Excerpt: "Obama made his position clear on Sept. 6, 2008, when he said: 'John McCain's campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost of living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let me be clear: I will not do either,' Obama said. The American people expect the president to keep his word."
Bernie Sanders says Obama must keep his promise not to touch Social Security. (photo: AP)
Hands Off Social Security
08 July 11
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s Social Security emerged as a target in White House budget negotiations, Sen. Bernie Sanders insisted that the retirement program must not be cut as part of any deficit reduction deal. "Let us be clear," Sanders said. "Social Security has not contributed one nickel to our deficit or our national debt." The program that benefits more than 50 million seniors and disabled has a $2.6 trillion surplus, he stressed, and will be able to provide full benefits for every eligible American for the next 25 years. "I am especially disturbed that President Obama is considering cuts in Social Security after he campaigned against cuts in 2008," Sanders added.
Obama made his position clear on Sept. 6, 2008, when he said: "John McCain's campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost of living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let me be clear: I will not do either," Obama said. "The American people expect the president to keep his word," Sanders said.
According to a coalition of seniors groups, Social Security Works, a change in the way Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are calculated would cost seniors hundreds of dollars a year in benefits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates adoption of the so-called "Chained-CPI," which would be used to determine Social Security's annual COLA, would cut be nefits by $112 billion over 10 years. The Social Security Administration chief actuary estimates the effects of this change would be that beneficiaries who retire at age 65 and receive average benefits would get $560 less a year at age 75 than they would under current law and get $1,000 less a year at age 85 - a 3.7 percent cut and a 6.5 percent cut, respectively. The proposal would cut $1.6 trillion over Social Security's 75-year valuation period - mainly from the oldest of the old, primarily women and those who are disproportionately poor.
Cutting Social Security is opposed by overwhelming majorities of Americans. A recent survey by Public Policy Polling in swing states echoed findings of other national polls. When voters in Ohio were asked this spring if they would support or oppose cutting spending on Social Security to reduce the national debt, only 16 percent favored that approach compared to 80 percent who were opposed. There were nearly identical results in other states. Meanwhile, strong majorities favor increased revenue from the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations should be part of any deficit reduction package. "In poll after poll, the American people agree there must be shared sacrifice," Sanders said.
Listen to the Senator and radio host Ed Schultz discuss the deficit and Social Security.
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For White Republicans anyone who isn't a White Republican is the 'Other" and there is the full scale of prejudice.
Uber-xenophobia .
Oh really? This is just a southern problem? Santorum played the issue in Iowa. I don't think Iowa was in the Confederacy. Please, please, correct me if I'm wrong. If memory serves, Brown vs. Board of Education involved a racist school board in Topeka, Kansas, not one in Tampa, Florida. And Kansas didn't secede either, right? But if it makes all you Yanks think it's okay to label this an exclusively southern problem, well, go right ahead. That's been your thinking all of my life.
Next, I expect to read rounded out insults directed at Robert Perry and his "lack of knowledge" for disagreeing with their sources, even if his information is historically accurate.
The real astonishing fact is that they have always gotten away with it. Most mass media is owned by republican-mind ed people so they are not likely to expose this fact. And the very people the republicans hope to attract are not really bright enough or self critical enough to see when they are being motivated by hate (esp. race hate) and fear.
Santorum's commnent was transparently the Reagan racism -- turning white against blacks with the suggestion that blacks get more welfare than whites. It was a lie and it was disgusting. But it was standard republican operation procedures, as Parry shows so well.
The big lie is that since the Republicans support businesses, their policies improve the economic well being of the entire nation.
Among other weaknesses in this line of thinking is that by allowing businesses to make the rules, the businesses will be profitable. And profitable business will create jobs.
What really occurs is that when business drives the rules, short term profitability is the best goal. Labor becomes a disposable commodity so that investing in training and paying good salaries are not in the interest of short term profits.
Racism can and is used as another tool to drive short term profits as well. Social stability, upward mobility, and market competition are all forces that drive toward long term profitability. And of course when business makes the rules and short term profit runs the business, the money industry own the business. (See Bain Capitol for an example)
People are being led to blaming the victims for the economic problems, and when it looks like those victims are a different color than White, viola; instant Racism!
The GOP and their Tea Party are all about race. McConnell even stated it publicly when he said his main goal was to make Obama a one term president. And listen to the rhetoric of the other candidates and see it too as they cater to white bigotry.
The GOP needs to disband and start over. While they were originally formed to abolish slavery, they have become a hate-filled group owned and operated by the 1%.
Americans deserve better!
To your statement: "The GOP and their Tea Party are all about race. McConnell even stated it publicly when he said his main goal was to make Obama a one term president." I agree since this is the only time in my memory, where a Minority leader in the Senate, and Majority leaders in the House have agreed and banded together to say NO to any legislation offered by this President. Thus, blocking not only important legislation the President needed to move this country out of the worse economic crisis we've been in since the depression, but also important Presidential appointments. This, over helping the country in it's time of sever need! I have a word for this: Treason! Yet, in this blog I don't hear much protest. Why?
As to this statement you make: "Americans deserve better!" I say, we only deserve what the majority voters vote for!
I hope we vote to show that we deserve the President we have, with the hope of a better future, that through his leadership will surely be ours, and deservedly so! - Suavane
"Every time I see them on TV," George Morris, 77, told the Arizona Republic, "it makes me want to vomit."
Morris, a self-described "ultra-conserva tive," initially went to Giffords' town hall meeting outside the grocery store in Tucson on Jan. 8, 2011, to complain to his congresswoman, who he says kept voting for liberal causes.
However, before Morris had a chance to speak a gunman later identified as Jared Lee Loughner began shooting. Morris' wife, Dorothy, 76, was one of those killed in the rampage, and Morris was hit in the legs and back. Giffords was shot in the head.
He was angry at Giffords' job performance before the shooting, but now Morris is more convinced that she should be removed from office immediately, according to MSNBC.com.
Also according to the article it noted that he blamed Gifford's husband for the shooting because he did not get Congresswoman Giffords protection when she went into public.
Nixon's Southern strategy was cynically designed to flip Whites in the South to vote Republican, but Ronnie added the economic element to the strategy. Of course, LBJ did predict that the Democrats would lose the South for a generation due to the Civil Rights Act.
While I believe appealing to White Racists is mildly effective, I believe that LBJ was correct and that now that a generation has passed the tactic has lost a lot of its impact. Then again, maybe I'm an optimist.
The Constitution was structured to balance states power with federal power because the framers feared both an overly powerful central government and the inability of squabbling states to develop a prosperous nation. Our nation is federated with certain (but not unlimited) overarching (i.e. trumping) powers delegated to the Federal government. Federation means that the sovereignty of the states remains (read the history carefully!!), but it is not absolute. Neither, however, is Federal power absolute.
This is where we have run into trouble. On one hand, we have people saying that there should be no central control. On the other hand, we have people who want the nation to have only one set of (Federal) rules nation-wide.
Our federal government is obligated to protect ALL citizens rights. That is its primary function. That is where it has failed. Beyond its delegated powers in the Constitution, all power rests with the States and We the People (not They the Corporations).
This -to me at least- is the key phrase in the whole article.
Would you call the current Federal Government "VIBRANT"?
When I first came to the US in the 1970's, for all it's faults in international adventurism and it's attempted demonization of the American Indian Movement there was indeed a feeling of vibrancy and possibility, perhaps as a resultant of the 60's -70's push back by younger and even middle-aged non-conformists and the need to put the shame engendered in the aftermath of the Veitnam debacle behind the populace in the faces of it's leaders.
This impetus even carried over into the early years of Reagan, which is when I remember it starting to die -I was overseas for much of the 80's- but kept in touch anyway.
On returning, I was sadly forced to recognize the mean-spiritedne ss and inward-looking nature of the country at both national and regional level in so many ways as affected by each region's cultural norm, especially the South, where I spent some time.
I have been an individualist and small-business owner but spent time in the corporate culture as both employee and consultant, and see the "slowness" inculcated by the now-dominant corporate culture in the citizens who cleave to this mentality: Just a thought for discussion.
"States Rights" has become a buzzword for those who oppose civil rights. But there's no doubt many worried at the time that the federal gov't would eventually become too powerful, just as many would today if the US had to give up its sovereignty and weapons to the United Nations.
One of our problems is so much is decided in Washington DC, and much of it by the president. As a result, everyone wants their favorite to be president. With so much at stake, corruption follows, just as it did when Rome became an empire. On our present course, We are no longer a United States; we are a disunited States. I don't see any peaceful way past the divide.
One possible solution would be to decentralize (a la Jefferson) some power back to the states. Let states, under the Constitution, decide issues they can decide, basically domestic ones. That reduces pressure to elect a president who will appoint Supreme Court Justices who will vote this way or that.
It also means we often wouldn't have one rule fits all, the federal government's interpretation. It might mean states could decide the issue of abortion. (Up go the red flags, I know). Would it be so bad if some states banned abortion while others allowed it?
My mother was from Arkansas. Many of her siblings and generations of descendants have remained in that same community for generations. They tend to be ignorant of the most simple things about the world, think that education is elitist, Southern Baptist religion the only way to heaven, and well...generall y they are angry whites who feel entitled to condem people of color and "liberal" white cousins like myself. I don't care for the south at all and will not choose to vacation in the southern states from Arizona to south of the Mason Dixon.I get the creeps just thinking about it.
1) To be fair to the Founders, and particularly some of the opponents to the Constitution, it should be pointed out that some of the opposition was based upon a belief that the Constitution didn't go far enough to protect individual rights--hence, the virtual immediate adoption of the Bill of Rights.
2) It always distresses me to see this whole race issue dressed up as a Southern problem. It's simply too easy to do this, in spite of years of efforts to so. Any fair examination of the history of race in this country will show otherwise. If you believe otherwise, ask yourself why there was not a single African-America n major league baseball player until...what was it? 1948? '49? At which time every major league team was in a state which fought against the Confederacy? Why was that?
3) I use every reasonable opportunity I can find, including this one, to tout a book which I wish everyone I knew would read: "When Affirmative Action was White," by Ira Katznelson. 'Nuff said.
The Anti-Federalist s felt that the Consitution didn't address the concerns of individuals or provide any rights or recourse. The constitution alone is just a formal design for governement. It says nothing about individual rights. Representatives from the religious colonies who attended the Constitutional Convention threatened not to ratify the constitution unless it came with individual guarantees. Sectarian interests were concerned that a secular government might interfere with religion and secularists feard that religion would dictate to government. Hence, 1st Amendment.
Anti-Federalist s had cause to fear the guarantees weren't enough. The 5th Amendment contains an "unless" and because congress is charged with making the rules of "due process" in common law there is room for denying rights.