Democrats Embrace the Good Kind of ‘Entitlement Reform’

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/180691/democrats-embrace-good-kind-entitlement-reform



For many years, the smug elites of Wall Street have peddled “entitlement reform” as a sly euphemism for cutting Social Security. And Washington’s political elites, including President Obama, bought into the propaganda. Social Security, not to mention Medicare and Medicaid, was driving the nation into ruinous debt if government did not act to curb this venerable New Deal program. Think tanks and editorial writers, political reporters and TV talkers, witlessly embraced the big lie and promoted it as indisputable truth.

Except this self-righteous crusade for fiscal discipline failed to persuade the American people—the wage earners who pay the FICA deductions on every weekly paycheck and expect to get their money back as the retirement benefits promised by law. For many folks, the deal smelled like another Washington swindle. The people had it right, the experts were wrong. This time, the people are going to prevail.

This summer, though virtually ignored by the news media, the Democratic party in Congress has launched a smart, spirited counter-offensive on behalf of Social Security. In the House and Senate, eight differing measures have been introduced by various Democrats to expand Social Security benefits to correct injustices for women and low-wage workers and to increase FICA payments for the wealthiest wage earners who make more than $400,000 a year. Instead of attacking Social Security, “entitlement reform” now takes on an opposite meaning—improving workplace fairness in this much-loved federal program and insuring its solvency for the next the 75 years.

This may sound like a minor event since none of these measures will be enacted anytime soon. But it reflects a major political shift underway in the reigning values of Democrats—a reawakening of the reform spirit that used to be the mainstream party’s identity and another important way of confronting the society’s scandalous inequalities of income and wealth.

[Larkspur]

1. Hopefully, this is another sign that the Reagan Revolution is dead and decaying.

[Faux pas]

2. this needs more exposure

here's the kick.

[bluestateguy]

3. I favor Medicare buy-in

People who are 55-65 and have paid a certain amount of premiums to the system could pay into the system as benficiaries; a monthly premium, really like a public option.

This was discussed briefly during the Obamacare debate, but Joe Lieberman wouldn't allow it.