More on the group that will "reform" Social Security..."enormous unaccountable authority"

[madfloridian]

This is research from a Harvard watchdog group called the Neiman Watchdog.

The members of the commission have strong views on "reforming" Social Security. Their views show a clear agenda that will harm the middle class and our most vulnerable.

They will meet in secret, not in the open.

They will be using many resources and staff provided by a former member of Nixon's administration...Peter G. Peterson.
His views about Social Security and Medicare have been well known.

One of the scariest statements I have read lately is mentioned in the article. It is by Dick Durbin.

“Everything is on the table,” they say, but the members appointed by the minority leaders in the House and Senate have made clear that they do not believe that the problems in this country stem from under-taxing, rather from overspending. The one area that they seem to be in agreement on -- and which they are in fact, focusing on like a laser -- involves programs that help the middle class and those Americans who are the most vulnerable. Even liberal Senator Richard Durbin has stated, “the bleeding-heart liberals… have to…make real sacrifices to strengthen our nation.”

When I hear the term "bleeding heart liberals" from a Democrat I usually respect....I get the shivers.

Here is more about the commission, Peterson in particular...and the two co-chairs who scoff at liberals as well.

Has Obama created a Social Security 'death panel'?

Their title, not mine. But it's a good question.

The co-chairs, in particular, seem to have a clear agenda. Even before the commission held its first meeting, Erskine Bowles went on record before the North Carolina Bankers' Association saying that if the Commission doesn't "mess with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security ... America is going to be a second-rate power" in his lifetime. (And he is already 64!) Alan Simpson, known for giving ugly voice to harsh, ageist stereotypes, described the future of the fiscal commission: "It'll be a bloodbath. Let me tell you, everything that Bush and Clinton or Obama have suggested with regard to Social Security doesn't affect anyone over 60, and who are the people howling and bitching the most? The people over 60. This makes no sense. You've got to scrub out of the equation the AARP, the Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare, the Gray Panthers, the Pink Panther, the whatever. Those people are lying... They don't care a whit about their grandchildren...not a whit."

Let those words sink in...scrub all of the safety net proponents out of the picture...Simpson says they are lying.

Sounds like their minds are made up.

And Peterson:

Q. Why is the Commission apparently working so closely with billionaire Peter G. Peterson, who served in the Nixon administration and who has a clear ideological agenda?

Q. Mr. Peterson has been on a decades-long crusade against Social Security. The day after the first meeting of the commission, which focused heavily on the need to cut Social Security, the co-chairs and two other members of the commission participated in a Peterson event that reinforced the same message. A Peterson-funded foundation is supplying commission staff. And Peterson’s foundation is funding America Speaks to develop a series of high-profile town halls across the country to host “a national discussion to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget.” (For more background about Mr. Peterson, see William Greider in the Nation on Looting Social Security -- Part 2.)

Here is some of the article mentioned by William Greider at The Nation:

Greider points out that Peterson is forming his own media connections as the commission begins.

The Looting of Social Security

He's baaack--the Wall Street billionaire who wants to loot Social Security. This time, Pete Peterson has invented his own "news network" to promote his right-wing rants about shrinking the only retirement security system available to millions of working people. Peterson styles himself as a patriot saving the nation from fiscal insolvency and has committed $1 billion to that cause (a chunk of the wealth he accumulated at Blackstone Group, the notorious corporate-takeover firm). His efforts might be dismissed as ludicrous--except money does talk in Washington, and Peterson is now buying Washington reporters to spread his dire warnings.

..."The retired mogul has created a digital news agency he dubs "The Fiscal Times" and hired eight seasoned reporters to do the work there. "An impressive group of veteran journalists," Peterson calls them. I hope they have shaken a lot of money out of this rich geezer. Because I predict doing hack work for him will seriously soil their reputations for objectivity and independence.

With his great wealth, Peterson could have also bought a newspaper to publish his dispatches, but he did better than that. He hooked up with the Washington Post, which has agreed to "jointly produce content focusing on the budget and fiscal issues.

Ain't it amazing how the rich and powerful get their agendas pushed through? And the rest of us must get out of way.

Even more amazing are the comments of the co-chairs of the commission. They appear to be outdoing themselves in being snide and insulting toward the people who depend on Social Security.

Simpson refers to seniors as "old cats."

“These old cats 70 and 80 years old who are not affected in one whiff. People who live in gated communities and drive their Lexus to the Perkins restaurant to get the AARP discount. This is madness.”

Here are some words from Alan Simpson in a recent Newsweek interview:

Try this: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will use up all the taxes—revenue—the government takes in this year. And to do the rest of governing we'll have to borrow, including for massive things like defense, homeland security, education. Those will be paid for by shaking a tin cup in front of the world. And China will probably be throwing more chips in the tin cup than any other country, just waiting patiently for us to expire under the debt. The people who distort the commission and try to scare people into doing nothing, let's say they win the day, and we don't do anything to try to bring down this debt. Well, great. They've got grandchildren, too, and in 40 years they'll be sucking canal water and picking grit with the chickens.

The other co-chair made a secret pact with Newt Gingrich in 1997. Gingrich met with the administration to begin the compromising regarding seniors who trusted Democrats to do right by them.

A deal with Gingrich

In the evening of Oct. 28, 1997, House Speaker Newt Gingrich headed to the White House to meet with President Bill Clinton, ostensibly to hammer out final details of the 1998 budget. In reality, Gingrich and Clinton were putting finishing touches on a deal to create a centrist political coalition to fix long-term problems facing Social Security and Medicare.

..."While there were dozens of reform plans circulating around Washington, ranging from minor tinkering to radical overhaul, there was a growing consensus around "middle ground'' proposals that combined some structural changes in the retirement age with some form of private accounts.

..."The exact details would have been worked out later, but the broad outlines were clear. Gingrich was willing to give up the tax cut for a proposal that included private investment in Social Security. "The balanced budget bill was Act I,'' Gingrich reflected. "This was Act II.'' Instinctively, both men still wondered whether the other was setting a trap in preparation for the upcoming elections. Would Clinton leak word that Gingrich was once again trying to tamper with Social Security and Medicare, reinforcing his image as hostile to the old and poor? Would Gingrich tell reporters that the president was ready to accept the centerpiece of Republican proposals for Social Security: privately funded accounts?

Also thanks to Hannah Bell for the previous post on this article today.

The agendas on education and the safety nets of Medicare and Social Security appear to be preset. I hope I am wrong.

[William Z. Foster]

1. excellent work, as always

I can't say enough about the tremendous service you provide for all of us. This is a lot of work, and you do it in the face of hostility and derision, week after week.

Thank you so much.

[madfloridian]

2. ....

Kind words, thank you.

[Ardent15]

32. K and R

Democrats and Republicans are equally complicit in this.

[madfloridian]

3. Hannah posted from the same article...

but used an intermediary link. I got a kick out of some of the comments in the thread. Same article.

[madfloridian]

4. Just went from 6 to 5

recs that is. Will it stay on greatest or get kicked off? Inquiring minds wonder about that. :)

[emilyg]

18. k/r

[sabrina 1]

28. I just rec'd it

Thanks for the work on this. I know this is the next battle which will probably begin in Jan. And they will be prepared. But what will our Democrats in Congress do when they come for SS? Their track record isn't good, on Health Care, on Education. This is the last big fund they have been salivating over for such a long time.

Bush failed. But these people never give up and this Commisssion and its members only confirms our worst fears.

[awoke_in_2003]

31. "But what will our Democrats in Congress do'

probably what they always do- cave in to the pukes.

[teacher gal]

43. I want to know much more about this.

Everything...our military, our prisons, our schools, etc. is being privatized. The scheme to privatize SS should, in my view, be fought tooth and nail.

I'm not very knowledgeable about this but hasn't social security been looted over and over again by Congress over the years in very sneaky ways that often go unrecognized and unreported? If so, it should absolutely not be permitted.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. 2 things..

1. Be sure to give our President credit for creating and supporting this Commission which will
gut the programs without leaving any pesky political fingerprints behind.
The average voter will have no clue.

2. The idea of creating commissions to reach foregone conclusions on politically difficult issues
is not limited to the Soc. Sec./Medicare topic.
There have been several bills introduced in Congress which, if passed, would create a law
allowing commissions to make a proposal, and by the new law, that proposal would be
required to have no debate, only an up and down vote.

[madfloridian]

6. Durbin who called us bleeding heart liberals is on the commission.

Not a friendly group to those of us support Social Security.

[patrice]

7. At almost $73K a year for a semi-private room with only the most basic health services,

Social Security was never going to cover long-term care anyway.

Looks like the various "death panels", public and private, are going to be real busy.

[patrice]

8. P.S. What this means is that something MUST change. The question is what and how.

[madfloridian]

10. Medicare is being changed. Soc. Sec. can be tweaked and saved easily.

I think they are rushing to privatize while there is no party opposing it.

[patrice]

12. Removing the cap on income that is taxable for Social Security seems such a reasonable and relativel

y small thing to do.

Really reforming Medicare, on the other hand, is going to be a political BITCH.

[Hannah Bell]

20. removing the cap means the trust fund doesn't get paid off, i.e. the top 1%

keeps the cash.

why do you want to give them more money to steal, when paying down the trust fund keeps SS fully funded for over thirty years? by which time the boomers are mostly in the grave.

[madfloridian]

24. I thought she meant this....raising the taxation point above 90,000

"Many people don’t realize that all earnings are not subject to this federal payroll tax. In fact, current law exempts earnings of more than $90,000 from taxation, meaning someone with a million-dollar salary pays the same tax as someone earning $90,000. Any public policy discussion addressing the potential financial shortfall of this program should rightly focus upon the dramatic growth of wages for top earners over the last two decades, a time when middle-class wages have remained relatively stagnant.

The consequences of this increasing wage gap are no small matter. If left to continue, it will result in extraordinary inequalities and the undermining of Social Security’s financing. Eliminating the $90,000 cap, however, would erase much of the projected Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years."

From 2005

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/webfeatures_viewpoints_lifting_cap_on_SS_taxes/

I would think that would help a lot.

[Hannah Bell]

35. The cap is $106.8K. It hasn't been $90K since 2005. It's raised regularly,

to cover about 90% of total wages paid in the US, and was last raised in 2009.

SS was designed to cover about 90% of total wages for a reason. If it wasn't, a narrow segment of wage earners would be covering the majority of the cost, contra the original selling point of the program: that ALL workers more or less paid for the benefits they received.

I have no objection to continuing to raise the cap to cover 90% of total wages. But IMO, lifting the cap altogether leaves the program open to the same kind of demagoguery the right has used to undermine other social programs: that one segment of the population pays the freight & another segment gets a free ride.

Furthermore, the top tier of wage earners already pays both the highest dollar value of SS & the highest income tax rates -- higher than the rate paid by the top 1% of filers. An additional 6.2% tax on, say, half their income would substantially increase their total taxes & initiate a backlash, picking off some of the support for the program -- which is, I believe, precisely what some people talking up lifting the cap want.

Furthermore, whatever larry mishel says, the fact is that even under the historically over-conservative projections of the SS administration, SS is projected to pay full benefits until the 2040's with no adjustments. That's 30 years from now, by which time most of the boomers are dead.

In 1983 Reagan's social security "reform" began taxing workers more than was needed to fund then-current beneficiaries. The rationale was: these extra taxes will be used 30 years from now to pay for the boomers' benefits.

But that was always a scam. Whatever benefits retirees get are ALWAYS paid for out of the surplus from current production, i.e. by diverting some of the monetized value of current production from wages or capital income into retirees' hands. This is why we now have about 3 trillion in IOUs sitting in the SS trust fund. It's the chits for the extra money workers paid into the system for 30 years that was "borrowed" by the government & spent on war & tax breaks for the top 1%.

Government doesn't "save" & doesn't "invest," except in the commonwealth (roads, bridges, research, etc.) -- but these days, it's more likely to hand off the extra money to bail out banksters or fund tax cuts for BP.

The proposal to lift the cap is a proposal to make workers pay twice.

For 30 years they overpaid; now, instead of retiring the Trust Fund debt, capital wants to take more money from wage workers so they won't have to pay back the trust fund. With the trust fund monies, SS is fully-funded at least 30 years out, by which time most of the boomers are dead.

YOU CAN'T USE TODAY'S WAGES TO FUND TOMORROW'S RETIREES. ALL YOU CAN DO IS LOAN IT TO SOMEONE & HOPE THEY PAY IT BACK WITH INTEREST WHEN THE TIME COMES. THE GOVERNMENT HASN'T YET PAID BACK THE 3 TRILLION IT OWES TO WORKERS.

THE SOCIAL SECURITY "CRISIS" IS A SCAM.

The only crisis is, capital doesn't want to pay back the money they took, and finance capital wants to make its casino losses good on the backs of workers.

End of story.

[madfloridian]

9. Are they trying to get this done while Dems are in power....with no party opposition?

I think so. We fought Bush fiercely for the same things that Obama is doing. Maybe the powers that be know that this is the time to get it done....under Democrats...just like education "reform".

"Q. Why the urgent focus on Social Security? In the past, Social Security has always been considered under the normal legislative process, with the opportunity for full amendments. According to the program’s actuaries, it is able to pay all benefits in full and on time for over a quarter of a century. Even its most diehard critics, who try mightily to convince the rest of us that the program is in crisis, can’t mount an argument that there is a problem for another five years or so. So what is the rush? What is the need for such an unaccountable, fast-tracked process when one has never been needed before? Why, in spite of the evidence that Social Security is working as intended and that there is growing need for the kind of broad and reliable protection provided under the program, is it being singled out by Bowles and Simpson and seemingly by the White House for a major trimming?"

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

30. I've been giving this a lot of thought.

The Dems have become the Republicans, or at least in terms of their legislative goals/policies.

What we have been on the receiving end of is way beyond triangulation.

It takes some good (skillful) Dems to pass Republican policies and do it even without their help and support. That part I don't get. Since the Dems are essentially passing conservative position papers anyway, why AREN'T the Republicans on board? Because the policies are horrible on their face? It seems like a plot to have the Dems pass Republican policies as poison pills for their own Party.

There is some rumbling of some BS Centrist Party arising with the likes of all the DLCer's and the remaining non insane Republicans.

Who can explain this madness?

[madfloridian]

37. A new centrist party rising...

Didn't they try to do that a couple of years ago with Unity 08? Or was that just to be "bipartisan".

Then there was a "centrist coalition"...don't remember the full name.

[truedelphi]

46. Yes The Dems are now the Republicans, and you cannot even say they are

Republican-Lite.

Nixon after all, instituted price rollbacks - I spent the summer of 1973 rolling back car insurance increases because the Nixon administration thought that car insurers had been gouging Americans (Sad thing was, my firm had recently raised the prices - but those were long over due, whereas the other insurers had been heavy on costs to consumers.)

Last year, We certainly didn't see Obama do more than scold the Big Insurers for increasing the health care coverage costs right before the "reform" was passed.

But the Republicans have become Neo Con Nazis, so until we have a viable Third Party, what do voters do?

[unkachuck]

11. K&R....n/t

[madfloridian]

13. Commission takes away our leverage with our elected reps.

"This "reform" is profoundly antidemocratic because it would strip ordinary citizens of the only leverage they have in Washington--the ability to lean on their elected representatives and exact retribution if they get sold out. Peterson has two advocates in the Senate--Kent Conrad of South Dakota and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire--who are self-righteous fiscal hawks. The TFT story describes the rising federal deficits as a threat to the republic, yet fails to explain why deficits on rising. The billions have been devoted to bailing out major banks and Peterson's old chums in Wall Street or to turning around the failed economy or fighting two wars at once."

http://www.thenation.com/article/looting-social-security-part-2

"This crusade is dangerous for the people because the "respectables" in governing circles and both parties embrace the same reactionary logic. Does government have money problems? Don't restore the progressive income tax on the wealthy or capital, don't cut away some of the corporate boodle in the federal budget--that politics is too difficult. Instead, let's whack Social Security while folks aren't watching."

[laughingliberal]

14. +1000 nt

[madfloridian]

16. If a commission does it....it's okay for them to go along

to get along with the party leaders. Then they don't have to answer to constituents.

[New Dawn]

15. K&R

[MadHound]

17. As they say, only Nixon could go to China,

Perhaps only Obama, a Democrat, can destroy Social Security and Medicare, making every conservative's wet dream come true.

We truly are regressing in this country.

[Hannah Bell]

19. The deficit commission will report in december. nice timing if you want the public to be occupied

with other things.

[madfloridian]

21. I read your post on this with amazement at the comments...

Just goes to show that folks spout off before following links to their original destination. :-)

[Hannah Bell]

22. it was quite a spectacle of mindless red-baiting, for sure.

[newspeak]

42. thanks Hannah

It's a scam and they need to pay back the money that is owed to the fund.

[JackRiddler]

27. Yeah, but they never learn.

It's like the guy in Memento.

[JackRiddler]

26. I'm going to make a bet with you about December, Hannah...

You know the Thing that hit Greece, and just jumped on Spain? You know, the one you saw in Iceland, and Latvia? The one that's going next to Italy, and Britain?

I hear its visit to the United States is timed for December. And just as the Commission presents its salvation plan. Fancy that.

So my bet is, everyone will be paying attention.

[Hannah Bell]

36. you hear....from where?

[JackRiddler]

38. My guess based on the way the crisis is going, and the fact of the election.

How I think it will happen:

First of all, even if Treasuries are still seen as a haven, their supply is without precedent. Leaving aside comparative debt-to-GDP, the absolute total debt paper the US must roll over and sell for the new deficit dwarfs the demands in debt from the European states being called insolvent. As factors also to consider, there's another huge chunk of debt paper to be sold from Britain, and China's currently in a trade deficit (combination of accounting tricks and a worldwide resource shopping spree), which means they're not adding sovereign debt to their accounts. Even if T-bills are supposed to be a better deal than other debt, the demand has to come from somewhere, or else the Fed will be buying T-bills, effectively a print (when bailout banks buy t-bills, it's the same, by the way - borrow zero percent from Fed, buy t-bills from Treasury).

This needn't be the disaster in itself but as an impulse it will cause pressure against T-bills and US equities. There will be announcements that the dollar is finished and howls like you've never heard that the US must get the deficit under control and that the "only" thing left to cut is entitlements.

Timing:

Every country with a deficit and any form of social state (despite its inadequacy, the US still has a big one) is on the chopping block. The irony is that even those who respond to pressure by following the austerity demands are shorted again the next day, this time because they're deflating. Right now the capital markets see no game for growth, so it's all casino around sovereign debt. (There's no out beyond currency and capital controls and an expropriation of banks on the basis of fraud and emergency, i.e. the guillotine plan, but that happens only if tens of millions shut down EU capitals demanding it, since most Americans cannot even understand this sentence.) The attack on Europe will continue, the attack on Britain will start, and after the election it will be the turn for the US. No matter who wins, it will be a reason to short the market. If it's the Republicans, the markets will say governance is paralyzed and austerity will end the recovrey. If it's the Democrats, they will howl that the deficit will never get under control, and just then the Kill Social Security Commission will present its national salvation report. Either way, the election being over allows the politicians to dispense with whatever bullshit they're selling and announce what they really intend to do.

All assuming a worldwide crash doesn't start tomorrow. It can come at any time, this is an extremely volatile, unpredictable, unprecedented situation in scale and quality, though the usual crisis dynamics are also present. But if it holds together until the election, I figure the US has its turn right after.

[Hannah Bell]

44. i expect a continuing escalation of the deficit scare talk right up to december, & don't doubt

the finance sector is going to make bets on the action.

i expect further recession, too, if not full-out depression -- that's what austerity budgets get you.

& the people calling for them know this. so imo that makes them murderers. because people are going to die.

[Edweird]

23. Oh, but a few extremely strident and prolific posters assured us that this wasn't happening...

They weren't lying, were they?

[Greyhound]

25. K&R for even more "change"...

Another in the increasingly long chain of Republicon plans carried out by these "Democratic" administrations.
:kick: & R

[Sebastian Doyle]

29. The DLC has been planning to privatize Social Security for years

It was actually the original centerpiece of Hillary Clinton's primary platform for 2008, though she backed away from it as the Wall Street economy was going down the toilet, knowing it would never sell to the public.

Here's a previous thread from Madfloridian, discussing Hillary's clusterfuck of a plan (complete with "defense" from Team DLC) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3629987

It was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now. And as President Eisenhower said nearly half a century ago, "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security...you would not hear of that party again in our political history."

And yes, replacing it with privatized Gold Mansacks horseshit IS abolishing it. And we must not allow this. Or any other further Wall Street hijacking of our government, for that matter.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[olegramps]

39. Why do we have a bipartisan commission?

Why appoint people to a commission who are dedicated to the destruction of the system that they are supposedly going to fix. This is just another example of Obama's naive blundering attempts at cooperating with the devil. The wealthy Republicans are our enemies and what to crush the working class and have enlisted the support of racists rednecks and bible thumping morons who because of their profound ignorance are willing to participate in their own destruction. I find myself to be increasing disappointed in Obama. If he runs in 2012 I will vote for him only because I absolutely despise ever fucking Republican asshole.

There is a simple solution to our fiscal problems. Tax the wealthy at a reasonable rate of 70% which is over 20% lower than the tax rate during and after WWII. Increase the inheritance taxes to confiscate the trillions that the scumbag CEOs have stolen from the working class and stop the damn wars that are creating more enemies and bankrupting the nation.

[Capitalocracy]

40. When people sign away their share of the safety net

and lose it all to the Wall Street sharks, see how many of them will suddenly change their mind about whether or not people have the right to be taken care of by the government when they're poor and too old to work.

I'd love nothing more than to just let them lie in the bed they made and make derivative bets on whether they freeze to death or starve first, but I still don't think being stupid is punishable in that way. Call me a bleeding heart lib. Maybe when the day comes we can get them to join us and vote in some real reform. Only we'll be starting over from zero with a precedent of "incrementalism".

[Little Star]

41. k&r

[lib2DaBone]

45. Thank You. I can't Rec enough. Well researched & well written.

Mr. Obama has created the ultimate Social Secutiy Death Panel.

Meeting in secret with members of the NIXON administration in charge? Goldman Sachs Bankers and Neocons? Mr. Obama..what are you doing? WTF?

In November, Washington will be crawling with Lame-Duck law makers... all looking for a cushy retirement job in the Banking cartel. They will push this thru in secret and the American public will not even hear about it until after Jan 1st.

The smell of death is in the air for Social Security.. for America.. we CAN NOT let this happen!

Thanks again for ringing the alarm.

[blindpig]

47. The entire 'agenda' seems pretty clear

In your face Capitalism, no more pussyfooting, no more pretend 'mutual benefit', they got the power and nothing stands in their way, there is no opposition....until we hit the streets and stay there until we beat the bastards down.