Saving Social Security: The Right Message on the Catfood Commission

[Karmadillo]

There are a lot of links in the snippet below I'm too tired to put in. It's worth a click to go to Corrente to access the entire article. The oligarchy has taken a lot from us as of late. We shouldn't let them have social security.

http://www.correntewire.com/right_message

The progressive counter-attack against the President's emerging “austerity” political strategy and program is beginning to emerge. In the last few days, we've seen posts by Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson of Social Security Works, Jane Hamsher, Robert Kuttner, and Dean Baker writing against the thrust by the Administration, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and its network of related organizations, and the deficit hawks in the Congress, seemingly aimed at Social Security. These posts make or imply a number of points sometimes in the form of questions. They are:

-- The commission is unaccountable.

-- It meets in secret.

-- Its members will keep their recommendations secret until after the election, and then will present them to a lame duck Congress that is itself unaccountable.

-- That Congress will avoid open hearings, and debates, and also floor amendments in the House and Senate on the recommendations.

-- The Commission lacks diversity in both opinion and also in racial and gender makeup.

-- The Commission members appear to have already made up their minds that America's fiscal problems are mainly due to over-spending rather than under-taxing, and, even though they insist, that everything is”on the table” seem to have decided that military spending can't be cut.

-- The co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, based on public remarks they've made appear to have a clear agenda oriented toward cutting Social Security and Medicare.

-- Since the Commission appears to have already made up its mond about its findings, it's whole process is just a way of avoiding accountability in the upcoming elections. It's all just an end-run around the democratic process

more...

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Cut the damn defense budget and SS and Medicare will be free and clear.

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

3. start by ending two wars !!!!!!!

[Enthusiast]

5. What possible justification

is there for this level of military spending? NONE! All it is a welfare program for the ultra wealthy.

[rucky]

14. And a welfare program for the poor...

where young people with nowhere else to go get to fight their wars for them.

[Enthusiast]

15. We could put them to work

in any number of more constructive projects. Building a renewable energy infrastructure and building a viable and efficient mass transit system, just to name two.

[rucky]

13. And roll back the Bush tax cuts...

[amborin]

20. +44

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

2. meow meow meow meow. I hate tuna how will i live on cat food ?

[Karmadillo]

4. Kick

nt

[Hannah Bell]

6. avoiding accountability??? oh, surely not.

[Karmadillo]

10. But they're transparently avoiding accountability. Promise kept!

nt

[Hannah Bell]

12. yes, & transparent unaccountability is ever so much better than opaque unaccountability, i think.

don't you?

and keeping those promises, that's super-important.

[laughingliberal]

7. Pretty obvious they are timing it for the report to be released after the midterms. nt

[eridani]

8. Is Catfood Commission from the Rude Pundit?

National Lampoon did a spoof of that during the Reagan years with a full color Senior Vittles ad

http://cgi.ebay.com/1979-Spoof-Ad-Senior-Vittles-Elderly-Couple-Fake-Ad-/320537364036?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aa1840644

[eridani]

9. I did a 2-page flyer featuring some of the OP and the Senior Vittles add

PM me with your email address if you want a copy. Specify pdf or Word file.

[tsuki]

11. Peter "Catfood" Peterson is the scary person in this commission. He

has spent millions to cut social security and medicare while maintaining his tax cuts. From the article:

-- The Commission is working very closely with Peter G. Peterson, a multi-billionaire who has been persistently seeking the end of Social Security as it currently exists for decades. Peterson is leading a public effort calling for Americans to get ready for “tough choices” on entitlements and has held a “Fiscal Summit”, funded press outlets, made deals with the Washington Pot and CNN, funded America Speaks, an organization whose purpose it is to educate Americans in the Peterson deficit hawk point of view through a series of town halls held across the nation, and, evidently, a Peterson-funded non-profit organization is funding Commission Staff.

[JHB]

16. Additional information from a thread on Friday...

madfloridian started a thread prompted by an article by William Greider in The Nation
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8386732&mesg_id=8386732

I added some additional information from work Doug Henwood gas done on the subject dating back to 1994:
#92 in the above thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8386732&mesg_id=8390871
or in my journal
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/JHB/10

[bvar22]

17. bvar22's completely transparent "Old Democratic Party" way of saving Social Security:

1)Raise or Remove the Cap.
There are many arguments being offered in opposition to this.
None of these arguments are valid.
Raising the Cap will NOT hurt the Working Class. The majority of Americans in the Working Class are already well below the cap.
Those Americans who are in the Upper Middle Class, and the RICH will simply have to pay a fairer share.

2)Expand the Working Class by Liberalizing and Facilitating Immigration
If the problem is not enough workers to support the retiring "Boomers",
the answer is NOT cutting benefits.
The answer is More WORKERS!
Open America's doors to people who want to WORK for a living, and focus our national effort at creating GOOD jobs with real BENEFITS that will attract the cream of workers from around the World.
I've driven across America, and it is a BIG place. America is no where near Filled Up. There is still plenty of space for WORKERS.
All we need is the jobs.

3) Index the tax on Capital Gains to the highest Income Tax rate paid by the Working Class.
Isn't this simply FAIR?
Why should a member of the Working Class, punching a clock, living by the sweat of his/her brow, pay more than double the taxes on his/her income than a member of the Ownership Class pays on money made from their Capital Gains which accrue while they sit by their swimming pool drinking Boat Drinks?

Use this money plus a 50% reduction in Military Spending (Peace Dividend) to fund a MASSIVE National Works/Jobs Program to employ the unemployed/underemployed AmericanWorkers and the influx of Immigrant Workers.

Do things like:
*Build a World Class National Rapid Transit System using ONLY American made components.
At least we would have something to show after spending the money...unlike financing useless WARS, building expensive weapons which are mostly useless, and bailing out Wall Street Billionaires.

*Re-establish the CCC
Re-build our State & National Parks to World's Best Standards.
Give the CCC members "Veteran's benefits" after 2 years

*Establish thousands of Environmentally Friendly de-Centralized Small Organic Farm Co-Ops.
Modern equivalent of 40 Acres and a Mule.

*(We are bounded ONLY by our lack of imagination here.)

4)Government Jobs are only a stop gap...End "Free Trade" and bring GOOD jobs back to America.
Folks, the proof is IN. Ross Perot was right.
"Free Trade" has been a disaster for LABOR and all Americans who Work for a Living.
The first step to a real National Recovery is to end these scam trade agreements, and start protecting and growing American Jobs.

There is no such thing as a "Free Market".
There is no Giant Invisible Hand that magically reaches down and "corrects" markets.
The Ownership Class made that shit up, and sold it to a gullible America.

I cringe every time I hear a so-called "Democrat" hype the fantasy of "Free Markets".

5)Break Up the Big Boxes and enact "Fair Competition" legislation that lets Mom & Pop and Family Farms compete with Big Corpo on a level playing field.
Radically De-Centralize and limit Corporate Power. Make THEM compete.
This would do more to create jobs than a government Jobs Program.
Reverse the WalMartization of America, and begin to restore LOCAL economies where money stays in local circulation sustaining local jobs instead of being immediately sucked out to Corporate HQ.

These are just a few things that an Old Style, Pro-Working Class, Pro-LABOR "Democratic Party" could do the "save" Social Security.
Unfortunately, none of these things are even open for discussion in today's "New Democrat" led Party.
They are going to "save" Social Security the "New Democrat" way.

God help the Working Class.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[county worker]

18. Where's the substantiation on all this?

I don't want my information coming from a blog and then go run for the hills like it's the end of the world.

It looks like blogs repeating blogs to me.

[jtuck004]

19. Partial substantiation follows...

A New White House Economic Strategy?

The plan would put deficit reduction ahead of job creation.

Over the past week, top White House officials have been floating a trial balloon for their strategy on the economy. At its core is a decision to put deficit reduction ahead of job creation.

The premise is that the bond markets and allied deficit hawks are demanding action to cut the budget, that Obama lacks the votes in the Senate for a serious jobs initiative, and that polls show voters care more about deficit reduction than about jobs.

So the plan, modeled closely on the work of the Peter G. Peterson foundation and the anticipated report of the president's own fiscal commission, is a deal that includes cuts in Social Security plus a new Value Added Tax (VAT), in order to get deep cuts in the deficit. As a sweetener to get Republicans to back the VAT, White House officials would cut the corporate income tax.
<snip>

Link at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_new_white_house_economic_strategy
_____________________________________________________
So forget the infrastructure, forget the 27 million plus under and unemployed, forget employing people so they can pay taxes to reduce the deficit. Just figure out how many old people you can make eat cat food and how many kids you can cut from government assistance of any kind. Makes the dollar stronger, keeps us an import nation. It's not like people are going to leave their remotes behind and pick up a spot in a protest.

Which way are those hills?