Rothschild writes: "President Obama is bending over way too far to reach a budget deal with John Boehner and the Republicans."
Obama is at odds with many Democrats over proposed Social Security cuts. (photo: CBS)
Obama Caving on Social Security
19 December 12
resident Obama is bending over way too far to reach a budget deal with John Boehner and the Republicans.
By tentatively agreeing to changing the formula for calculating the Consumer Price Index for people on Social Security, Obama has, in fact, agreed to cut the benefits of seniors.
Because the new CPI index doesn't go up as fast as the traditional measure.
As a result, every year, seniors will receive less than they otherwise would have from Social Security.
And it's not like they're getting rich on Social Security as it is. The average monthly check is $1,230 - that's less than fifteen grand a year.
And now grandma and grandpa aren't even going to be keeping up with the rate of inflation as traditionally calculated.
Forcing seniors to make do with less on Social Security is not something Obama campaigned on, and it's not something we need Democrats for.
But there were plenty of warnings.
Obama's first appointee to head the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, was in favor of this proposal.
And Obama appointed the Bowles-Simpson Commission, which lent momentum to this idea of cutting Social Security.
And Obama floated this idea of the new and reduced Consumer Price Index last summer when he tried then to get Boehner to sign on to the "grand bargain."
Bernie Sanders warned us all during the campaign that Obama was wobbly on this issue, and worried about the President's willingness to cave on the Consumer Price Index.
Sanders told Sam Stein of HuffingtonPost back in September that Obama was likely to throw seniors overboard with the so-called "chained CPI."
And that's where we are today.
It's not like Boehner had to beat Obama into the ground on this. The President, it seems, was always prepared to give it away.
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The American Spring will start when there are thousands of really, really pissed off people at the Capital all at the same time raising some serious hell against the Lunatics, and idiots absolutely nothing is ever, ever going to happen to these totally bought and paid for by the richest 400 families in the world that are becoming more and more powerful with each passing rigged election thanks to the stupid people.
So, scream, yell, chant, stomp your feet, threaten to hold your breath, and beat your drums so the media can show it on the evening news, while all of those who can actually do anything about it are home counting their donation money and laughing all the way to the bank.
Yes there is still hope for the America we used to know, but I agree it is fading fast.
I desperately needed Social Security long before I was 65 due to injuries when my car was rear-ended. Did I collect anything from insurance? - NO, they had 1 Million and one loopholes and expensive lawyers.
Instead of vouchers we need single payer not for profit health care and to get the middle men (Insurance companies) out of it and stop letting them strip so much money off the top, and then control the run away profits many hospitals, suppliers, and doctors charge.
Making obscene profits off of other people's bad health is like charging for air and water. Oh, wait, someone is already doing the latter.
Get rid of conservatives and you will have a balanced budget? Not only doesn't that make sense, it has no historical backing. Who controlled Congress when Clinton was in office?
Most conservative policies benefit the most people. Min. wage as I have been talking about on this page is just one example. A free market is another. Deregulation brought you cheaper air fares and cheaper long distance phone calls, etc.
It also brought you lowered air safety standards, increased concentration of the telecom industry (meaning less genuine competition) and, oh yes, how could I forget, a banking collapse which brought on a savage recession from which it took years to emerge.
Remember that the biggest proven case of Medicare fraud was a company whose CEO was Rick Scott of Florida (aka Gov Skeletor)
Is the business (shown on 60 Min.) set up to sell medical equipment to Medicare patients conservative? they were crooks who stole credit card info and billed Medicare without any patients requesting or getting the equipment. It is the govt. that doesn't spend the money to prevent such theft.
A balance budget would be great too. Lets do it. What would you start with?
Government does not cover all Medicare costs. We pay premiums, deductibles, and co insurance and a portion of everyone's SS withholding and employer matching $ goes into the plan.
Regarding SS disability, one does not just walk into the bureau and receive SSI. That process can take up to 3 years and there are mountains of hoops through which one must jump. before one is approved..
The vast majority of fraud is by providers. I worked for a Part B carrier in the compliance unit; I investigated fraud. Only one case of patient fraud was proven over a 15 year period.(ER hopping for pain meds.) Compare to the multimillion $$$ frauds committed by HCA/Columbia and other facilities.
Commercial insurance costs more because of those excessive salaries. Medicare has a limited annual % increase.
At the moment my younger son is badly disabled and has not been able to work for several years. Despite medical reports from his doctor that he is unable to work SSI keeps denying him, often for reasons that have nothing to do with him or his claim.
Naturally, he has a lawyer working on his behalf, which means that when he finally does get accepted (Crossing my fingers for that) he will have to turn a large chunk over to them.
In the meantime he has no income as his unemployment has run out and as with so so many in this situation is close to destitute.
Fortunately, I had an extra bedroom for him, and my grandson is sleeping on the couch.
We were a very upscale, upper middle class professional family, and look at us now, living on my not quite $900 per month of Social Security.
Yes, I would love it if those who abuse and rob Medicare were punished. Can we start with Gov. Rick Scott of Florida?
The fix is in and while both parties add to the corruption, the GOP is far and away the worst offenders.
Quoting sources isn't enough if the sources you choose are worthless, or if you quote them selectively so as to distort what they actually said.
rsn green thumbs find reality revolting. I do not know why, except maybe they want life to be fair. (That's a joke) The problem I have with most of them is that they find voluntary an unnecessary evil and freedom fearful. Which is understandable as freedom can be a fearful thing. But you know all that.
I am not trying to convince him - impossible task there - but to send my situation, variations abound for so many others who cannot express it, and I send it out into the Universe when I can in hopes of eventually creating changes that will benefit someone like me down the road.
Thanks, Roland for yet another such opportunity.
Another aspect of this is public safety. Recently, a friend who's husband is developing senility and should stop working continued his job as a long distance trucker because she was disabled and needed his health insurance until she hit 65 and could finally go on Medicare.
This put everyone on the road with him in danger.
2. I'm not wealthy yet I pay tax on my SS benefits. The only people who don't are the at the poverty level and living almost wholly on SS since retirements have been drastically cut so the wealthy can have more wealth.
3. The large corporations and very wealthy would love to have a $0.00 minimum wage so they wouldn't have to pay their workers adequately and acquire more wealth for themselves. The states that have raised the minimum are doing better economically because people have more to spend.
4. "Marketplace" and "competition" are really nonexistent since the wealthy and corporations control.
2 I don't know where the tax on SS benefits starts but the poor do not pay it. The progressive tax rates kick in on those who do.
3.The poor and unskilled would love a shot at a job. Too bad with a high min. wage that won't happen. People with more skills will take the jobs that remain.
4.Corporations control the market for TVs for example. What has happened to the prices for TVs over the last 2 decades? Or airfares and long distance phone calls since deregulation?
2. And why should the poverty striken pay tax on SS? It isn't the poor, but the impoverished who aren't required to pay tax on their SS.
3. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, higher minimum wages reduce jobs only in the right wing echo chamber. In the real world, jobs and economic activity are increased. That is one of the reasons that things were so much better before the buying power of the minimum wage had shrunk to a small fraction of its original value. In today's dollars, the present minimum wage would be around $20, and if it followed increased productivity, it would be even higher.
4. Corporations most assuredly do not control the market for TV's. There are too many of them making TV's for them to control the market. And as for the price of airfare, it has been going through the roof and as the number of airlines is reduced through mergers, airfares are increasing even faster. And that is while the price of fuel has been falling and doesn't even consider the added fees for just about everything that are included in the air ticket. It also doesn't consider that more people are being crammed into smaller spaces and service has deteriorated.
Taxing SS is an atrocity regardless of income. If money is spent, someone has to earn it.
You are always wrong.
Right -a TeaThuglican version of what passes for "government" or Corporate/Milit ary dominion over everything diminished quality public education, for massive profit health care and crumbling infrastructure, with a militarized police force to keep any "unruly" freedom seekers in check.
You have to be a total conformist fink to live under that system without trying to resist it.
We most assuredly do NOT spend more on education. The red states have been cutting education spending at the least excuse. When Gov. Goodhair needed to balance a multibillion dollar shortfall in his budget, he did it by cutting over $5 billion from education, and then when the economy improved, neither he nor Gov. Dipstick even considered restoring the cuts. The same thing applies to other states like LA and PA. In PA the present governor is trying to restore the cuts, but the repub legislature absolutely refuses. They would rather extend tax breaks to the fracking corporations.
And the police have been very adept at killing unarmed people who have car trouble, who are jaywalking, who are just sitting there doing nothing. Frankly I didn't realize I needed protection from them. And to claim that working for $5.00/hr is freedom is the same as saying Arbeit macht Frei. AS has been measured time and again, raising pay scales improves economic activity. Why do you think that despite all the right wing nonsense spouted by the red state governors, they are doing much more poorly economically than blue states? There is a good reason that the red states are net recipients of federal largess while the blue states are net contributors. Tell me about all the new industry attracted to Kansas, to Louisiana, to Alabama, to Mississippi. Even Wisconsin isn't doing well compared to Minnesota.
that is right, you know what is best for others. Don't give them the opportunity to decide for themselves. Typical liberal. And yes, that job could be the difference between living in poverty for the rest of their lives or getting the first step up.
Which state are in the most economic trouble?
the police do a fairly good job of being too late to do anything but investigate, or too trigger-happy to do anything but murder. our right to protest should affect your freedoms, so you'll get it, it's not a show, it's an action to make you think, and if it affects your precious freedom to get someplace on time, too bad. stop voting for criminals and sociopaths, you'll have fewer protests to worry about. our right to protest NEVER STOPS, according to the Constitution, another bother some document the right likes to denigrate and ignore. as far as your $5 an hour foolishness, that is not freedom, it is slavery, and, once again, you prove your lack of patriotism and common sense. lastly, college and health care is so expensive because of CONSERVATIVE government interference.
And if you look at the characters around the world today, you'll find that many of the worst were created by the CONSERVATIVE TRAITORS of the USA., so that they could make billions from selling them weapons, and manufacturing and selling us weapons with which to fight them.
Roland, Roland, Roland . . . we do not spend more, per capita, on education than does anyone else. I do agree, however, that by the evidence the money has been wasted--in your case. One can lead a horse's ass to knowledge--but we all know and how little goes into a horse's ass other than the occasional enema, and what usually comes out.
Quote:Then I take it you'd agree that the police have every right to break up "pro-life" demonstrations blocking access to family planning clinics and to arrest the participants.
Oh, ad Roland, it's "themselves," not "them self." What was that about education again?
Oh, please.
yes, please: tell me:
Why should I let corps control my life?
again, you must take great pride in always being wrong, since you are so consistent at it.
How can a corp control me unless they have purchased gov? An honest question, please help me understand.
If a corp bugs me why can't I just tell them to bug off? Like, go mind your own business.
They HAVE purchased government.
What rock have YOU been living under, "Depressing and Boring"???
I think you are great, but you need reading glasses? I wrote "How can a corp control me unless they have purchased gov?"!!!
"Your" life, Roland.
And in case you hadn't notice, in this country the people control the government. If they didn't, there would be no point in conservatives voting for Republican office seekers; they'd just have to pick up their guns and shoot their way into power, as in any self-respecting Third World country.
I am oppressed by the past 20 years of earning less money than I should because my field was dominated by women and we were all underpaid and by the current economic model which reduces a company's workforce by not replacing employees who leave, resulting in doubling the workload of the remaining employees
Sure, why not expand benefits, like Bernie proposes? Is he buying your vote with such redistribution ideas? Too bad those ideas won't work without taxing the middle class as they do in Europe. Do you think we will get a VAT tax? Do you think he will follow the successful Nordic counties with a 0 min wage or the failing southern European counties?
(continued next post)
("http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts")
Hence the "free market" in Scandinavia would be anathema to you, unless you could get a far reicht government installed that would crush the unions and reduce the workers' bargaining power to appealing to the charity of the bottomlessly greedy.
Please don't waste y'y time and goodness on his trollship.
He actually seems to believe all the reactionary baloney that he's been scripted and fed from that "Liberal" media he and his ilk blatter on about.
His life-experience seems to be VERY limited, like his opinions, which of course, he's absolutely free to pop up and infest RSN with.
You just try and get a call in or a post on a right wing media outlet. If you're luck enough to get through, you'll get plentry of abuse and even death-threats in response; I'm speaking from experience here.
I didn't say the wealthy shouldn't pay the tax on SS, just that they do.
It hasn't been a free market for decades. The % that the govt. controls through Medicare and Medicad affects the market. Also, companies have trouble competing over state lines due to regulations. The costs of drugs generally come down over time due to competition - the ability for generics. Yet, the govt. still restricts the generic manufacturers. Good article in this weeks Barron's. If not for the profit motive the life saving drugs would not be created. It can cost 2.5 B to bring a new drug to market.
It does cost a lot to bring new drugs to market but pharma companies spend more money on marketing than they do on research.
Then they limit who can get it or afford it, with the help of the "Free market" insurance/pharm aceutical behemoths.
Some of us are living longer, the ones who are wealthy enough they don't need social security. The ones who need it aren't living longer. But you knew that because the article told you.
And yes, SS is regressive. The poor are paying a larger percentage of their income into SS than the rich are, and in most cases, the percentage of their income that is paid in total taxes by the poor is higher than the percentage of their income of total taxes by the rich. A study in Texas which has no state income tax showed that the poor spent a much larger percentage of their income in taxes than the well-to-do did.
The right doesn't understand that it isn't premiums that will be affected if only market forces were at work, but the people who are insured. The ones who are likely to need insurance are the very ones who will be denied, and if anyone slips through the cracks, they will be cut off as soon as they file a claim. In other words, we go back to preACA days when premiums were rising a LOT faster than they are now.
Roland, congratulations on doing your job as a goose-stepping, in-lock-step Republican.
The left gets what republicans have been up to: imposing fascism for 40 years, one step at a time.
-56 down votes and counting.
I know right-wingers hate government, but do they really hate it so much that they'll deliberately sabotage it? Or are they just so blinded by ideology that they assume by reflex that OF COURSE vouchers will work?
"It is regressive? The wealthy pay more into SS and also pay taxes on their SS benefits"
NO ONE pays FICA beyond their first $118,500. Ultimately, there are FAR FAR less FICA contributions per capita by the wealthy and in total number than by the rest of the population.
Question 1: Why do you waste your time commenting here when you NEVER convince ANYONE of ANYTHING?
Question 2: Do you get a kickback from some right-wing propaganda mill every time you can prove you have made dumb right-wing talking points here?
I'll leave it to others to deal with the troll, only pointing out that billionaires are taxed for Social Security on approximately one ten-thousandth of their income, while poor people are taxed on all of it. Of course, reicht-wing shills focus on the total contributions, which are maxed out for the wealthy; but this is simply a diversion and dishonest way of avoiding the fact that poor people pay more taxes altogether now than any time in the last few decades, while rich people, who once paid 90 to 92 per cent on income over one million [three million in today's dollars] now routinely pay between Mitt Romney's 13 per cent and an absolute cap of 39 per cent. This is no accident.
Roland I think you've missed the basics of Republican philosophy. The actual philosophy is more personal freedoms and less government intervention - for the wealthy only. That's why they want to read everyone's emails and criminalise any form of dissent.
Your "for the wealthy only" holds no water. Use my min. wage arguments on this page, as the argument. Easy for the left to mischaracterize , but it takes away the freedoms of the poor and unskilled, to improve their conditions.
Sorry, loser, you haven't a single clue.
I asked you a simple question:
"How can a corp control me unless they have purchased gov? An honest question, please help me understand.
If a corp bugs me why can't I just tell them to bug off? Like, go mind your own business."
You won't (can't) answer. What does that make you?
See my response to y'r earlier post.
'Nuff said.
your blindness and hypocrisy are infinite.
A few simple numbers will illustrate:
a) If someone below the poverty line makes only $20,000 in a year, s/he pays 6.2% of it in SS taxes.
b) If someone makes $100,000, s/he pays the same 6.2% of it to SS. That's certainly regressive -- but not yet the real point.
c) If someone makes $500,000, s/he pays only 1.5% of it to SS; someone making $10,000,000 PAYS LESS THAN 0.08% of it to SS!
If that's not the very definition of "regressive", I don't know what is.
Roland, I read somewhere above where you said that, when you have a mistake in your facts or logic, you admit it and correct it. Thats great to hear, so I assume you have already done that on this point. Uh... Roland?
This is not a partisan issue. To be sure, there are differences, but they are not sufficiently substantive. We need to completely rebuild the system or this nation is doomed.
Those deemed gu8ilty are then targeted for assassination. Drones are launched and missiles are fired. More often than not, people not even targeted pay the ultimate price and are killed by this whole sloppy mess.
And this has wholesale, illegal murder has become normalized to the point that we all accept it as the price we pay for security as a nation. Except that we don't really pay it. Instead, children attending a wedding pay it; whole families attending some other innocent social even pay the price.
And this is under a Democratic administration that is supposedly in favor of peace and military restraint.
As citizens we are no better than the citizens of Nazi Germany who stood by and did nothing.
Wake up! This system is rotten to the core and MUST be changed.
(continued next post)
While we're at it, we could go back to the pre-1954 policy of supporting the local liberation movements as a counterweight to the historical interference of the European powers in the region.
In the period right after WWII, the U.S. was regarded by the Arab world as both friendly and dependable, and the countries and their populations liked and admired the U.S. and U.S.ans. It took a lot of effort by the neo-cons and militarists to destroy that closeness and turn the U.S. into one of the two most reviled countries involved in the region.
tO tell Russia to stop putting Russia so close to our military bases and BRING THE TROUPS HOME!
Planning on goin' back anyway before I get much older; free health care is just one reason. And I DON'T plan to quit working at things I love to do, as I've always done and do now and I mean WORKING, not "hobbying".
you can spew all the lying points you want, it only results in you proving the ignorance, hatred, greed and sociopathy of conservatives. I'll also note that you have answered none of the reasonable questions put forth to counter your stupidity, in the usual cowardly conservative fashion.conserv ative ideas don't work, except for a small handful of pigs like you. that's a simple fact: conservative ideas have NEVER worked, in human history.
Neh; he's harmless. Have you ever wondered why he insists on makin' himself look so silly on RSN?
His worldly out on the street and in other countries experience is so obviously atrophied-to-no n-existent and views so blinkered, it would be pitiable if he weren't so blinded by hubris, a swollen opinion of his wisdom and blatant impertinence.
I only look silly to those who are uninformed and apparently there are many of them here. The NY Times, WS Journal, US.gov, Forbes, The Washington Post among others are all sources I have used to support my statements. Often I post the link. I am proud to be as silly as those respected publications.
Well -I guess that I'm to the "affected MANOR" born, what?
Mind ya' manners lad AND spelling your trollship, before you criticize or respond to any post.
Now; "Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee.
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold.
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!"
-Or as they say in Yorkshire "There's none as DAFT as them as wants t'be".
Vote Bernie. He may be our last chance. Or HUMP the TRUMP and vote THE DONALD and get the American Empire over with now.
You do the math.
"In order to have a thriving middle class, you have got to have an economy that produces lots of middle class jobs, and that simply is not happening in America today.
You can find the report that the Social Security Administration just released right here: . The following are some of the numbers that really stood out for me:
38 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.
51 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.
62 percent of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.
71 percent of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year.
That first number is truly staggering. The federal poverty level for a family of five is $28,410, and yet almost 40 percent of all American workers do not even bring in $20,000 a year.
If you worked a full-time job at $10 an hour all year long with two weeks off, you would make approximately $20,000. This should tell you something about the quality of the jobs that our economy is producing at this point."
We are becoming a nation of losers!
That's because; ----un-deux-tro is----CORPORATI ONS OWN THE GOVERNMENT!
Actually, that's a damn good question mate; highest bidder comes to mind.
I've often thought, if I won a big chunk of lucre on some obscene lottery, I'd buy a politician, just to see them dance at my behest -could be a lotta laughs, eh, what?
Then I'd put them up for sale to the next bidder, just like the old slave markets.