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Read no further if you believe that Social Security’s benefits for you future senior citizens of 2050 are going to be too generous. Read no further if you are convinced that because a subgroup of you affluent seniors in 2050 might live long and healthy lives, that everyone who is fifty years old or younger today should have their benefits cut, and their retirement age raised another two years to 69, and those changes made permanent for all future generations. Read no further if you think retirement, survivors’ and disability benefits for those entering the workforce this year should be cut 36%. (See the chart below, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:)
Please watch this PSA describing the financial stability and integrity of the Social Security system. This PSA was created for young people to see, to encourage them, to empower them, to help them to understand that Social Security is there to provide them with earned benefits in a system of social insurance, which is built to last for the foreseeable future. The video is called Social Security: Just the Facts.
When politicians declared war on Social Security in the President’s Commission and later in the deficit ceiling negotiations, no one really believed they would do it. But there has always been a corporate push to destroy Social Security. Since 1935. And it has fallen on those living today, young and old to defend Social Security against those who would again try to weaken Social Security and then, destroy it.
Alan Simpson, the loud-mouthed, factually-challenged, -one who would reduce your future Social Security to a range of 9 to 15 K per year, calls people like me “Greedy Geezers”, then turns to you and tells you to resent me because I am going to receive something he wants to take away from you. It’s called divide-and-conquer and both R & D Presidential candidates have been using this same strategy. They try to neutralize the wrath of your parents by saying, only those under fifty-five should worry. Soon your parents will know what their false reassurances are worth. If they will betray the children, they will betray the parents too. And they already have:
In 1983, I was like you young ones, looking for work, going to school, looking for my partner in life. In 1983, Reagan’s commission stole two years of Social Security retirement, pushing the retirement age up from 65 to 67, and creating a total of 19% cuts to future generations. Now they have come for your future retirement like they came for ours. An ugly bargaining away of your future benefits looms in the ‘Grand Bargain’ of the congressional lame duck session. Don’t let them get away with stealing your earned benefits.
33 Comments
Gaius Publius at Americablog: An action site is located there on this issue.
>>>>Senator Sanders and 29 Senators signed a letter against SS cuts. Did your Senator sign??
http://americablog.com/2012/11/social-security-medicare-cuts-whip-count.html
You can go there to find out how to contact your Senators and Congress persons. Thanking Senators who have already signed Sanders letter against the cuts is cool too. In addition to gratuitous, snarky, out loud wondering why any candidate for President would want to lose the youth vote, by advocating for taking their Social Security benefits away??##!!
Thank you for this, you Greedy Geezer, you.
(Rec’d.) ;o) (And they do it because the youth, in the main, don’t know what they’re up to on this and a host of other issues.)
Thanks. wendydavis
When I revisited the President’s speech on July 22nd, 2011, I realized that he was acting out his anger in a fit of pique, not only because the Rs had dissed his Grand Bargain, but also because they had outed him as Austerian-in-Chief and willing to double-cross Democrats who were stuck in the same now polluted, ecosphere as Mr. Obama. His rage has a cold, blue steel quality to it. I would not want to be on the other end of his armed drones.
You’re braver (or sillier) than I; I can’t even stand to watch him any more. Interesting that you saw his anger, though. The only time I ever saw him angry was in his first year when his friend the Professor was hassled by cops while the man was trying to enter his own friggin’ house. (PBS gave him his own show not long afterward…)
You are right; how many do actually know they are being led to the shearing on Social Security? In 1983, I had no clue what was going on.
We are the ones who know about it, so I guess, we are the ones who should do something about it!
It’s important for us now to remember that when Obama speaks occassionally of the supposedly great bipartisan moment in 1983 and invokes the name of Tip O’Neill this is what he’s talking about – reducing Social Security benefits.
I think that you are referring to this in the 1st Presidential debate, in October?
*
In 1983, the reforms changed the age of retirement by 2 years, taxed a portion of benefits, and delayed implementation of a COLA and all totalled, reduced Social Security 19% for those affected.
So when President Obama called what was done in 1983 similar to what he has planned, he was suggesting an analogy to a 19% cut in 1983, which was composed primarily of benefit cuts and marginally of increased SS revenue.
*from the 10.4 transcript
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/03/politics/debate-transcript/index.html
…..shudder….didn’t watch the debates! I’m not sure if I heard him say it more than once, or just watched the same clip in different places. Seems like I’ve been hearing it for a while.
But soon enough we’ll know whether the US prefers to have its proudest accomplishments dismantled by R’s, D’s, or both.
President Obama announced his intentions in the Des Moines newspaper interview. I think that is dated October 26th. He said that he expects to complete his Grand Bargain within 6 months. In response, Republicans criticized him for not doing what he is promising to do sooner. So both Ds and Rs are in on this, unless there is strong resistance. That is why I hope people who stop here, click on the link to the action site in Comment #1, and write to their Senators and Congress persons.
One of the recommendations made in 1983 in response to raising the retirement age from 65 to 67, is identical to what Bowles and Simpson are recommending now that they are asking to raise the retirement age from 67 to 69. Bowles and Simpson are suggesting that some provision be made for workers who are unable to maintain employment to receive help similar to how disability functions. They made the same recommendations for this to be studied and then for Congress to take up the issue of hardship in 1983, but then never did anything about it. So they cannot be trusted to take care of older unemployed workers or workers who need to retire earlier. Here is the 1983 provision:
Here is a letter from StrengthenSocialSecurity in answer to the Bowles-Simpson cuts to Social Security (see Figure 2. Above) These young professionals objected to Simpson’s mischaracterization of Social Security advocates and older persons, and Simpson’s underrepresentation of the B-S plans severity of benefit cuts.
http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/sites/default/files/Final%20Simpson%20Letter%20on%20Letterhead%20FINAL%20FINAL.pdf
I was channel surfing this AM and came across “Fix the Debt” program on the Retirement Channel. there as Alan Simpson in his full glory acting like the prick he really is. More lies and BS coming out his mouth. I am not sure who owes this chennel but a few years ago I saw Paula Zahn interview PEte Peterson on the same channel..what complete BS!!! Peterson trying convince people to sacifice SS and Medicare the way our parents did during WW2!!!!!!!!!!!!What a SOB!!! And Zahn just sat there grinning.
keep up the good work TT!
Young folks surveyed by AARP in 2010 were very much supportive of Social Security and willing to guarantee its permanence through to their retirement even if it meant paying a bit more in payroll tax. This is a link to a NYTs article with a link to the original AARP source.
Good luck to you bearman. One day at a time.
http://www.rl.tv/about/#contact
This is the contact for the channel…John Ericsson owns the channel he owns a number of retirement communites and they are based in Balitmore MD. I intend to call them tomorrow why they are not allowing other voices on their shows that support SS and Medicre. They are other debt reduction plans that reduce the debt and don’t touch SS and Medicare..put NAcy Altman Eric Kingston and Alex Lawson on put Bernie on put Dean Baker on..
“one small act” If each of us does what you are doing, we will overcome. Thanks.
I get particularly angry when I reflect on how unnecessary any cuts to entitlements are. Entitlements need to be strengthened, not weakened. Here’s a simple way to take care of entitlement problems and much else.
Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, have, along with others worked long and hard to block the efforts of Peterson, the Republicans, many Democrats, and the President to cut SS. However, almost from the beginning, they’ve been using the wrong strategy in that they haven’t attacked the underlying frame of the austerians. See here, here, and here.
Thank you. I will try to change the underlying frame of the debts frame, too.
You forgot the part about those annual 401(k) enrollment sessions at which the securities peddlers of the 401(k) mutual funds always begin by telling you that Social Security is going away so you need to invest the max in their funds. That’s what passes for pensions in the US these days. And only if you are one of the lucky duckies whose employers provide “benefits”.
SS is a stabilizing influence in Recessions. Without, we’ll have Depressions.
Thanks for everybody stopping by. It’s a long way from morning to here, or so the radio singer says. I’ve got to leave now. Ha! See you on the morrow.
As a visiting professor on a 10 month contract at a State University in Florida I was required(!) to accept an Alternate FICA tax “retirement” instrument (administered by BENCOR). My contributions are deposited into a private retirement investment account and at the end of the contract I am allowed to withdraw, without penalty, all the funds and all the gains they might generate. I believe this privatized FICA statute has been around for decades and although it seems to be available only to short term contracted employees it clearly undermines the very nature of Social Security and Medicare. And as a self-employed person during prior years I have not always been required to contribute FICA taxes to the government coffers.
That “entitlement” contributions have already been privatized in this way is not generally known to the public…
food for thought…
Obama has cut taxes for the middle class chiefly through social security taxes. Raising them would now cause a protest among people not realizing they are slitting their own throats because shortchanging the system now insures later benefit cuts. Of course, the system has already been shortchanged by using social security funds for general spending.
That the people are about ready to return the president and the vast majority of incumbent congressmen to their posts is nothing short of amazing.
It has always been ‘take the money and run.’ Odd how no one (Tom Thumb excepted) ever got wise to it. What appals me is how many so-called liberal economist colleagues of mine buy into this budget bullshit.
Thanks for putting this up, Tom.
I clicked through to see if my Senator, Sherrod Brown, signed the petition.
I eventually got to a HuffPo post that showed a bunch of colored bars and no names?
Anyways, I called Senator Brown plenty of times when the Grand Bargain was (almost) going down, and he was always on the right side. So I’ll vote for him again.
But I’m voting for Jill Stein for President. In general, our Democratic party is wholly corrupt.
~
Absolutely! And voting that way is the only solution or the democrats will never change.
Here’s a question about cutting Social Security that I would like Simpson and his ilk answer: What is the overall effect of taking money away from people receiving Social Security? how would the “savings” of that money help or hurt the economy.
I run a small publishing company. My two biggest audiences for books are middle aged women living on pensions or Social Security, and people in the expanding economy of China. I suspect a lot opf other small business owners ar e pleased at how people who have SOcial Security checks each money are spending their money.
When Social Security is cut (probably over the lame duck session before the new or re-elected President takes office,) the monies that are cut will somehow end up being used for another war or another Bailout, or possibly both. Believe you me, these people have already gotten enough of our monies. (If you don’t believe me, rent the DVD “Inside Job” to learn how the bankers siphoned off the Middle Class’ hard saved retirement monies.)
Banks that get the monies from the Middle Class sit on it, unless something really to their liking comes along. (For instance, Goldman Sachs now owns a huge natural resources preserve in South America’s Patagonia area.) When older people get back the monies they themselves put away for their Social Security they spend it. They spend some of their Social Security checks at grocery stores, on presents, including help with college tuition!, for grand kids, on books, beauty and barber shops, etc. The money ends up in the economy, where it gets passed along. Under the plans that Simpson has, it ends up in the tenth or eleventh summer home of some rich slob, or worse, in a bank vault or a munitions firm.
Never have I ever thought that I would be so disgusted with a Republican Lackey of a President calling himself a Democrat.
Of course, Billy Boy, he had the advantage of being President before the internets were up and working. So it was less likely that we could pull the curtain back upon the naked corruption of that man.
Only thing helping to hold my sanity in place is the fact that there have been such tremendous efforts by people like Jill and Rocky and Roseanne to speak the truth.
It is amazing. Not just that people are deciding to do this, but they are so blithe about it. They have learned all the “pat” responses, and they just don’t seem to understand that they are willingly, merrily, accepting Fascism Lite with their vote for their leader.
And some of us don’t feel it is all that LITE.
elise, the monies aren’t used for another war. When they’re saved; they’re just destroyed; taken out the private economy, which suppresses demand and inclines us towards economic downturns.
TomThumb,
What is the Smoking Gun? The Smoking Gun that shows that Obama means ill? That he is getting ready to dismantle social security?
First, a little detour: Obama’s talking point about social security goes like this:
1.) Social security is “structurally sound” (therefore, disarming you, and leading you to think that he is on your side, because he is repeating one of your arguments).
2.) But to ensure it survives, we need to “tweak” it–improve it to ensure its survival (he does not define “tweak.” So he intends to cut social security. This is a prime example of Obama blithely talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, something that he does well all the time.)
Actually, Obama does not intend to tweak social security or to improve it to ensure social security’s survival. Obama intends to start the process to dismantle social security. Below is the evidence.
If Obama of his own volition does things to undermine the program, then you know his intention is to undermine the program, correct? We have the evidence that Obama is trying to undermine social security rather than help it survive.
The following two actions by Obama is the Smoking Gun that reveals that any of Obama’s actions regarding social security is not to preserve social security, but rather to take down social security:
1.) At the end of the debt negotiations, Obama threw in, gratuitously, a 30 percent reduction in contributions to social security as part of the mix. No one asked him to do that. Obama lobbied vigorously behind the scenes, completely of his own volition, to cut contributions to social security by 30%. Why did he fight so hard to reduce the funding stream for social security?
If you are trying to preserve something, you increase funding to it, correct? Not decrease funding to it? If you are trying to preserve social security, you increase its revenues if you can, correct, not reduce its revenues? You try to ensure that SS has as much in its fund as possible? So, if you decrease funding to social security so that it has a smaller fund, you are trying to make it weaker? Therefore we can conclude Obama is trying to weaken social security.
A politician who is trying to strengthen social security would try to increase funding for it. For example, by raising the $100,000 income cap to social security. None of this Obama proposed, which tells us again his ill intentions.
During the debate, instead of Mitt Romney booming to Obama, “You invested in Solyndra” etc., we needed a politician to boom repeatedly to Obama, “You purposely weakened social security behind the scenes.” “Your action is despicable.” I guarantee you, Obama will no longer be seen as a statesman etc., but rather the small, slippery character that he is. Obama’s numbers at the popular polls would not be at the 48-49 percent they are at now if that basic truth be known.
2.) Second, Obama tied that 30% cut in contributions to social security to the federal budget, so that it is now the federal budget that fills in that 30% that was cut from contributions to social security.
Tying social security funding to the federal budget is precisely what FDR made a point of avoiding, so that, as FDR said, future politicians can’t say “we need to cut social security because the federal budget has no money for it.” Social security always has its own, separate funding stream, so you can’t say we need to cut it because the government has no money.
Well, Obama actively of his own volition, connected social security to the federal budget–which no previous Republican president has done. As a result of Obama’s actions, we cannot now say that social security does not take money from the federal budget. Thanks to Obama.
So Obama, by action #2, shows that he is not a defender of social security, but rather its enemy. He started taking away–without being asked–social security’s main defense–that it has nothing to do with the federal budget. Someone who takes away a program’s main defense is trying to undermine it, correct? So, Obama is trying to undermine social security.
Remember too that 1 and 2 have been the dreams of right wing think tanks. And no Republican president had ever succeeded in taking those two steps. (And yes, of course, Obama is a Republican, even more radical than GWBush.)
As Obama gets ready to unleash the Grand Bargain if he is reelected, the two despicable actions above by Obama compose the Smoking Gun that reveals that any of Obama’s actions regarding social security is not to preserve social security, but rather to take down social security.
The two despicable actions reveal Obama’s true intentions to begin to take down social security, the social safety net. Make no mistake about it, he is thereby waging a War on the Middle Class, no less. But he is very flippant about it–he does things easily, flippantly. Despicable. Despicable.
I also found a blank spreadsheet at HuffPo. So I am linking here to a list of your Senator’s email addresses, phone numbers.
I am having trouble getting into the post this morning; getting redirected to a facebook page. It could be my own computer’s problem, but…..???
When I wrote to my Senators, I thanked them for signing the letter opposing all cuts. I suspect that Sherrod is on that list of signers, too. It does not hurt to thank them, and it lets all of them know that you are paying attention to what they do in addition to what they say.
update: Sherrod Brown did indeed sign Sanders’ letter. Here is the pdf.
Liked this comment chef and concur with you — also would concur with comments above @ 16,22,23,26,28 and 29
Thank you TT — Obama’s signaled intent to undermine FDR’s SS legacy based on worst of 10 per centers fiscal fearmongering and dishonesty all done in service to conduct policy and political deception around SS should earn Obama a WH election defeat this week. Too bad this UniParty sanctioned WH election was so successful at framing Obana as being the better choice when in fact and in truth Obama is going to be able to do more easily what Romney would have been unable to do. UniParty has mounted a excellent misdirection to keep Obama — the best R POTUS since Ronny RayGun — in the WH. The Dbots will let Obama do it too. It is despicable.
I just got off the phone with Feinstein’s office, and it sounds like she hasn’t made up her mind about signing Sanders’ letter yet. Constituents, PLEASE call her.