceptions for certain mitigating circumstances, and other provisions that will be labor-intensive to administer. Part of the beauty of the current Social Security system - and one of the keys to its success - is its simplicity. That would be lost under this proposal.

Fortunately, there's a solution:

Lifting the payroll tax cap is fairer and more efficient. The administratively simple, cost-effective approach to Social Security's minor long-term funding problem is to raise the payroll tax cap from its current $106,000 level. Systems are already in place to handle that change (at the IRS and in automated payroll systems for employers). That would address the long-term funding issues for Social Security itself, cleanly and efficiently. What's more, that move (perhaps supplemented by a relatively modest payroll tax increase for very high earners) could also help fortify benefits those low-income recipients. A progressive adjustment to the payroll tax would provide for the needs of that 8.7% still in poverty more cost-effectively and more fairly than this plan would.

In other words, the commission's new goal can be more efficiently and fairly funded by a marginal increase in taxes for the wealthiest Americans. If commissioners lack the political will to make this kind of antipoverty commitment on behalf of the well-to-do -- and with the preponderance of conservatives and millionaires on the commission, that's likely - why are they asking middle-class seniors with an average total income of $18,000 to carry that burden instead?

If this were a public debate and not a secret one, this latest move could be used to start the debate we should be having: Why don't we strengthen and increase Social Security, rather than cut it?

Of course, the minor adjustments needed to stabilize Social Security for a century aren't the only issue. Many commissioners want the Federal government to keep the $2.5 trillion it borrowed from Social Security's trust fund (and therefore from working Americans and their employers) so they can continue to use it for other purposes. That would amount to a regressive tax on the middle class.

Overall, this new proposal is simply a smokescreen for overall benefit cuts, camouflaged by a small social mission subsidized by a hidden tax on the middle class. It's a political trick. Commissioners like Alan Simpson can now claim to be working on behalf of the "lesser people," to use his preferred choice of words, defending them against "greedy geezers" whose desire to collect the benefits they've subsidized is selfish and uncaring. That may sound like smart divide-and-conquer politics to the commission, but it won't play as well on Main Street as it will on Wall Street.

There are ways to help impoverished seniors that don't involve cutting Social Security benefits or forcing more sacrifices onto the middle class in order to protect the well-to-do. The deficit commission shouldn't use impoverished seniors as hostages in order to finish what many of them have been trying to do for decades: cut Social Security.

(Sign the petition: Social Security doesn't contribute to the deficit, so stop the deficit commission from cutting Social Security.)

_______________________________________________________________

This post was produced as part of the Strengthen Social Security campaign.

Talking Social Security and the Deficit Commission With Sam Seder & Ashley Carson

Richard Eskow — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:01:48 -0400

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. See for yourself:

Our exchange was triggered by our interview with Ashley Carson, the Executive Director of the Older Women's League, who was the target of Simpson's infamous "cow" email:

If you want to take action (and who wouldn't?), you can sign this petition asking Congress and the President to remove Alan Simpson and take Social Security away from Deficit Commission.

Deficit Commission: If You Won’t Fire Simpson, Keep Your Hands Off Social Security

Roger Hickey — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:58:16 -0400

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 “honest work” – and then he revealed what he thinks of Social Security: “a milk cow with 310 million tits.”

Simpson eventually apologized, and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stood by Simpson, making it clear that the Obama administration would not send him packing back to Wyoming – unless perhaps the clamor gets louder. At least Gibbs had the smarts to distance President Obama from the substance of Simpson’s remarks. But the silence from commission co-chair Erskine Bowles and commission members like economist Alice Rivlin, Democratic Senator Kent Conrad and Republican Paul Ryan has been deafening. They should be a little worried about his obnoxious style, but the truth is Simpson speaks for a large number of deficit commissioners who want to cut Social Security.

So if the White House won’t fire Simpson, the president should tell the deficit commission to take Social Security off the table.

The real problem is not Simpson. Most of the commission members agree with Simpson that Social Security benefits should be cut and the retirement age should be raised. They all know that Social Security has its own stream of revenue and contributes nothing to the federal deficit. But this conservative commission majority either wants to “send a message to the bond markets” that America is willing to whack seniors -- or they want to steal money from the trillions of dollars in the Social Security trust fund built up through years of extra FICA taxes paid by working Americans and use those savings to cut the deficit caused by tax cuts for the wealthy.

Simpson has just been blunter about the plan to steal money from the trust fund. In another hostile confrontation, Simpson told Alex Lawson of Social Security Works that the Social Security trust fund has been spent. Here’s what he said, in his disrespectful style:

Simpson: Listen $2.5 trillion of IOU's which have been used to build the interstate highway system and all the things people have enjoyed since it was set up.

Lawson: Two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy -

Simpson: Whatever, whatever. You pick your crap and I'll pick the real stuff. It was to do with the highway system; it was to run America. And those IOU's in there now, there's not enough coming in every month.

There it is folks. Deficit hawks like Simpson think it is way too hard to take their deficit mandated serious: finding revenues to pay for the deficits wracked up by years of tax cuts and military spending. Instead, they want to show they are tough by raiding the Social Security trust fund by cutting retirement benefits for future retirees who have been paying extra to keep our retirement system solvent.

The small number of progressives on the commission have made the case over and over again that Social Security contributes nothing to the deficit. But the hawkish majority, refusing to call for raising taxes on the rich or cutting the military budget, thinks going after the trillions of dollars in the Social Security trust fund is the “confidence-building” consensus accomplishment they will be able to unite around. But the American people won’t let them. Poll after poll, including our own poll done in conjunction with Greenberg, finds that Americans of all stripes—Democrats, Republicans, tea party supporters and young people—hate the idea of balancing the budget by cutting Social Security.

So please keep exposing Simpson as the undiplomatic spokes person for the deficit hawks. But this should be our new demand: If the White House won’t fire Simpson, the deficit commission should keep its hands off Social Security.

And let’s keep telling the truth: Social Security contributes not a penny to the deficit; therefore reducing benefits won’t reduct the deficit. Social Security’s trust fund has enough assets to pay current benefits for the next 27 years. If needed, modest changes that will increase Social Security revenues could extend the program’s solvency for decades into the future. But this Commission, stacked as it is with enemies of Social Security – and fronted by Alan Simpson, is not the appropriate vehicle for making those fixes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking at Netroots Nation in July, got it right:

When you’re talking about reducing the deficit and Social Security, you’re talking about apples and oranges. If we want to have a conversation about Social Security and how we keep it solvent, what are the things we can do to keep Social Security solvent way down the road so it’s there for future generations, that I believe is an appropriate conversation. It shouldn’t involve reducing the benefits or raising the limit or whatever, but you could talk about how you keep it solvent. To change Social Security in order to balance the budget; they aren’t the same thing, in my view. That isn’t what we should be doing. So, I will admit and accept the fact that as we make Social Security solvent—and it is solvent into the 2030s—it will have a positive impact on the deficit, but we shouldn’t be looking for reducing benefits and raising ages and all the rest, period, and we certainly shouldn’t be doing it to reduce the deficit. Two different sides of the ledger.

Note: The Campaign for America’s Future, which has helped lead the charge against Simpson, now has an action petition going to send this message: If the White House won’t fire Simpson, the deficit commission should keep its hands off Social Security. Click here.

Also, CAF is working with MoveOn.org Political Action, CREDO Action, Democracy For America, the Teamsters Union and Social Security Works to encourage citizens to ask candidates for Congress to promise to oppose SS benefit cuts, retirement age increases and privatization. To see who has made the promise, go to www.handsoffsocialsecurity.org.

SS On The Table, But BS Not?

Dave Johnson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:11:25 -0400

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.

Another reason we know SS is on the table is that almost all of the members of the commission have spoken in the past of their inclination to cut or privatize the program. That’s BS.

Republican members of the commission have said in advance that taxes will not be on the table. That’s BS.

In fact, conservatives of both parties are arguing to extend the expiring Bush tax cuts for the rich! That's BS.

The country spends up to $1.2 trillion a year on wasteful, bloated military and related programs, more than all the rest of the countries on earth combined, but the commission isn't talking about cutting that down to, say, only three times our nearest possible competitor? That's BS.

Social Security being involved with this commission at all is BS. If they want to cut something they should cut the BS.

If you want to fix the deficits, fix the problems that caused the deficits, not things that can't. Speaker Pelosi said in July that talking about SS and the deficits are like apples and oranges. With this in mind Rep. Raul Grijalva says Congress should preempt this, and demand that Social Security be left alone.

Ask the candidates in your district and state to sign the Hands Off Social Security pledge, and check the list to see who else is on board.

Also, please visit Strengthen Social Security where you can sign up for information, and to follow them on Twitter and/or Facebook.

Alan "Milk Cow" Simpson In 2004 Lectured Liberals: "Keeping Making Fun … Tearing People Up ... And You'll Never Make It."

Bill Scher — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:50:46 -0400

Before White House debt commission co-chair Alan Simpson became infamous for his insulting and condescending email to Social Security defender Ashley Carson, he was lecturing liberals on civility.

This week, Simpson ended his email to Carson saying "Call when you get honest work!", and referred to Carson as "people like you babble [who] babble into the vapors,"

But back in 2004, right after his Republican Party was victorious on Election Day, Simpson went on "Real Time With Bill Maher." After the host asked Simpson what is it that "blue staters" failed to understand, Simpson lashed out at the host and liberals in general:

You're making fun of Americans who have some religious bent or faith, keep doing that, and your people will never win an election...

...Keeping making fun of them … tearing people up, thinking that Hollywood has all the brains in America … and you'll never make it...

...You make fun of everybody. Why don't you make fun of their ideas instead of them as persons, and maybe you'd do better.

It didn't seem to occur to Simpson that Carson's initial post on Social Security in April was about ideas, and Simpson responded to it with personal insults.

Simpson's hypocrisy regarding political civility appears to feed his anti-Social Security bias,

He claims to want to seriously debate ideas, but when given the opportunity to do so, he resorts to cheap insults.

Considering that people ranging from the New York Times' Paul Krugman to The Fiscal Times' John Berry have said the debt commission co-chair has his facts wrong on Social Security, you might want someone in that position who can handle a honest discussion, and not reject facts because of -- in Simpson's words to Carson -- "biases and prejudices."

Take action >> Join Campaign for America's Future in calling for Simpson's resignation.