Paul Krugman: Attacking Social Security

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman

Social Security turned 75 last week. It should have been a joyous occasion, a time to celebrate a program that has brought dignity and decency to the lives of older Americans.

But the program is under attack, with some Democrats as well as nearly all Republicans joining the assault. Rumor has it that President Obama’s deficit commission may call for deep benefit cuts, in particular a sharp rise in the retirement age.

Social Security’s attackers claim that they’re concerned about the program’s financial future. But their math doesn’t add up, and their hostility isn’t really about dollars and cents. Instead, it’s about ideology and posturing. And underneath it all is ignorance of or indifference to the realities of life for many Americans.

(snip)
So let’s beat back this unnecessary, unfair and — let’s not mince words — cruel attack on working Americans. Big cuts in Social Security should not be on the table.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Amen, Paul.

[Skink]

2. Obama seemed like a smart guy.

He better stand up now.

[DJ13]

4. Its too late considering the commission was his idea

Its all on him now.

[NC_Nurse]

3. K&R

[ipaint]

5. The elite borrowed it, they can pay it back.

"Alex Lawson has been livestreaming the closed door of the Catfood Commission on FDL. They have refused to conduct their deliberations in public, but the committee is stacked with enough votes to cut benefits. It takes 14 out of 18 votes to pass any recommendation on the committee, and there appear to be a sufficient number of votes to do so based on the past positions of individual members. So Altman and Kingson raise important questions, but to my mind, none more important than these:

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.)

Note the buried lede: Pete Peterson is supplying commission staff."

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/05/21/revolt-of-the-wonks-former-obama-advisors-want-to-know-whats-happening-on-his-deficit-commission/




"The biggest lie in Peterson's story-telling is his refusal to acknowledge the looting aspect of what he proposes. Despite his inflamed rhetoric, Social Security is not broke--it has a huge surplus of around $3 trillion (trillion, not billion). With no changes at all, the trust fund will be solvent for at least another thirty years. In fact, workers retiring now have already paid for their Social Security benefits because they paid higher payroll taxes for the past twenty-five years. I might have a little respect for fiscal crazies like Peterson, Conrad and Gregg if I once heard them state these facts honestly instead of demonizing Social Security recipients.

Here is what really worries the fiscal hawks: as the Social Security trust fund built up the huge surpluses, the federal government borrowed the money and spent it. The time is approaching--maybe ten or twelve years from now--when the federal treasury will have to start paying back its debts to Social Security. The accumulated wealth does not belong to the US government, any more than the money it borrowed from China. The beneficial owners are all those working people who faithfully paid their FICA taxes for all those years. If Washington stiffs them now, it will be a bait-and-switch swindle larger than Wall Street's."

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

The money was spent to fund tax cuts for the elite and their resource wars. Time to pay it back and the f*ckers instead are trying to steal it once and for all. So far the administrations seems poised to hand it over.

There is no compromise position on this issue. No cuts, no raise in retirement age, just pay it back.

[Laelth]

6. +1 No compromise. Just pay it back! n/t

-Laelth

[Skink]

7. We are calling in the loans.

no war. So sorry!

[saracat]

8. No doubt the apologia will be throwing Krugman under the bus again!

:rofl: Once again, Krugman will not be agreeing with them. But what does aomeone with a Nobel Prize in econ know? :sarcasm:

[ipaint]

9. From Greider's article last january-

"The first TFT "dispatch" to appear in the Post--"Support grows for tackling nation's debt"--made no mention of Peterson's crusade. But it featured the same devious gimmick the financier has been peddling around Washington. Congress should create a special commission of eighteen senators and representatives empowered to to make the "tough" budget decisions politicians are loathe to face--slashing benefits, raising payroll taxes or both. Other members of Congress would be prohibited from changing any of the particular measures, and would cast only an up-or-down vote on the entire package, no amendments allowed. Supposedly, this would give them political cover. Look, no hands. We just cut Social Security but it wasn't our fault.

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 North 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."

Link in my post above.

One asshole billionaire has decided we need a commission to study the "problem" and it is imperative the work on the solution be done in secret. Apparently Obama agrees.

I think the pragmatic, sensible thing for them to do is back off and pay up.