Note to Incumbents on Social Security

[eridani]

http://washingtonpolicywatch.org/2012/12/20/note-to-incumbents/

Interested in re-election in 2014? You can pack your bags for home if you vote for the chained CPI. It doesn’t matter what party: if you are a Democrat, the Republican candidate will hammer you for cutting Social Security. And if you are a Republican, the Democratic candidate will hammer you for cutting Social Security. It doesn’t matter what they actually want. What matters is they have a vote to cut you off at the knees. Remember the Medicare assaults on Democrats in 2010.

The idea of compromise may sound good in December and elicit nice sound bites from inside the beltway. But once you cast that vote or even voice support for such an Obama/Boehner compromise, you are legitimizing cuts in Social Security. And that is what your opponent will focus on in 2014… Not an elite-endorsed compromise, but the fact that you cut Social Security benefits, for middle class retirees, disabled workers, low-income retirees, for Tea Party retirees, for union retirees, for Hispanic retirees, for African-American retirees, for Asian retirees, for white retirees, for blue collar and white collar retirees and for the working people who have lost private retirement savings and pensions and see Social Security as the only hope for keeping them from the cusp of poverty. That’s a powerful coalition. One you should try to get on your side, not one that is captured by your opponent’s rhetoric and demagoguery.

So if you want to fuel the fire by selling out retirees, go ahead with a compromise. But you might want to start looking for employment outside of Congress after November 2014.

[xtraxritical]

1. eridani you are SO right.

[copperearth]

2. I agree but ...

I agree 1000% with you but I also believe that they have to do something to shore up Social Security for the future. There is an excellent article on MSNBC this morning that says there three ways of doing it and it seems to me that the least painful one would be to increase Payroll taxes on salaries over $110,000 and put the payroll tax holiday aside for the rest of us. We have got to do something so that the younger generations won't just be paying into something that they will never get the benefit of.

[RC]

4. The best way to shore up Social Security is to get our Living Wage Jobs back into this country.

That is the major reason Social Security is in "Trouble" in the first place.
Oh, and the bu$h tax cuts. Rescind all of them.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Actually, SS is probably fine

The projections showing cage short fall in 25 years or so come from Timmy Geithner, who is the head trustee of Social Security. Those projections are based on the economy staying bad forever, and worker productivity dropping to levels not seen in decades. Oddly enough, those assumptions are not used for any other government projections.

If the economy recovers even a little bit, and worker productivity doesn't suddenly plummet, Social Security is good for at least 75 years.

[socialist_n_TN]

7. OK let me ask you something here RE: shoring up Social Security.......

I'm 61 and a member of a Baby Boom generation. Back in the 80s Reagan and the Congresses of that time changed my Social Security withholding to take out more money so that we could pay for OUR retirement as well as our parents. Did they not take enough out? If they took enough out, where is that money?

I'm kind of pissed off because we were the first generation that had to pay for ourselves as well as our parents yet APPARENTLY THAT MONEY THAT THEY'RE STILL TAKING OUT AT THE RAISED RATES ISN'T ENOUGH TO PAY FOR US. What's up wid dat?

[donnasgirl]

8. socialist_n_TN

Simply put politicians stole it,i have listened to bernie sanders on this issue and if we raise the 110 thousand dollar cap to 400 thousand the problem would be solved,unless the politicians keep putting their sticky fingers in (OUR) pie.

[socialist_n_TN]

13. Yeah, that's what I suspected happened.......

Actually I knew that is what happened (it was a loaded question , but I would like folks who think that SS needs to be "strengthened" to explain it too.

And I'm actually curious as to whether the "official" projections about SS take into account the 1.2 TRILLION dollars or so, that is held in T Bills and other government bonds OR if they're just using projections based on what going to be taken in by the system over the next couple of decades WITHOUT taking into account those bonds. I'll actually go with their projections on the growth of the economy because that's the plan. Capitalism doesn't expect the American economy to grow anymore. We're done until our standard of living is brought down to a developing world level. But I see no reason to even TALK about any "strengthening" of SS until those funds are accounted for.

Capitalism is on it's last legs and has now turned to cannibalism of public sector programs to survive. But the problem is not wealth. There's plenty of wealth. The problem lies in the distribution of that wealth. If we want it, we WILL have to take it. They won't give it up.

Thanks dg.

[Skittles]

16. donnasgirl, please put a space after each comma (two spaces after each period)

you know, for us old f***s with fading peepers

[donnasgirl]

22. did you ever think

That maybe i am an old geezer who just makes a mistake once in awhile.Stop sweating the small crap and start thinking about the big crap and stop worrying about people making small mistakes.

[Skittles]

23. it's not small crap to want to read posts

ya know?

[donnasgirl]

25. Look

It is small potatoes when compared to what's going on in this country,i know of a lot of people who would post here but will not because of people like you who do nothing but look for errors in other peoples posts.There are many in this country my friend who want to participate but will not because of the perfectionists who think they do no wrong.

[Skittles]

26. gee

sorry it SOOO hard for you

P.S. I don't believe a word you say so bye bye!!!

[Samantha]

14. The excess built up into the Social Security Trust Fund, which is now about 2.6 Trillion Dollars

That Trust Fund is backed up by Treasury Notes. However, if a withdrawal from the fund has to be made, the amount of the withdrawal must be recouped through a like sale of replacement notes. In this economy, that is not so easy to do. However, the Boomers retirement was to have enough to see them through their onslaught on heavy numbers of retirees and after that the numbers would return to normal, so the strain on the system would fall back to something considered normal.

So here we are in a recession, George Bush left us with 10.5 Trillion Dollar Deficit, unemployment is up so less FICA is being collected, and since Uncle Sam has borrowed those funds, as well as funds in the Federal Government employees' retirement, and can't pay it back, it is just so convenient to say "Social Security is broke."

On top of these factors, we have CEO's of major corporations who want entitlements cut because those don't want to pay the FICA tax any longer. A lot of pressure is being put on members of Congress to cut these programs. And some of these members of Congress are protecting the interests of the Corporations and not the interests of their constituents.

There is also a Medicare Trust Fund, but we don't hear much about that. The citizens of the United States are the largest group of debt holders as far as the U.S. Government is concerned -- not China, not Japan as we often hear.

Sam

[xtraxritical]

15. If either Repulicans or Democrata touch SS they are dead.

[Samantha]

24. Politically yes

I do not think the Democratic base will forgive anyone who supports this running in 2014, and some Dems will go so far as to defect from the party itself. That means less support and less contribution to those Dems remaining. This is not the casual cut supporters paint it to be. The research I did on this issue last year showed a Boomer retiring in 2011 who collected Social Security 25 years would lose $18,000. It seems like a small loss at the beginning, but when one factors in the current CPI does not reflect Boomer expenses, and then add in continuing loss in COLAs over the Boomer's lifetime, it is thousands Boomers lose.

And the gross outrage of this controversy is that this is what Republicans demand, Social Security and other entitlement cuts. It was their guy, George W. Bush* whose policies continue yet to impact our economy adversely. Republicans say we cannot blame President Obama's predecessor (despite the fact he dug this tremendous financial hole for all American citizens....) but we must make cuts in earned benefits (which they call entitlements) to offset Bush's 10.5 Trillion Dollar Deficit (the number at hand he kept off record when he departed the Oval Office). And some Dems are ready to give Republicans this -- cuts in Social Security to pay for the unfunded Iraq War and other prongs of the Bush* residency in office. I don't think so.

Sam

[JDPriestly]

18. The rich do not want to pay taxes at the higher rates that were effective during our prime working

years up until the Bush tax cuts.

We paid high tax rates, and now younger, wealthy people, want us to take cuts in Social Security so that they don't have to pay the rates that applied when we were young.

It is just horrible. Obama needs to take Reagan's advice and just say no on this one. No change to Social Security. None whatsoever.

[coalition_unwilling]

19. It is a false crisis and a way to stick it to the working class for the sins of

the parasite class. SS is solvent for at least 75 years and way beyond that if the economy picks up even a tiny bit. So anyone claiming there's a 'crisis' in SS should cause you to check your wallet because as sure as the sun rises in the east, they're trying to pick your pocket.

[truedelphi]

9. A big holiday welcome to you

[ashling]

10. Raise the cap

Hell, just get rid of the cap altogether

[Vincardog]

3. Seniors stayed away from the polls in 2010 allowing the GOP the house. Some people

blame "progressives" and get on their high horse about how we have to support party over policy. I am going on record telling the Third Way fools that if they persist in their mania to cut SS they will be joining the GOP in the dustbin of history.

[Honeycombe8]

6. Are tea partiers against the chained CPI? nt

[madfloridian]

12. Nearly all of America is against cuts to the safety nets.

As we pass the word that chained cpi is a sneaky back door way to cut, they won't like it either.

In fact some are already using that compromise to say Obama is cutting Social Security.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

11. Excellent

[JDPriestly]

17. K&R. Truer words were never spoken.

Picking on senior citizens will be disastrous for many now in Congress. Seniors on Social Security ask for very little and have given so much.

The giveaway that the chained CPI is an unwarranted, sneaky and mean change to Social Security is that it will affect the very poorest elderly the most, those who have utterly no alternative source of income and at a time when they can no longer effectively protest. What a cowardly idea: the chained CPI. It's a financial assault weapon aimed not at kindergarten children but at the elderly.

How could anyone who claims to have a heart even consider this idea?

As for wealthy people who receive Social Security, if the tax code is changed to increase tax rates across the board for people with high incomes, those few who don't need the extra cash will pay it back to the general fund in tax revenues.

The chained CPI is a means to allow the very rich to pay rates that are lower than that which applied during most of the working lives of today's seniors.

Why should today's seniors have to take a cut in order to protect the rich from tax rates that were effective when today's seniors were working? Makes no sense.

[Fumesucker]

20. What part of "third rail" do these fools fail to understand?

Go ahead and lick the damn thing for all I care, someone will have to sweep a small pile of carbon dust and some trace impurities away and that as they say will be that.

[eridani]

21. If we allow Dems to cut off the electricity, we are fucked

Call your representatives every single day until the end of the year.