Sounds like some Dems are eyeing Social Security change while funding a losing Iraq war.

[madfloridian]

Just as soon as they get in office.

Sounds like they might be waiting until after the election. FEMA is broken, Medicare is slowing dying, but the Iraq war is being funded without question. Priorities and all that stuff, you know.

This is a disturbing article.

Blue Dogs look beyond '08 election

Cooper’s silence is understandable: Although the party that takes power next year will have to address deficit reduction and entitlement reform, those issues — especially when they involve painful changes to Social Security and Medicare — are too hot to touch during a presidential election campaign.

Instead, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are positioning themselves — quietly — to deal with the difficult choices after the election is over.

At the request of fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, House Budget Committee Chairman John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.) will convene a hearing later this month to address some of the entitlement questions.

Now we have seen they will continue funding the war. No questions asked. They only balked at the funding for education for returning veterans.

They are now balking at the two most fundamental basics of our society, two of the senior safety nets. This scares me.

At the centerpiece of that hearing will be a proposal, authored by Cooper and Republican Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, that would kick entitlement reform to a bipartisan commission like the one that has handled military base closings. The Cooper-Wolf panel would spend a year studying the nation’s fiscal concerns before presenting Congress with a legislative package which it would be forced to vote on in its entirety.

That is what I read at the DLC....they will package it and force the Democrats to ram it through. I think they call it turning Social Security over to private companies, like they have already done with Medicare basically.

Other members, including Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and ranking Republican Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), have proposed similar commissions with more member involvement. Some lawmakers, including House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), say a bipartisan approach is the best way — maybe the only way — to give members the political cover they need to overhaul these massive federal programs.

Oh, hell, yes, fellows...you will most surely need political cover

There won't be enough people to get your backs if you do that. Stop funding the war, bring our boys home, stop letting 47 House members have total control....and leave Social Security alone.

[John Q. Citizen]

1. For these people fixing means dismantling. Reform means dismantling, Ask the

42nd president what his idea of "Welfare Reform" meant.

It means lots of homeless vets.

It means lots of homeless kids.

Let's ask for a bipartisan commission to exit Iraq, so the members have cover and all...

[VP505]

2. The only entitlements they better be fooling with

are those being doled out to corporations. First of all Social Security is NOT an entitlement, that's why we all pay into the fund, Blue Dogs better get that straight from the get go. SS, Medicare, Medicaid, etc, they better keep their paws off of! Sounds like some Blue Doge have a short memory or are too young to understand the price they WILL pay for screwing with SS, probably the most successful social safety net ever.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Disaster capitalists, that is what they are

and it is high time folks wake up to this reality and how much we really need to pull the tent back

[madfloridian]

8. Yes,

That is a good name for them. :hi:

[Mountainman]

4. How in hell is it that we can lose billions in an unnecessary war and say we have to cut social

programs? I don't get it. When we talk about "entitlements" (I hate that word for social security and medicare) we should talk about the entitlements the war profiteers get!

[madfloridian]

5. More about the thinking on this issue by conservative Democrats.

Many of our Democrats, especially the DLC leaders, are joining with right wing groups to fix Social Security.

Here are some of their thoughts.

The bad news is that Congress needs to take a hard look at Social Security and figure out how to accommodate an increasingly healthy crop of older Americans, without putting excess burdens on younger citizens, the senators and other panelist said. Carper and Graham each cited the work that then-President Ronald Reagan and then-Speaker Tip O’Neill did together in the 1980s to stave off a Social Security crisis as a model for further reform efforts. Democrats and Republicans will need to cooperate again to tackle Social Security, and they will need to make tough choices, the two senators said. Reagan and O’Neill “told their bases things that they didn’t want to hear,” Graham said, adding that that kind of candor will be needed again.

Reagan, he is the one who said the most fearful words were I am from the government and I am here to help you.

He had weird ideas about Social Security.

Wanted to privatize retirement, but never had opportunity

Social Security was always more tar baby than Teflon for Reagan. He told me when he was governor of California that Barry Goldwater’s campaign had demonstrated that Republicans could not safely discuss the issue, but Reagan could not stop talking about it. I have no doubt that he shared the view that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme. He was intrigued with the idea of a voluntary plan that would have allowed workers to make their own investments. This idea would have undermined the system by depriving Social Security of the contributions of millions of the nation’s highest-paid workers. In 1976 he said that Social Security “could have made a provision for those who could do better on their own” and suggested that such recipients be allowed to leave the program upon showing that “they had made provisions for their non-earning years.” This declaration sent shudders through the ranks of Reagan’s political advisers, who knew his true feelings about Social Security.“
Source: The Role of a Lifetime, by Lou Cannon, p. 243 Jul 2, 1991

Do you remember all the talking from our Democrats against Bush's push for private accounts? I do.

Didn't we spend the year before we got the majority in Congress last year saying that Social Security was fine and didn't need fixing? I thought so. But now that we are elected, we are going to join with of all people, Lindsey Graham, and of all groups..the Heritage Foundation....to fix what we said wasn't broken.

[peacetalksforall]

12. Exactly. Hoyer = DLC and Pelosi = Hoyer? These people should

be attacked from in every decent, adult method possible.

They are playing with the wrong institution.

Their logic is as screwed up as Republicans to call it entitlement.

Let's cut to the chase - to their face - this is a lobbyist dream.

These are the companies who betray us by spying on us.
These are the companies who betray us by 100% contempt for us.
These are the companies who send our jobs to India.
These are the companies who lose our records on a laptop.

These are the companies who are trying to dissolve and melt unions.

These are the companies who own the FDA and allow all varieties of carcinogens.

And we want them to own us.

These are the companies who laid off our children who came home to live with the parents who are on SS plus a union pension?

Ridiculous. We must stop this at its second breath. The legacy of Dick Cheney and his pet and they want to enhance this Republican legacy?

Is the money of the lobbyists already in the pockets of Hoyer and the bunch who want to do this?

This is contemptible.

[Bozita]

6. Will the Blue Dog Dems be invited to the GOP Pre-Extinction Halloween party?

Joe Liebermans all.

The whole fucking bunch of them.

[madfloridian]

7. Remember when they said they did not want to "play general" with the war?

They would let Bush handle it.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1175

""We think this is the group that represents where the greatest bloc of Americans are -- toward that big middle. Not far left, not far right, but that big middle, that's going to be able to get things done," he added. "And it's going to have to be done on a bipartisan basis."

"Iraq is a good example," Boyd said. "The majority of the caucus would say, 'Let's be really strong in forcing the president out of here.' Well, some of us are really uncomfortable playing general, and you're going to see that reflected in what we vote on."

They really worry me.

[rox63]

9. More reasons we need to elect President Obama

He has promised NO PRIVATIZATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY. If this proposed monstrosity of a bill lands on his desk, I have no doubt that he'd veto it.

[mopinko]

10. too bad it was before the internet age. i can't find the picture.

but there was an iconic picture of dan ronstenkoski, former chair of ways and means, lord high bean counter, all around bmoc, trying to drive, here in chicago, and his car is completely surrounded by white haired people, including one lady up on his hood, pounding away. that was what happened the to the last big shot who messed with social security.
damn i wish i had a copy of that picture.

[madfloridian]

11. I think I would love to see that picture.

:hi:

[mopinko]

13. i'm sure you would love it. it was iconic

back in the day when congressmen, even powerful ones, knew they had to answer to the voter. ah, the good old days.
i will try to find the time to drag around a little more for that. i have often wanted to post it.

[democracy1st]

14. great post keep up the good work

[guruoo]

15. Found the money....

[madfloridian]

16. Amazing pictures.

I had to look twice to see if it was all reality.

I am afraid it is.

[blues90]

17. Social security is not an entitlement , it's our damn money

These fucking freaks, many of us have paid into this and double since Reagan took office. This is not an entitlement , it is what was taken from our checks for my working life and supposed to be there for us when we got old as many are now or when we were no longer able to work.

War = raping the citizens and funding murder for profit and stealing resourse and protecting corporate interests.