Social Security and Medicare cuts won't happen, but they should.

[gulliver]

Seniors voted 59-38 for Republicans in the last election. It would be reasonable for them to experience some consequences. However, I don't think Boehner will be stupid enough to try to implement even modest changes like tying COLAs to inflation and increasing the retirement age in the year 2050. I hope he does it, but I don't think he will.

If the Dems want to beat Republicans at their own game they should propose increasing COLAs, reducing the retirement age, and expanding Medicare in exchange for some hits to the wealthy. There is no political percentage in merely "protecting" Social Security and Medicare anymore.

[xchrom]

1. Well wasn't I surprised when I opened this thread. Nt

[Poll_Blind]

2. So the 40% of seniors who voted FOR Dems should be fucked over to teach the 58% who voted R??!?!

Have you gone mad?

PB

[Monique1]

5. I can't believe what I just read

Is this a repuke board?

[jtown1123]

10. Seriouly, this is crap. Enough of this young vs. Old BS

We're all in this together. If they're going to cut SS and MEdicare, it's for young people, not seniors. And Thankfully, seniors are willing to fight for SS and Medicare, even if it doesn't affect them.

[eShirl]

6. Not to mention all the non-senior disabled. n/t

[gulliver]

13. The "lessons" I see the 58% getting...

...don't amount to anyone, including the 58%, getting "fucked over." At most, there will be a nick or two, and that would be healthy. Most likely, there will be no lesson at all, and that would be a shame.

[fasttense]

3. Yeah, that's how normal political negotiations are done.

The right wing nut jobs come out with a totally right wing pro-corporate, pro-uber wealthy plan and the left wing comes out with a totally socialist pro-worker, pro-poor plan. Then they negotiate down.

But Obama doesn't know how to play that game. He always compromises before a real leftist plan is ever put on the table.

Just like Pelosi said Impeachment was off the table before anyone even looked at the crimes. If she had kept Impeachment on the table and negotiated down, then it would have meant something. Just like Obama said no single payer before an offer was ever made. What is it with Democrats? Do they not understand how negotiations are done?

[sasha031]

4. I'm close to being a senior

it sickens and scares me at the thought of cuts in SS and Medicare. I have always voted dem. my whole life.

[Monique1]

8. If SS is cut

I will be living on the streets. The Chamber of Commerce is already going after my pensiion plan here.

[sasha031]

11. me too, I don't have a pension, I need SS

[Johonny]

19. don't you think a lot of older Republican voters

are voting for the party based on the past rather than the present. I know a lot of seniors that vote Republican, but they really don't understand the modern Republican party. They talk about it like it was, not the broken party that it is.

[phleshdef]

7. Raising the retirement age wouldn't effect senior, it would effect current 18-25 yr olds

[sasha031]

12. a way of pitting the young against seniors

[phleshdef]

15. Just saying, its even dumber cause it effects an electorate that will be voting for decades to come.

[MadHound]

9. So you're willing to play politics with people's lives in order to "teach them a lesson"

How fucking despicable of you.

[gulliver]

14. I'm not playing with anything. You are forgetting the voters.

It wouldn't be me or anyone teaching them a lesson. It would be the voters teaching themselves a lesson. This is one lesson I think would be good for them. I don't want to see anyone losing any fragment Social Security or Medicare. I want to see those programs expanded and strengthened. It won't happen if people get no feedback from their democratic acts, though.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. At least one third of SS beneficiaries are not of retirement age.

They are widows, orphans, and disabled Americans. How'd they vote in your election stats machine? Do you have any idea? I mean, 40% of Seniors voted Democratic, so how about the rest of the beneficiaries? My guess is that you would find that way more than half of beneficiaries voted Democratic. That math is yours to do, as it is your argument. So rather than address the basic rot in the premise, let's address the accuracy of your figures. Seems your take on SS beneficiary voting is simply incomplete, so your argument, while vicious, is not really made at all, you cut right through the picture to get to the frame.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. Non-senior disabled here, well my husband is and this is our only income save for a small

small pension for the Teamsters and what's left of our savings. We voted straight Dem, always have.


I am very worried.

[gulliver]

20. Is someone talking about reducing benefits to widows, orphans, and the disabled?

If so, point it out. I would be against it, and it would be vicious. It isn't my argument. My argument is a better friend to Social Security and Medicare than yours.

My point is that seniors took a gamble with Social Security in the last election. A majority of them voted for its worst political enemies, the Republicans. It would do everyone good to see that voting behavior have an effect on Social Security, however slight. Seniors touched the third rail of Social Security and Medicare with their votes, and your argument, through its hyperbole and overreaction, implies that these voters shouldn't even feel a tingle.

That's a recipe for putting Republicans back in all branches of government. In turn, that is a recipe for really damaging Social Security and Medicare.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. Your point relies on framing 'SS Beneficiary Voters' incorrectly

as 'Seniors'. Your argument is they get the benefits, they voted majority GOP, they should feel it. But the argument does not include the whole of beneficiaries, who I assume voted majority Democratic. When you speak of reducing SS benefits, you are automatically talking about reducing benefits to those beneficiaries as well.
Your argument is that the majority who benefit from SS voted Republican, but you failed to support that argument with facts. You addressed just 66% of beneficiaries, declared that to be the whole, and plunged forward on that basis. Your argument as it stands is in fact to reduce benefits to the whole to teach a lesson to a minority of that group.That would include the survivor beneficiaries and the disabled. Mentioning those groups is not hyperbole, it is factual where your argument deals in partial facts and framing.
And let us be clear. I have not even addressed your 'argument', it has been entirely about the false premise of that argument. And it is false. The majority of beneficiaries did not vote Republican.
The kicker is of course that you apparently did not even think to figure in the 33% or so of beneficiaries in your theory. By missing that fact, you hoisted incomplete 'facts' up the flagpole and tried to get a salute.
You base your figures on 2/3 of beneficiaries. That says it all.

[gulliver]

24. I think your point ties in with other posts...

...which point out that the 38% of Seniors who voted with Dems don't deserve the "lesson" I think is needed. I left those 38% out of the argument intentionally as a given. I unintentionally left out the non-retiree recipients you are talking about, but had I thought about them, they too would have been left out. The premise and argument don't need them.

Unfortunately, the rhetoric of the argument needed them. It apparently doesn't go without saying that I would be bothered if "innocent" recipients lost anything and horrified if they lost something crucial. If sympathy were relevant, I would even sympathize with some of those who directly voted against us. Why should I want to see someone who voted for Mark Rubio lose their gamble that Social Security would remain untouched? I don't want to see them eat cat food. Cat food is for cats.

No one on Social Security and Medicare stands to benefit from (2/3) x (.59 - .38) of its recipients voting against it--or more accurately, gambling that voting for its opponents would have no consequences. Believe me, I have no intent to frame the argument the way you suggest. You do have a point, but I think I do too. If there are no consequences, even if those consequences are just emotional overreactions to what may or may not be moderate (or even any) changes, then voters will let down their guard on Social Security and Medicare.

[DavidDvorkin]

17. What idiocy.

[gulliver]

22. Letting voters drop their guard on Social Security...

...is the idiocy. Voters, including Seniors who had the most to lose, voted for Social Security's opponents. They dropped their guard. If they don't see a fist or two fly by their nose, ideally even grazing it, they'll let down their guard even worse in 2012.

[DavidDvorkin]

26. My God, you're an idiot

I'm a senior. I've been unemployed for a year and a half. My wife and I depend on my Social Security to get by. I did not vote for any Republicans. Yet you feel you can lump all seniors together.

You're a fucking idiot.

[Bluenorthwest]

23. I also love the theory, nonsensical as it is, that increasing the

retirement age in 2050 would allow current seniors to 'experience some consequences'. 65 today, 105 then, all 13 of them will feel that sting and vote differently in the next election, when they are 108!

[gulliver]

25. Young voters had a miserable turnout this election.

There was no intention of implying that the 2050 retirement age change proposal would affect Seniors. The implication was that Boehner won't touch anything.

However, your highlighting that particular issue does throw light on another guilty/gambling party: young voters. They vote predominantly with us, but their turnout was miserable this midterm. The non-voting youth vote should have been included in the argument.