Let me see if I have this straight: in the last few days members of the GOP have savagely screwed the unemployed, protected the bankstas, trashed Thurgood Marshall, implied rape and incest is part of God's plan, defended BP, threatened to either end social security or screw over 20 million plus people who have paid into the system for at least 20 years by making them wait until age 70 to see their benefits, and screwed homeless veterans with children. That about it, or is there more?
I want to extend an invitation to any teabagger (or Republican or Blue Dog Democrat - are you listening Jason?) who can explain how cutting taxes and spending will get this country back on its feet. Tell us all how tax cuts for business that will continue to outsource jobs to India, Korea and China will help people in the United States get jobs. Tell us how cutting spending will cut the deficit when no new spending means no new money to pay taxes or anything toward a deficit. If you owe money to the electric company and don't have a job, what good will a tax cut or reduced spending do to help pay your bill? At least if you get unemployment that you already paid into, you will put money back into the system...and you will still have electricity. Tell us how the Republicans are concerned about people when they won't help the unemployed but blame every unemployed as being too lazy to get that mythical job Republicans and their former leader, George Bush over the last 8 years, destroyed. Show us the facts, not the bullshit you get from Beck and Limbaugh and Fox who aren't economists, experts or even profess to question experts on the economy and jobs but who merely try to scare people into believing the lies they spread. Here's what you can do. Send us an email and we'll publish it if you'll simply tell us how cutting spending and tax cuts will do anything to help the economy. It's real simple. You've been claiming for 18 months that those ideas, tax cuts and reduced spending, will work, yet you provide not one fact. Put your comments in print. You know how this will work. Tell us all. Here's your forum.
I’ll bet you know a lot of good people who depend on their Social Security check. Hard-working folks who have contributed their whole lives and now need those checks. Like my grandparents. Or your grandparents. Or your parents. Or you. Well, former Republican Senator Alan Simpson was just caught on camera calling them “lesser people.” That kind of condescending disrespect would be infuriating coming from anyone, but Senator Simpson isn’t just anyone. He’s a co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, which is charged with finding ways to cut the deficit. And Simpson is joining with the other right-wing ideologues on the “deficit commission” to find a way to cut Social Security for those “lesser people”—even though Social Security hasn’t caused the deficit. Someone with Senator Simpson’s disdainful attitude and ideological commitment to cutting Social Security has no business serving in this powerful position. This video shows it’s time for him to resign. Can you check out the video, join our call for Simpson to resign, and then pass on the video to your friends?
Paul Krugman:
Specifically, Simpson has resurrected the old nonsense about how Social Security will be bankrupt as soon as payroll tax revenues fall short of benefit payments, never mind the quarter century of surpluses that came first. We went through all this at length back in 2005, but let me do this yet again. Social Security is a government program funded by a dedicated tax. There are two ways to look at this. First, you can simply view the program as part of the general federal budget, with the the dedicated tax bit just a formality. And there’s a lot to be said for that point of view; if you take it, benefits are a federal cost, payroll taxes a source of revenue, and they don’t really have anything to do with each other. Alternatively, you can look at Social Security on its own. And as a practical matter, this has considerable significance too; as long as Social Security still has funds in its trust fund, it doesn’t need new legislation to keep paying promised benefits. OK, so two views, both of some use. But here’s what you can’t do: you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that for the last 25 years, when Social Security ran surpluses, well, that didn’t mean anything, because it’s just part of the federal government — but when payroll taxes fall short of benefits, even though there’s lots of money in the trust fund, Social Security is broke.
And bear in mind what happens when payroll receipts fall short of benefits: NOTHING. No new action is required; the checks just keep going out.
So what does it mean that the co-chair of the commission is resurrecting this zombie lie? It means that at even the most basic level of discussion, either (a) he isn’t willing to deal in good faith or (b) the zombies have eaten his brain. And in either case, there’s no point going on with this farce.
On Social Security, Simpson is repeating a zombie lie — that is, one of those misstatements that keeps being debunked, but keeps coming back. Specifically, Simpson has resurrected the old nonsense about how Social Security will be bankrupt as soon as payroll tax revenues fall short of benefit payments, never mind the quarter century of surpluses that came first. But here’s what you can’t do: you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that for the last 25 years, when Social Security ran surpluses, well, that didn’t mean anything, because it’s just part of the federal government — but when payroll taxes fall short of benefits, even though there’s lots of money in the trust fund, Social Security is broke [...] So what does it mean that the co-chair of the commission is resurrecting this zombie lie? It means that at even the most basic level of discussion, either (a) he isn’t willing to deal in good faith or (b) the zombies have eaten his brain. And in either case, there’s no point going on with this farce.
In 1983, Congress agreed with the "Greenspan Commission" to raise SS taxes and begin "pre-funding" Social Security in anticipation of the baby boomers. Since then, the Trust Fund has been building a huge surplus, now at about $2.5 trillion. As the baby boomers retire, it will gradually use that surplus, plus continuing payroll taxes, plus interest on the US bonds it purchased with the surplus, to pay full benefits in coming decades. Eventually (2037 or 2044 or later), it may need more revenues to continue paying full scheduled benefits in later decades, depending on what happens with economic growth, interest rates, etc. But its structure is basically sound for decades to come.
Republicans and Peter Peterson’s hired guns don’t want you to know that. They want you to think Social Security is in some "crisis" and somehow related to or causing the deficit. It’s not. The Hager article, for example, says interest on the bonds shouldn’t count as part of the funds Social Security has available to pay benefits. That’s like saying the interest you’ve been earning on your retirement or savings account doesn’t belong to you. But that money clearly belongs to the Trust Fund, because the Trust Fund owns the US bonds earning that interest. That’s how Congress set it up. And the fact the US may have to raise money through some means — taxes, borrowing, printing, etc — to pay that interest or pay when the bonds are cashed in, isn’t a problem with the structure or solvency of Social Security.
Social Security is not going to go bankrupt this year or in the next 15 years. Cutting the deficit is the stupid way of trying to fix the problem. Never has cutting spending and taxes resulted in lowering ANY deficit. There are two simple ways to make sure Social Security is there for all of us.
First: Increase the tax ceiling. Actually remove the ceiling altogether! Currently if you make over $106,000 you pay no more into the fund, BUT you get more out later in life, Does this seem fair to you? It sure doesn't to me. If those who make more paid their fair share, we'd never even be considering this a problem.
Second: Forget about the deficit. The deficit didn't cause the potential problem with Social Security. Congressional greed did. They stole money from the fund to help their own districts for good old pork projects. Why should we here give up our Social Security money so Alan Simpson can build fences to keep in herds of cattle that are to be sold to the Japanese for less money than here in the states?
Our own representative, Jason Altmire, last time checked, was in favor of changing Social Security and not in a beneficial way for the seniors of this area. Call him and tell him not to touch Social Security and to demand Simpson resign. By the way, Altmire doesn't pay any extra tax on his salary over the $106,000 yet he makes over $165,000 per year. And he will get a higher proportion in Social Security because he paid NOTHING after that ceiling. Why should you and I give him part of our money if he doesn't contribute to the fund?
Call him today or try to live on a lot less tomorrow.
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.
"She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be an Obama Democrat."
"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."
The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."
"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"
"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."
WHOA! Did the earth just shift on its axis? Has AIG just donated 20 billion to the needy? Are dogs and cats living together? Something has occurred that makes all of those things seem trite. The VND (yeah, I said it right not my usual) posted an opinion that seems to have come from somewhere other than Richard Scaife/Rush Limbaugh pants pocket.
IN all seriousness, I think that even the “conservatives” at the Trib are concerned about the mind-numbing idiocy of Beck, Palin, Limbaugh and the so-called brainless Teabaggers. (What do you stand for anyway?)
I love the blurbs where the teabaggers claim the want “to take back America!” To when? George W. Bush’s presidency? Ronald Reagan’s disastrous tax cuts for the rich/trickle-down beginning to what we have now? George H.W. Bush’s insipid 1000 points of light for only those 1000 businesses? Most certainly not Centrist Bill Clinton’s 8 years of prosperity ending with a surplus that Bush the Second blew on an illegal war!
What time period do you want to take us back? Maybe the fifties when things were just all “Gosh, Beav, Mom made apple pies again and if we’re real good maybe we’ll get some!” Remember the recession of the late 50s that JFK got us out of by going to the moon? The same jobs type bill people complained was a waste of money? Well, millions of people went to work because of that program and yet many of them complained about government spending. You can’t have it both ways.
So, teabaggers. Do we gut government and thereby jobs and services like road repairs, police and fire protection and a thousand others that the U.S. provides with your tax dollars or do we, as you want, stop the regulation of business so they can continue to screw us with hateful rhetoric mouthed from total dolts on Right–Wing Hate Radio and Fox?
JUST WHO IS MAKING MONEY BY INSTIGATING ALL THIS DISSENSION? For the clueless: it ain’t you. It’s the asses on Right-Wing Hate Radio and Fox. It’s the first class morons like Beck, Palin and Limbaugh and the wannabes like Breitbart and Company. Maybe you should try to understand how life really works rather than listening to 1930s hate propaganda updated by Beck and Murdoch.
Those more moderate Conservatives are concerned they will lose the Republican Party to the ultra right, radical, fanatically moronic fools who call themselves Teabaggers.
The VND took a step in that direction with an intelligent, realistic piece devoid of the standard Right Wing exaggerations and outright lies.
When the Trib allows such articles that show Beck, Palin and Limbaugh in their true form, maybe it’s time some of you started to look at different sources and to wonder just what you’re getting and are going to get from your used teabags.
