The People Who Want to Cut Social Security All Have Great Retirement Plans!

[LongTomH]

Richard Eskow has a great op-ed at Huffington Post: Labor Day Irony: The People Who Want To Cut Social Security All Have Great Retirement Plans. Some Excerpts:

Events of the last week have made the Deficit Commission an embarrassment. Co-Chair Alan Simpson is a one-man disaster movie, compulsively offending one key voting bloc after another. Commission member Paul Ryan faced an angry crowd over his anti-Social Security stance, while another Commissioner locked experienced workers out of a nuclear facility rather than provide retirement benefits.

That's right: He's cutting retirement benefits.

But if the political blowback is obvious, here's what isn't: The Commissioners who are determined to cut your Social Security benefits are going to enjoy their own retirements in comfort. Their own pension plans insulate them from the fears that many other Americans face, and they don't have the professional expertise that would help them understand those concerns. In fact, the Commission's only expert on retirement is Rep. Jan Schakowsky, and she apparently opposes benefit cuts. The rest of the Commission is dominated by people who've expressed their desire to cut Social Security, despite their own secure futures. Millions of working Americans who have contributed to Social Security all their lives will lose out if these Commissioners have their way.

<snip>

The Commission's Social Security obsession is odd anyway, since the projected Social Security shortfall comes out to only 0.7% of GDP. Nevertheless, these Commissioners have made their benefit-cutting intentions plain, presumably because they want to offer up America's seniors as a sacrifice to the bond markets. So how will these would-be income-slashers for the elderly make out in their own golden years? They'll be golden.

Eskow lists members of the commission and the very generous retirement plans they will enjoy. As he frames it: "It's the comfortable afflicting the afflicted!!" No catfood dinners for members of The Catfood Commission; their cats will eat better than most of us! :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

If these Deficit Commission members want their recommendations to have any credibility, they should pledge to live on the same Social Security benefits that they would impose for other Americans. Better yet, they should dedicate themselves to helping provide every American with the kind of retirement security they enjoy. That was part of the social contract this nation embraced during its years of greatest economic growth, the fulfillment of a promise that a lifetime of work should never end with years of deprivation. They should be working to restore that contract, not erode it even further.

Edited to add: I missed Joanne98's posting of the same article. Apologies!

[clarence swinney]

1. social security

SOCIAL SECURITY CON JOB
If you work hard you can pay 6.2% of your total income into Payroll Tax
The Cap on Payroll tax for Rich is disgusting. Sicko.
Why let the ultra Rich get all the goodies. They have too much.

If they paid 6.2% on ALL income as do overwhelming majority of workers
here is result: Cap is now $106,000.
6.2%
$1,000,000 Pays $62,000
$10 Million Pays $620,000 not $106,000= minus $514,000
$100 Million Pays $6,200,000 not $106,000= minus $5,140,000
$1 Billion Pays $ 62,000,000 not $106,000 = minus$ 51,400,000
$4 Billion(2009 Top Income)pays $248,000,000 not $106,000= minus$205,600,000

Lookie at amount we could collect from Luckie Duckies
who would never miss a meal.
If find error in numbers inform me [e-mail]

[awoke_in_2003]

2. their are a lot of common people...

who want social security cut, thinking it won't affect them. I work with dumbasses like this.