Not Serious

Here is all you need to know about the report yesterday from the Deficit Commission. It is best thing I've read so far on the Bowles-Simpson trial balloon.

This covers all you need to know. These people aren't really serious about deficit reduction because all our problems are with health care costs and they aren't really being addressed. As I have said before, any deficit discussion you hear from someone that mentions Social Security with respect to the deficit you can immediately ignore because they are ignorant and/or just bullshitting you.

It is really galling to read article after article in the media that don't make the point that Social Security is not part of our deficit problem. A tiny tweak to the amount of income subject to SS taxes would make it solvent forever.

The Attack On Social Security Begins In Earnest

via TPM

Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the chairs of the catfood commission, have issued their draft recommendations, and they are pretty much a whack at the middle and lower classes, as you would expect.

The plan would reduce Social Security benefits to most future retirees — low-income people would get a higher benefit — and it would subject higher levels of income to payroll taxes to ensure Social Security’s solvency for at least the next 75 years.
But the plan would not count any savings from Social Security toward meeting the overall deficit-reduction goal set by Mr. Obama, reflecting the chairmen’s sensitivity to liberal critics who have complained that Social Security should be fixed only for its own sake, not to balance the nation’s books.
The proposed simplification of the tax code would repeal or modify a number of popular tax breaks — including the deductibility of mortgage interest payments — so that income tax rates could be reduced across the board. Under the plan, individual income tax rates would decline to as low as 8 percent on the lowest income bracket (now 10 percent) and to 23 percent on the highest bracket (now 35 percent). The corporate tax rate, now 35 percent, would also be reduced, to as low as 26 percent.

Surpise, surprise, the wealthy get lower taxes, we lose our mortgage interest deduction,  and not only that but we get a cut in Social Security and a raise in the retirement age to boot. These people are still rolling Medicare and Social Security into the government deficits...which they are not. They are separately funded and their cost does not come out of the general fund. Note also that the commission was created to address the deficit and not entitlements.

Among other recommendations:

• Index the retirement age to longevity -- i.e., increase the retirement age to qualify for Social Security -- to age 69 by 2075.
• Index Social Security yearly increases to inflation rather than wages.
• Freeze federal worker wage increases through 2014; eliminate 200,000 federal jobs by 2020; and eliminate 250,000 federal non-defense contractor jobs by 2015
• Establish co-pays in the VA medical system and change the co-pays and deductibles for military retirees that remain in that system.
• Eliminate NASA funding for commercial space flight.
• Require the Smithsonian museums to start charging entrance fees and raise fees at the national parks.
• Eliminate funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which many conservatives suggested in the wake of the firing of former NPR contributor Juan Williams.
• Reduce farm subsidies by $3 billion per year.

Mind you, this is not the actual full recommendation of the commission, which requires 14 of the 18 members to sign off. Supposedly its a starting point to get the ball rolling on getting the full commissions approval.  Couple this with Pete Peterson's new attacks on Social Security and I think we are beginning to see an all out effort to finalize the plutocracy. Without Social Security, viable health care and the rest of the social support network we will be at the mercy of the plutocrats. They will, in short order, and thanks to the GOP be completely free of any government oversight and they will have us at their mercy. We will survive or die at their whim and we will survive only if it profits them.

You can read the draft plan here.

TheTruth About Social Security

Move-On just sent this out to its members. If you know people that are not Internet users and need to know the truth send them this in an email. There is a continuous onslaught of propaganda being generated by the deficit hawks and most, if not all, is complete and utter bullshit. The reality is that Social Security and how it is funded and whether or not it affects the deficit are very simple. Social Security is funded by a separate tax paid by workers and employers and has absolutely no bearing on other government spending. If someone says that Social Security needs fixing to address the deficit then they are stupid or just plain lying through their teeth and you should just stop listening. Medicare and Medicaid are a different story but Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit.

Top 5 Social Security Myths

Rumors of Social Security's demise are greatly exaggerated. But some powerful people keep spreading lies about the program to scare people into accepting benefit cuts. Can you check out this list of Social Security myths and share it with your friends, family and coworkers?


Myth: Social Security is going broke.

Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.1 After 2037, it'll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits--and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers retirement decades ago. Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.

Myth: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.

Reality: This is red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than did 70 years ago.3 What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly--since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half.4 But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.

Myth: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.

Reality: Social Security doesn't need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here's a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come. Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income. But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.

Myth: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs

Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn't full of IOUs, it's full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market--which would have been disastrous--but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.

Myth: Social Security adds to the deficit

Reality: It's not just wrong -- it's impossible! By law, Social Security funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.

There are two things driving the attack on Social Security. First, the GOP and wealthy have always been against Social Security. Being against things that really only benefit us peasants is part and parcel of their ideology..  They have been against it from the beginning and attack it every chance they get. Shrub trying to privatize it by investing it in the stock market was just the latest. Fortunately, that failed but they are attacking again using the lie of the deficit this time. Secondly, the wealthy don't want to pay for the losses due to Wall Street's malicious and insane gambling and they want the poor and middle class to pay for it. They are blaming Social Security for the deficit when it has absolutely nothing to do with it and want us to ignore the real causes which were Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and Wall Street's insanity and greed and two frigging wars for nothing.