Labor Notes: Billionaire Launches Campaign to Slash Social Security

[amborin]

Billionaire Launches Campaign to Slash Social Security

by Jane Slaughter

Why does a billionaire want to take away your Social Security benefits?
Peter Peterson is 84 years old. He's old enough to relax and enjoy the fruits of the years he was well paid for managing other rich people's money. Why is he spending his fortune to convince politicians they should ruin the average guy's retirement?

Today Peterson announced the next facet in his long campaign to hack Social Security, including a joke Presidential candidate named Hugh Jidette ("huge debt") and a website called Owe No. His aim is to convince Congress to raise the retirement age, cut Social Security's cost-of-living increases-and raise the payroll taxes we pay for Social Security and Medicare.
It wouldn't matter what one cranky octogenarian billionaire had to say if he weren't putting $6 million into ads, funding "expert" commissions, and spreading lies designed to panic the populace.

Maybe Peterson figures offense is better than defense-he's got a lot to defend. He made his fortune as a hedge fund manager-that is, moving money around-so he ought to be living in fear. Someone might get the idea he and his buddies would be good folks to tax. It's like Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber, once said. Asked why he robbed banks, Sutton replied, "Because that's where the money is."
Peterson and pals are the ones George Bush gifted with big tax breaks that are set to expire December 31. Although he says his top priority is reducing the deficit, Peterson doesn't want to cut that deficit by putting his own taxes back where they were in the 1990s.

It's hard to get your head around how rich Peterson is, and how many rich people there are in this country. But here's how to put their money in perspective, in relation to Social Security. If Congress decides to extend those tax cuts, for households making $250,000 or more (the top 2 percent of earners), the money the Treasury will lose would be enough to put Social Security in the black for 75 years--and raise benefits by 2 percent.

snip

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/10-9

[Skink]

1. They can raise the payroll tax if they increase the benefits.

like lower the retirement age.

[Hannah Bell]

2. didn't you understand the article? there's no need to raise the payroll tax. rescind the bush tax

cuts on the top 2%.

"the money the Treasury will lose would be enough to put Social Security in the black for 75 years--and raise benefits by 2 percent."

[laughingliberal]

3. Huge K&R! nt

[Jefferson23]

4. K&R and watch out America. n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. kick

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. why doesn't he spend his (remaining) years and $$ funding libraries and parks like

Carnegie and other rich folks did in the past?

[chill_wind]

7. K & R. n/t

[chill_wind]

8. WH thinks he's important. Orszag had him for meetings at least twice

on economic issuues.

The lawmakers he met most often with were Democratic leaders on economic issues — Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (N.D.), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) and House Budget Chairman John Spratt (S.C.). He made a point to attend meetings in the Capitol with groups of centrists, namely the Blue Dog Democrats in the House and a bipartisan Senate group led by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

Orszag met with about a third of the Senate in individual meetings during the first half of 2009, but met with only about a dozen of the 435 House members individually by that point. He had far fewer meetings with Republicans than with Democrats; the only House GOP member he had a scheduled meeting with in the first half of 2009 was GOP budget guru Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), with whom he lunched with in April 2009.

The schedules show Orszag more often took meetings with Republicans who are out of office. Appearing twice on his schedules were Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and Peter G. Peterson, the founder of the investment firm Blackstone Group and a proponent of deficit cuts. Orszag also met with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who has been both a Democrat and a Republican.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/124593-orszag-crunched-on-healthcare-reform

[Starry Messenger]

9. k&r