Alan Simpson's Foulmouthed Rant about "The Lesser People" / RJ Escrow

[KoKo]

By RJ Eskow also posted at Daily Kos

A video of retired Sen. Alan Simpson’s foulmouthed rant toward activist Alex Lawson is making the Internet rounds, as well it should: The sheer audacity and rudeness of the guy makes this clip “must-see TV.” It’s a political bloopers reel.

SEE VIDEO HERE:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTZ7BN22vtM&feature=player_embedded


But, while Simpson’s outrageousness makes the video entertaining, here’s what make it important: Alan Simpson is one of two chairs of a bipartisan commission created by President Obama to study the Federal deficit. His comments reveal a number of very important things about his biases, his tendency to distort and mislead, and his ideological extremism. These traits are likely to taint the Commission’s work – work which has great implications for the future.


Transcript:

By RJ Eskow also posted at Daily Kos.

But, while Simpson’s outrageousness makes the video entertaining, here’s what make it important: Alan Simpson is one of two chairs of a bipartisan commission created by President Obama to study the Federal deficit. His comments reveal a number of very important things about his biases, his tendency to distort and mislead, and his ideological extremism. These traits are likely to taint the Commission’s work – work which has great implications for the future.

Your future.

Simpson is the former Republican Senator from Wyoming, but those who hope that Simpson’s biases will be offset by his Democratic counterpart are probably in for a big disappointment. As Robert Kuttner reports, Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles was finalizing a deal with New Gingrich to cut Social Security when the Monica Lewinsky scandal derailed their agreement.

Alan’s one of the Wyoming Simpsons, although on this video he sounds more like one of the Springfield Simpsons. (D’oh!) Here’s what his comments reveal, besides an irascible personality: That he wants to create a sense of crisis around Social Security, that raiding Social Security to pay for other government expenditures is perfectly fine with him … even though he’s supposedly a “small government” conservative, that he’s entered an Orwellian world where cutting Social Security isn’t really “cutting” it, and that he’ll use absurd rhetorical games to defend his position. Jane Hamsher has the whole transcript, but here are the highlights.

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The Shock Doctrine Without the Shock

Naomi Klein described the “shock doctrine,” where conservatives use a crisis to force unpopular ideas on the public. There is no crisis where Social Security’s concerned, but Simpson and other Commission members want us to think there is. That explains exchanges like this:

SIMPSON (regarding Social Security): It’ll go broke in 2037.

LAWSON: What do you mean by ‘broke’? Do you mean the surplus will go out and then it will only be able to pay 75% of its benefits.

SIMPSON: Just listen to me instead of babbling …

Simpson then goes on to affirm Lawson’s statement (without apology, of course.) But he resumes the fearmongering a minute later:

SIMPSON: … There is not enough in the system by the month … to pay out what comes in. In other words there is more going out than coming in. That happened 3 or 4 weeks ago.

And, a few minutes later:

LAWSON: … Social Security is separate, though, from the general budget, right? It’s totally in the green.

SIMPSON: But it wasn’t. Just four weeks ago, there wasn’t as much coming in as going out.

LAWSON: Except you’re not calculating the interest paid on the bonds, because, if you do include that, it’s still in the green this year.

SIMPSON: Well you can go through all the sophistry of babbling that you want to.

LAWSON: It’s not sophistry. It’s just what the SSA says. So I’m just going on the numbers.

Alex is absolutely right, and Simpson’s the one engaging in sophistry (if by “sophistry” you mean, to use Simpson’s word, “bulls**t.”) If the interest is paid as agreed on those bonds, Social Security is still in the black. And if the government pays back what’s it has taken out of the Social Security coffers, benefits can be paid in full until at least 2037. But about that borrowed money …

Big Government Alan

It’s fascinating to watch Simpson suddenly defend big government expenditures, even when (make that only when people’s own insurance payments – money they’ve paid to cover their retirement is borrowed and then left unpaid:

LAWSON: … (W)hat about the $180 billion in surplus that (Social Security) brings in every year?

SIMPSON: There is no surplus in there. It’s a bunch of IOUs.

LAWSON: That’s what I wanted to actually get at.

SIMPSON: Listen. Listen. It’s 2.5 trillion bucks in IOUs which have been used to build the interstate highway system and all of the things people have enjoyed since it has been setup.

LAWSON: Two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy.

SIMPSON: Whatever, whatever. You pick your crap and I’ll pick the real stuff. It has to do with the highway system, it was to run America. And those are IOUs in there. And now there is not enough coming in every month …

Simpson’s capable of mustering an eloquent defense of government spending when it suits his argument (although he opposes it when it’s actually being proposed). And welching on an IOU sounds just fine to him, too.

We didn’t cut your benefits! Now be quiet and eat your cat food!

SIMPSON: In the year 2037, instead of getting 100% of your check, you are going to get about 75% of your check. That’s if you touch nothing. If you like that, fine. You’ll be picking with the chickens yourself when you’re 65.

So we want to take care, we’re not cutting, we’re not balancing the budget on the backs of senior citizens. That’s bullshit. So you’ve got that one down. So as long as you’ve got those two things down, you can’t play with anymore, that we’re not balancing the budget of the United States on the backs of poor old seniors and we’re not cutting anything, we’re stabilizing the system.

LAWSON: Thanks for being so frank. My question is: raising the retirement age, is actually an across-the-board benefit cut?

SIMPSON: There are 15 different options being discussed in here today, and why nail one of them……if you would like to get one of them that pisses your people off.

LAWSON: Alice Rivlin was just on CNBC saying that that was one of the favorite methods.

SIMPSON: There are 15 of them in there.

I like the folksy “cutting with the chickens” line (although I don’t know what the hell it means.) But this is the thinking: “we’re not cutting , we’re stabilizing.” Expect to hear the word “stabilizing” used to mean “cutting” many times in the month to come – and expect your Social Security to be “stabilized” when it’s time for you to retire if this ideology prevails.

Run that by me one more time?

Simpson asserts that Social Security wasn’t originally intended to pay for people so far into retirement because life expectancy was low in 1935, when SSI was created. That’s true … but the program’s been modified since then to adjust for increased life expectancy. That leads to this whopper:

LAWSON: —(I)t’s my understanding from actually looking at the 1983 commission (which revamped Social Security), they actually started prefunding the retirement of the baby boom by building up that huge surplus.

SIMPSON: They never knew there was a baby boom in ’83.

Really? They didn’t there was a baby boom … in 1983?? They didn’t know how many babies had been born in the years 1948-1964? Here’s the real reason Alan Simpson says outrageously false things like that:

Read my lips: We’re cutting your benefits so that we don’t have to pay new taxes!

Here’s the bottom line. Simpson doesn’t want to force the government to pay those bonds back, because it will probably require new taxes to pay for them. The Commission’s likely to recommend some new taxes, but the Simpson crowd wants those increases to be a small as possible. Here’s an example of that ideology in action:

LAWSON: The government doesn’t actually own the bonds, it’s the government owing…

SIMPSON: Let me say things in a way so your fans will understand this, so you can go and be a hero. There is not enough in the system … So, what do they do? They go to that trust fund and say, ‘We need the IOUs out of it.’ And they say, ‘You can have them, but you have to pay for them’ …

Paying for them … which means more taxes … is exactly what Simpson and his comrades don’t want.

There’s more, and you should read/watch the whole thing, but that’s the gist of it. It’s frightening to consider the implications of Simpson’s reaction – the fierceness, the ideological drive, and the closed-mindedness. Remember, his Commission has been entrusted with determining your financial future. That means your economic fate is in the hands of an angry ideologue … and, for “balance,” he’s been partnered with somebody who worked with Newt Gingrich to try cutting Social Security.

As Alan Simpson might say, “@#)(@#*)(*@#)!!!!”
http://socialsecurity-works.org/2010/simpsonrant/

[msongs]

1. this is what ya get when your policy is appease republicans whenever possible nt

[xchrom]

2. simpson is the lightening rod on this --

but my notion is that characters like bowles and rivlin essentially agree with him.
they're just more nicely spoken.


'Here’s the bottom line. Simpson doesn’t want to force the government to pay those bonds back, because it will probably require new taxes to pay for them.

[vi5]

3. Hooray for bipartisanship!!!

What a joke.

[depakid]

5. +1

My guess is that a lot of people won't be very happy with the last 20 month's approach come November 3rd.

[denverbill]

4. Eliminate congressional pensions first. Yours first Simpson. Then we'll talk SS cuts. n/t

[foxfeet]

6. +1 for common sense.

[NorthCarolina]

7. Can someone explain why Obama would choose this guy as his champion on SS reform? eom

[KoKo]

8. Some folks say...he Used Simpson as a "Foil" to attrack the bad Press..so that Obama could get rid

of him. Others don't buy that line of thought...think Simpson will do a good job and that Dems will be happy because he's so "OTT" that it will make Erskine Bowles recommendations look good.

So either it's a "WIN/WIN" for our President and he succeeds in putting both these terribly flawed individuals as head of his "Deficit Commission" or Obama falls on his face from the Push Back over that filthy Simpson who is Mouthing Off like some "DIRTY OLD MAN!"

[HillWilliam]

9. I don't trust Bowles worth a diddly, either.

People like Simpson will stoke the MIC greed-furnace (at a tidy profit) with the bodies of children and old folks at home and the bodies of our beautiful youth in ill-conceived and seeming pointless wars abroad with a sneer and a stupid joke.

People like Bowles will do exactly the same but with an insincerely apologetic "I'm sorry, but you must understand why we had to do this" bulllllsheeyit speech that nobody believes but for some inexplicable reason nearly everyone seems to accept.

Only "nearly".

PT Barnum was (incorrectly) attributed as having said "There's a sucker born every minute."

Yeah, but I got fifty-nine other seconds, mothaf...

[KoKo]

10. Erskine Bowles ran for Senate in NC...I donated to him and was invited to a fundraiser...because of

donation. Hubby and I attended this function sponsored by a lovely old Chapel Hill, NC, Moneyed Family. After the scrumptious appetizers and schmoozing by the "Business Community" who were sponsering Bowels event ...we settled down to listen to his "talk up" to us.

(Putting this in context...I was already a member of DU and was railing against Gore/Florida and DU ..way back then...had TONS OF ACTIVISTS working on the CORRUPT VOTING MACHINES)...so I was very sensitized and wounded about what happened to GORE in Florida and how that was so MISHANDLED (an understatement) by my Democratic Party. When Bowles spoke to us it was just after 9/11 and he was running for Senate and he wanted our Money and Attention. But, some in his audience were angry over the impending Iraq Invasion and were looking for someone who would run for Senate who would fight for us against Iraq Invasion over FINDING BIN LADEN.

Erskine got up and gave a pretty speech about how close he was to Bill Clinton (remember he was Chief of Staff during the latter part of MonicaGate) and I, personally asked Erskine...how big a threat was Iraqi Terrorism with Saddam and was it worth Invading Iraq?

Erskine went off on a long dialogue that the "Clinton Administration" considered Saddam the most URGENT terror threat that America Faced. He kept saying over and over that we needed to do something about SADDAM that he had WMD and he WOULD USE THEM against us the first chance he had. No one clapped ...most stood there in silence. He went on talking about the Economy and how good Bill Clinton was on it and all he had achieved...but by then I was tugging on hubbies shirt sleeve and telling him "I HAVE TO GET OUR OF HERE..THIS LYING FUCKER WANTS US TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAQ..AND I DON'T BELIEVE HIM!" (I was starting to get short of breath like a Panic Attack coming on)..Just so you know ...I had been reading links on DU from international websites and our own info that Saddam didn't have WMD...and that Bush had STOLEN THE ELECTION...and reading proof of that...so I was PRIMED against what Erskine Bowles said from the get go....

However...as TIME HAS SHOWN...ERSKINE LIED...He was WITH THE NEOCONS and he thought he could pull it off getting elected to Senate from NC with those lies.

Bottom line was...Erskine Lost the Election...and the seat finally went to John Edwards (who let us NC'linians down) with the money we gave him and how he turned out with his affairs. But, I've never been sorry that Erskine LOST...(even though I donated to him) because I had to walk out on his LYING CRAP at that Fundraiser there in Liberal Chapel Hill, NC.!

When Obama appointed Erskine Bowles and Simpson to head his "Deficit Commission" ...I had a chill across my heart. These were amongst the worst two people he could have appointed for his "DEFICIT COMMISSION" ...and I don't expect anything good for Dems to come out of it. ALAN SIMPSON might be getting all the attention for "Sucking Teats and Cow Udders" these days...but if anyone scratches the surface of ERSKINE BOWLES...you will find a "kindred spirit" to Republican Simpson lurking there.

Bowles is a Piece of Work...who would knife you in the back...but do it as a Southern Gentleman as opposed to Simpson's DIRTY TALK and In Your FACE...MEAN OLD MAN ANTICS.

SIGN THAT PETITION THAT'S OUT THERE AGAINST SIMPSON...and DON'T BELIEVE A WORD ERSKINE BOWLES SAYS AND DON'T TRUST HIM! You heard this from a North Carolinian!

[HillWilliam]

11. You and I went right down that same path

and from another North Carolinian:

haaaaaaaaaaallllllllle no. Don't trust Bowles as far as you can clean-and-jerk then throw the general assembly building.

[northernlights]

12. well Obama had his opportunity to fire him today

and didn't.

Therefore, Simpson is there to enable Obama to cut social security.

My personal response is this. I have already been robbed of my personal retirement savings through fraud and unemployment. Now they intend to rob me of the social security insurance that I've paid into my whole life.

If they go ahead with that, then I will do *everything* I can to earn money under the table and barter, so that I pay as little into "the system" as I can possibly get away with. What I will not do is continue to suffer in a hateful, miserable, stupid job in the "system" until I drop in the harness or go broke because I can't get hired any more.

Failing that, I will burn my house to the ground and kill myself so that I don't starve on the one hand, and so they can't take my property as "winnings" after they've driven me to suicide on the other.

Fucktards. Stupid, greedy, narcissistic, entitled fucktards. Every motherfucking last one of them.