Hugh Jidette and the Disgusting Campaign to Cut our Social Security & Medicare

[jtown1123]

Huffington Post

Dean Baker.Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
Posted: January 3, 2011

Hugh Jidette Goes to Washington

By this point, many people have come across the name "Hugh Jidette," the fictional presidential candidate created by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation to advance its agenda of cutting Social Security and Medicare. In the more realistic version of this story we would have Hugh Janus, the Wall Street lobbyist who is constantly plotting ways to take away the benefits that tens of millions of retired workers depend upon.

Apologies for the descent into fourth-grade humor, but that is now the level of the public debate on budget and economic issues in Washington. Every chapter of this debate seems more corrupt and further removed from reality than the last one.

To start, we have President Obama's deficit commission, led by two self-described clowns, former Senator Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. Senator Simpson's established his notoriety by sending out late night e-mails that were both insulting to the recipients and revealed his stunning ignorance of Social Security's finances. (Full disclosure: I was one of the recipients.)

One e-mail implied that the director of a major national women's organization could not read a simple graph. It also expressed his alarm over Social Security projections that had been known to the policy community for almost two decades.

READ THE REST: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/hugh-jidette-goes-to-wash_b_803618.html

[fasttense]

1. And who appointed former Senator Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles

as chair and co-chair?

Obama is big on helping the rich. Stand back, he is going to offer up Social Security then yell at the liberal base for NOT going along. In exchange he'll get a judge approved.

[OKNancy]

3. he doesn't have to approve of one single item they

mentioned in their report.
He won't touch Social Security.

[OKNancy]

2. Prediction: NOTHING will come of this

It will be just like the privatization bs Bush tried to pull.
The whole cut Social Security debate will fall flat. Politicians can sometimes go against the will of the people sometimes, but not this.
There is just too much public sentiment behind keeping SS like it is.

I've seen many months of posts with people hand-wringing and going off the deep end. It ain't happenin'
Obama won't let them touch it and neither will the Democrats. Hell, some Republicans may even balk.

Bookmark it.

[jtown1123]

5. It'll definitely come up. Rep. Lindsey GRaham just said on Sunday

that he (and I'm guessing a lot of Repubs) will not vote to raise the debt ceiling without cuts to Social Security. It's definitely going to be an issue coming up soon and its on us to educate each other and put pressure on our elected reps.

[cutlassmama]

9. You're right he did. He talked about raising the age and also the cap

[jtown1123]

7. I sure hope you are right but I've never heard Obama say SS is "off the table" during deficit talks.

What really concerns me is this obsession with the deficit when hello, we need JOBS.

[gratuitous]

8. I hope you're right

But from quite a number of indications, there's going to be a "bipartisan" push (millionaires from the far right and right of center agree!) to enact some of the recommendations discussed by the Catfood Commission, and the ones that have definitely captured the attention of the Beltway Insiders are those having to do with Social Security.

Now, while it's true that that Catfood Commission blew the deadline for its report, and didn't issue a legal final report, that won't stop deficit peacocks (they like to make a big show, but don't actually do anything) from picking and choosing the options mulled by the Commission. And don't be terribly surprised if they decide that paying back the plunder of the social security surplus built up over the last 28 years becomes the consistent hobgoblin that occupies their little minds.

While working people got stuck for building up the social security surplus, the wealthy couldn't resist the lure of that lovely pile of money, and with the connivance of their pals in the corridors of power, stole it and pocketed it. Now, when the bills start coming due, and all that borrowing has to be repaid at last, they're going to try their level best to ignore the facts and the history, and blame the shortfall on the people whose money was plundered for their big party of the last quarter century. And they will persuade a depressingly high number of people that social security is responsible for budget shortfalls, that the best way to bring about balance is to start in with means testing or cutting benefits for future retirees or some other nice-sounding nonsense that will signal the middle portion of the process to end social security.

Anyone who complains that the Catfood Commission never issued any final report or jettisoned its own rules will be dismissed as a nitpicker who is Not Serious about Reducing the Deficit, at which point they can be safely ignored by the rest of the People Who Know Best.

Bookmark that.

[Hello_Kitty]

10. Oh, I am.

You will be seeing this again.

[CTyankee]

4. "Hugh Janus"

:rofl:

It took me a couple of seconds...

[jtown1123]

6. Isn't that a gem?