Jay Carney: “Technical” Social Security Cuts Still On The Table
Posted: February 11, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Chained CPI, digby, medicare, Social Security 12 Comments
Jay Carney was sent out today to mouth Obama’s slimy weasel words at the daily press briefing:
Q [Johnathan Karl, ABC] What about reducing the annual cost of living increases for Social Security recipients?
MR. CARNEY: Again, as part of a big deal, part of a comprehensive package that reduces our deficit and achieves that $4-trillion goal that was set out by so many people in and outside of government a number of years ago, he would consider that the hard choice that includes the so-called chain CPI, in fact, he put that on the table in his proposal, but not in a cherry-picked or piecemeal way. That’s got to be part of a comprehensive package that asks that the burden be shared; that we don’t, as some in Congress want, ask seniors to bear the burden of further deficit reduction alone, or middle-class families who are struggling to send their kids to college, or parents of children who are disabled who rely on programs to help them get through….
Q But I just want to be clear what you said at the beginning of that answer, which is the President….as part of an overall balanced approach, he does not rule out effectively reducing benefits for Social Security recipients?
MR. CARNEY: He has put forward a technical change as part of a big deal — and it’s on the table — that he put forward to the Speaker of the House. The Speaker of the House, by the way, walked away from that deal even though it met the Republicans halfway on revenues and halfway on spending cuts and included some tough decisions by the President on entitlements. The Speaker walked away from that deal.
But as part of that deal, the technical change in the so-called CPI is possible in his own offer as part of a big deal.
Excuse me? Cutting Social Security benefits by means of the Chained CPI is NOT a “technical change.” Once again, Bernie Sanders explains what is really going on: Chained CPI: An economic, moral disaster.
How many candidates for Congress last year won on the following platform?
1. That Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are too generous. Social Security should be cut over the next two decades by more than $1,000 a year for 85-year-old widows living on $1,200 a month.
2. That benefits earned by disabled veterans as a result of losing their arms, legs or eyesight in Iraq and Afghanistan are too generous. Disabled veterans’ benefits should be cut over the next 15 years by more than $1,400 a year.
3. That working families and the middle class don’t pay enough in taxes. We need to enact an across-the-board tax increase that disproportionately hurts workers making between $30,000 and $40,000 a year.
Answer: None.And yet all of these things will happen if Congress changes the way inflation is calculated by switching to a consumer price index (CPI) designed to lower cost-of-living adjustments….Wall Street billionaires and other supporters claim that changing the consumer price index is a “minor tweak.” Tell that to the millions of senior citizens trying to survive on just $14,000 a year whose Social Security benefits would be cut overall by $112 billion during the next decade.
Average 65-year-olds would get $650 a year less in benefits when they turn 75 and see a $1,000 a year cut when they turn 85.
Earlier, in response to an earlier question by Jonathan Karl, Carney supposedly took raising the eligibility age for Medicare off the table.
But why should we believe him? Sure enough Beltway Bob interprets the weasel words for us. On raising the Medicare age:
the cutoff for Medicare eligibility age has been under consideration repeatedly, giving health-care experts more time to run the numbers and parse their results. Their conclusion, essentially, was that raising the Medicare eligibility age is counterproductive: It cuts the deficit but raises national health spending as it moves seniors to more expensive insurance options. Some in the White House are simply more skeptical of the policy than they were two years ago.
BUT…
The White House wants more revenues, and they want to get them through tax reform. But they’re not going to get $1 trillion in newer revenues. They’re hoping, at best, for another $600 billion or so. But that’s not enough for the administration to take the hit on the Medicare eligibility age. So they’re making their base happy and taking it off the table.
Does that mean it’s really off the table? Well, if Boehner went to the White House tomorrow and offered $1 trillion in new revenues, half of which would come via a carbon tax, in return for Medicare eligibility, I’m pretty certain the White House would hear him out. But the White House is pretty sure Boehner’s not going to offer that deal.
Digby has an update on possible “changes” to Medicare.
Here’s your Village in action. We have Ben White, POLITICO Chief Economic Correspondent, declaring on twitter that the White House offer to cut Social Security just isn’t going to get the job done:
If all WH has in return for another tax increase is superlative CPI I really don’t see any deal materializing.
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) February 11, 2013Ok fine, he’s just being a typical jaded and “savvy” Politico reporter. Why, of course, anyone who’s anyone knows that simply destroying Social security won’t be enough.
But look at how the White House immediately responds:
@morningmoneyben Remember we have an offer on the table that includes CPI, but also inclues Medicare changes and spending cuts
— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) February 11, 2013
@morningmoneyben R’s have no offer on the table, no plan, and no longer agree with their previous position that tax refom can reduce deficit
— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) February 11, 2013See? We really do want to cut Social Security but that’s not all! We also want to “change” medicare and cut more spending. Really! We just dying to enact more austerity and we’re willing to do it as far as the eye can see! Those Republicans won’t even agree to tax reform, (which everyone knows means that we’re going to lower corporate rates.)
Ok, how about if we agree to slash funding for education and Veteran’s health care? Would you give us credit then? How about if we agree to ritualistically kill Big Bird on national TV? Then will you believe that we’re Grown-ups? CAN’T YOU SEE THAT WE ARE THE GROWN-UPS!!!! Why won’t you give us credit for being grown-ups ? We try so hard….
Read the rest of Digby’s post for her review of yesterday’s Sunday House of Pain with Dancin’ Dave.
Have I mentioned lately how much I fucking hate these fucking mealy-mouthed granny starvers? (h/t Mike Malloy) If we’re really lucky, and John Boehner is as stupid as he looks and sounds, Ben White’s prediction will be correct and there won’t be a “big deal.” Assuming Obama doesn’t get down on he knees and beg the Republicans to cut Social Security anyway, that is.
Monday Reads
Posted: December 31, 2012 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Debt Ceiling, deficit, fiscal cliff, gang rape in India, republican politics, Social Security 76 Comments
Happy New Year’s Eve!!
Congress continues to drag us down its path of dysfunction. This headline from Lindsey Graham should win him a congressional hearing for sedition.
But in an interview on Fox News Sunday this morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) threatened to oppose this must-pass bill unless Social Security benefits are taken away from millions of future retirees:
I’m not going to raise the debt ceiling unless we get serious about keeping the country from becoming Greece, saving Social Security and Medicare [sic]. So here’s what i would like: meaningful entitlement reform — not to turn Social Security into private accounts, not to take a voucher approach to Medicare — but, adjust the age for Social Security, CPI changes and means testing and look beyond the ten-year window. I cannot in good conscience raise the debt ceiling without addressing the long term debt problems of this country and I will not.
Unbelievable. We continue to see a series of really ridiculous memes spouted by the right. These included dragging Social Security into the debt crisis when it has nothing to do with the Federal budget, deficit or debt other than it is a primary investor in Treasury bills and bonds. We also continue hear about our country going the way of Greece or going bankrupt. We have the reserve currency of the world, a huge country filled with taxable assets and treasury bills and bonds under high demand. How many times do I have to call shenanigans on these cretins?
Two Republican senators want to use the threat of an economic meltdown to raise the retirement age and cut Medicare. Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced a plan today that would raise the federal debt limit by $1 trillion in exchange for $1 trillion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, as The Hill reported:
The Corker-Alexander dollar-for-dollar plan has several components.
It would structurally reform Medicare by creating competing private options giving seniors greater choice of healthcare plans. It would not, however, cap Medicare spending.
The plan would also give states more flexibility to manage Medicaid programs and prevent states from “gaming the federal share of the program with state tax charges.”
It would gradually raise the Social Security retirement age and use the “chained CPI” formula to calculate cost-of-living adjustments, curbing the growing cost of benefits.
In exchange, it would direct the debt limit be increased by the same amount as the savings generated from entitlement reform.
The U.S. will hit its debt limit on or around December 31st. The Treasury Department estimates that, using extraordinary measures, it could avoid default for another two months or so. Allowing the U.S. to default on its debt via not raising the debt ceiling could cause a complete financial meltdown. The 2011 debt ceiling debacle — during which House Republicans nearly pushed the country into a default due to their intransigence on taxes — cost the country about $19 billion in higher interest payments and at least one million jobs.
So, here’s an interesting bit of history on its way to the British Museum.
The largest Viking ship ever found, a 118 foot troop carrier, is to go on display at the British museum 1,000 years after it helped King Canute control the seas of northern Europe.
The long boat, known as Roskilde 6 because it was part of a batch found in the Danish city, is slowly being dried out in giant steel tanks.
Once it is stabilised and fitted to a steel frame, it will travel to Britain to go on display at the British museum where it will be a star attraction at an exhibition.
The warship was discovered by chance in 1996 at Roskilde as the local ship museum was being extended.
It is believed it was deliberately sunk along with other ships to narrow the fjord and protect the approach to the former capital of Denmark.
It was an incredible example of ship technology in its day and would have taken up to 30,000 hours to build.
Once again, I agree with Paul Krugman who says that deficit reduction really isn’t the Republican goal in all of these fiscal cliff talks. All we’d have to do is go back to the Eisenhower tax rates and we’d solve the problem pretty quickly which is why I hate it whenever I hear an idiot talk about bankrupting grandchildren’s future. Again, World War 2 didn’t depress the 1950s or 1960s did it? That level of debt and high, high tax rates didn’t bring about a second great depression.
Evan Soltas of Wonkblog and Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider both make the same point, in more detail, that I tried to make in my series on ONE TRILLION DOLLARS: the current budget deficit is overwhelmingly the result of the depressed economy, and it’s not clear that we have a structural budget problem at all, let alone the fundamental mismatch between what we want and what we’re willing to pay for that people like to claim exists.
Bush should’ve never been allowed to run two wars for decades without making people pay for it.
India’s outrage grows over the instances of gang rape and the death of one 23 year old woman. Police are preparing arrest warrants in the case and will charge 
six men with murder.
The trial of the six, who allegedly assaulted the physiotherapy student in the back of a bus on Dec. 16, will start after police file charge documents on Jan. 3, Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said by phone today.
An Air India plane brought the woman’s body back from Singapore and it was cremated today, the Press Trust of India reported. Demonstrators gathered at the Jantar Mantar, an 18th- century observatory and traditional rallying point, demanding speedy punishment for the alleged rapists while some held placards calling for them to receive the death penalty.
Thousands joined protests and candlelit vigils to mark the death yesterday. Some protesters held placards calling for the improved treatment of women in India as they congregated in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Others braved the cold winter’s evening in New Delhi to carry candles or meet in quiet prayer.
So, that’s my offerings today. What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: Fiscal Cliff Crashes into Debt Ceiling, Villagers Blame Old People….And Other News
Posted: December 27, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Fiscal Cliff, morning reads, Surreality, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, We are so F'd | Tags: Chained CPI, Charles Pierce, Debt Ceiling, fiscal cliff, John Boehner, Mitt Romney, Piers Morgan, Social Security, Tagg Romney, Tim Geithner 26 Comments
Good Morning!!
The storm has moved into New England, but it’s mostly rain up here–very hard, windy, noisy rain. I’m very grateful it isn’t snow, but I feel for all the people down south of me who are getting hit harder. Take care, everyone!!
Yesterday Tim Geithner announced that the U.S. will hit the debt ceiling on December 31. He sent a letter (pdf) (also posted on the Treasury Department website)to Harry Reid with cc’s to other Congresscritters informing them that the Treasury can fiddle around and keep things going for at the most two months before the U.S. defaults on its debts for the first time in history.
Meanwhile, no negotiations on the “fiscal cliff” took place yesterday. John Boehner appears to have abdicated all responsibility and has announced that it’s up the the Senate to act; but Senators are in no hurry to rush back to Washington DC and clean up the House Republicans’ mess.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday urged the Senate to pass its version of legislation to avert the “fiscal cliff,” in a sign that congressional efforts to avoid a budget crisis are coming back to life days ahead of the year-end deadline.
In a statement issued by Boehner and his top lieutenants, the Republican leadership team said “the Senate must act first” to revive efforts to avert the $600 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts due to be triggered on Jan. 1.
They promised that the House would weigh whatever legislation the Senate produced.
What are we paying these incompetent idiots for anyway? But of course no one is talking about cutting Congresspeople’s salaries–the pressure is all on Social Security recipients. Yesterday, Ruth Markus wrote a column in support of cutting benefits because seniors and disabled people (including disabled veterans) are getting too much money (the average SS check is $1,200 per month). She thinks everyone should gratefully embrace the Chained CPI.
Here’s how the CPI works. When taxes are being calculated, brackets, standard deductions, personal exemptions and the like are ratcheted up with inflation, protecting taxpayers from being forced to pay higher taxes for what is essentially the same amount of income they had previously.
Benefits — everything from Social Security to veterans’ benefits to federal pensions — are similarly adjusted upward to protect beneficiaries’ buying power from being relentlessly eroded.
Such indexing makes eminent sense. The difficulty — and the money-saving opportunity — arises because, in the view of most economists, the current method of calculating changes in the CPI overstates the inflation rate.
It fails to account for what economists call upper-level substitution bias, and what my mother would call plain common sense: If the price rises for a certain commodity in the basket of goods used to measure inflation, consumers will choose a cheaper alternative. In my house, when the price of beef soars, we substitute chicken.
The CPI doesn’t and, as a result, taxpayers are undercharged and beneficiaries are overpaid — a lot. The overestimate is small — less than 0.3 percentage points annually but, much like compound interest, it adds up over time.
What Marcus doesn’t seem to understand is that when your income is that low, beef and chicken are are both too expensive and you substitute peanut butter and dried beans. Except that peanut butter prices have skyrocketed–what’s the next step down, cat food?
Two economists responded to Markus. Dean Baker at the CEPR: Ruth Marcus Is Outraged by Overly Generous Social Security Checks.
Well, who can blame her? After all, we have tens of millions of seniors living high on Social Security checks averaging a bit over $1,200 a month at a time when folks like the CEOs in the Campaign to Fix the Debt are supposed to subsist on paychecks that typically come to $10 million to $20 million a year.
Anyhow, her main trick for cutting benefits is to adopt the chained consumer price index as the basis for the annual cost of living adjustment. This would have the effect of reducing benefits by 0.3 percentage points for each year of retirement. This means a beneficiary would see a 3 percent cut in benefits after 10 years, a 6 percent cut after 20 years and a 9 percent cut after 30 years. This is real money. Since Social Security is more than half the income for almost 70 percent of retirees and more than 90 percent of the income for 40 percent of retirees, the hit to the affected population would be considerably larger than the hit to the top 2 percent from ending the Bush era tax cuts.
But Marcus insists this cut must be done first and foremost in the name of accuracy, since the chained CPI is supposed to provide a better measure of the cost of living. She notes but quickly dismisses the evidence from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) consumer price index for the elderly (CPI-E), which shows that the rate of inflation seen by the elderly is somewhat higher than the overall rate of inflation.
Read Baker’s upteenth explanation of why the Chained CPI doesn’t accurately reflect spending for seniors at the link. He argues for continuing development of a CPI that takes into account that seniors spend greater proportions of their income on health care and basic necessities that can’t necessarily be replaced with cheaper substitutes.
Next, Jared Bernstein says he’s “convinced the Chained CPI is coming” and it is a benefit cut. He agrees with Baker that an elderly CPI would be a good thing, but says that Markus’ argument we should cut benefits now and deal with the injustices later makes no sense.
…as Dean notes, it would make a lot of sense to invest in a chained-weighted CPI that accounts for the notably different buying patterns of the elderly. Ruth Marcus critiques this point today but for reasons that don’t make sense to me. For example, she criticizes an elderly price index that would more heavily weight health care spending because “the burden of higher health costs falls unevenly among the elderly. Average costs are skewed upward by a minority who face very high out-of-pocket expenses…”
But a) all the commonly used price indexes use average costs and are thus “skewed” up and down when the underlying distribution is uneven, and b) there’s little question that the ‘old’ elderly—the ones most hurt by the switch to the chain-weighted measure—face high out-of-pocket medical costs.
Marcus goes on to endorse, as do we at CBPP, [immediately switching to the Chained CPI but protecting “vulnerable people from the impact”] and this is clearly the administration’s view as well—in fact, they’ve built in offsetting benefits to the poor, old elderly into their plan. That’s very important and salutary and one reason why I nervously support the switch.
But I’m more concerned than Ruth appears to be with the possibility that the current politics get us the chained CPI without the necessary protections.
It certainly looks like President Obama will go down in history as the Democrat who cut the New Deal off at the knees unless he suddenly realizes his legacy matters to him. Remember way back when Social Security was “off the table” because it doesn’t contribute to the deficit? Oh wait–that was only two weeks ago.
Saturday Reads: The Gun Lobby and Bad-Faith Negotiations
Posted: December 22, 2012 Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: fiscal cliff, Jonathan Chait, Mark Ames, National Rifle Association, NRA, school shootings, Social Security, Wayne LaPierre 25 Comments
Good Morning!!
I had a tough time sleeping last night. The past couple of days’ political events have been so surreal that it feels like there’s a disturbance in the force, so to speak. I couldn’t stop thinking about that bizarre NRA press conference yesterday and the way Wayne LaPierre talked about the need for more guns in our schools while at the same time a man in Pennsylvania was “randomly” shooting and killing people and grieving families were holding funerals for first graders and school teachers and administrators in Connecticut.
If only we had a responsible mainstream media. But that’s not going to happen either. Early this morning I heard CNN reporting on Americans who are rushing out to buy more guns because they’re afraid there will suddenly be gun control laws to stop them. A man in Georgia was who was interviewed was remarking on the high cost of AR-15’s right now, because so many people want to stock up on them. He was at the store because he had long wanted one of these and was no afraid he soon wouldn’t be able to get one. The interviewer asked if he would pay the high price, and he said, “I probably will.”
Here are some more intelligent reactions to Wayne LaPierre’s so-called press conference, at which the press couldn’t ask questions.
The New York Daily News: NRA’s Wayne LaPierre was America’s mad gunman in first comments after Newtown school massacre
A week after a gunman armed with an assault rifle murdered 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, and ever so shortly after the bells there tolled for the dead, LaPierre lashed out at everyone and everything but the weapons that were used to kill.
Still worse, in his arrogance and in his sense that terrible forces are out to get him, LaPierre was callous to the raw agony of the families of the slain. The hell with them — he made clear that he will fight to maintain the easy availability of assault weaponry of the kind that killed their kids.
He flayed the news media for supposedly perpetuating a culture of violence and ignorance.He blamed video games and movies for murder, as if big-screen or small-screen entertainment matters more than easily obtained machines of death.
He mocked anyone with a single new idea to prevent deadly weapons from falling into the hands of those intent on mayhem.
And, exhibiting a level of insanity that qualifies people for commitment as a danger to themselves or others, he called for stationing armed cops at every school in the United States.
The Atlantic: The Most Paranoid, Fear-Mongering Lines in Wayne LaPierre’s Call to Expand the Gun Market to Schools
Anyone expecting the NRA to be chastened at all by the shooting in Newtown, Conn., was quickly disabused of that expectation as Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the gun industry and enthusiast lobbying group, delivered a blistering speech effectively arguing today for a major expansion of the market for the product his group represents.
It was an extraordinarily tone deaf performance, but it followed a well-worn script for product sales: Provoke anxiety — and pitch your product as the one and only solution to it.
Read the examples at the link.
Dan Bigman at Fortune: What The NRA’s Wayne Lapierre Gets Paid To Defend Guns
If you’re a transparency fanatic like me, you appreciate knowing what kind of skin public people have in the game during episodes like this. So what did the NRA pay Lapierre to say that the best way to stop school shootings is to have the government put every mentally ill person in the nation on a watch list and arm school personnel to defend schools like banks?
Just under a million bucks.
That’s according to the most recent NRA filings with the IRS.
The numbers are a bit out of date. The last filing of a Form 990 from the NRA was in 2010. Still, if you’re interested in the numbers behind America’s most powerful gun lobby, it makes for interesting reading.
The organization’s mission is simply stated, right at the top: “To protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.” To accomplish this, in 2010 the NRA reported that it had 781 full time employees, 125,000 volunteers and generated revenues of $22.5 million.
BTW, as Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out last night, banks don’t use armed guards anymore, because they don’t prevent bank robberies. But LaPierre is living in the past as he showed with his pop culture references to decades-old video games and movies.
Here’s O’Donnell’s rant. It’s pretty long, but well worth watching in full.
It’s not a response to the press conference, but Mark Ames posted a great piece on the history of the NRA a couple of days ago: FROM “OPERATION WETBACK” TO NEWTOWN: TRACING THE HICK FASCISM OF THE NRA. Ames is the author of Going Postal, a book on workplace and school shooters. His article can’t be easily excerpted from, but I highly recommend you go an read it at the link.
On a slightly more positive note, here’s an article in New York Magazine about a former school principal who has been studying school shootings ever since one happened at his own school: School-Shooting Specialist Bill Bond on Why Lockdowns Save Lives
Bill Bond, specialist for school safety at the National Association of Secondary School Principals, has spent more than a decade speaking and consulting on school violence. Here, he tells assistant editor Eric Benson about lockdown procedures and the deadly shooting he witnessed himself.
Along with Columbine, my school is the reason lockdown procedures came into being. I was principal of Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, and we had eight shot in the lobby; three girls were killed. Back then, we had a crisis plan for the school, but what we were thinking about was a school intruder — an irate person, a mad parent, someone like that. We weren’t thinking about guns at all.
A lockdown means that all students get to the nearest classroom, regardless of whether it’s theirs or not, as quickly as possible. You lock the doors. You pull the shades. You turn the light out. You have the kids move to the back corner of the room, away from the door and windows. And you get the kids to be as quiet as possible. You want them to be quiet, because shooters react to sound and movement. If there’s someone screaming and hollering or running around, the shooter is much, much more likely to try to enter that door.
It sounds like that’s exactly what the teachers did at Sandy Hook School. Read much more at the link.
The other big story of the day is the so-called “fiscal cliff” and the way the Villagers–politicians and media–have turned this giant clusterfuck waiting to happen into an even huger and more horrible clusterfuck.
Last night Jonathan Chait posted the perfect response to the insanity of the “negotiations” between Speaker Boehner and President Obama: Obama Waking Up From Dream of Grand Bargain
In recent weeks, Obama seems to have concluded that Republicans have come around, and that it is time to sit down and hash out a deal like reasonable people. He moved his position more than halfway toward Boehner’s. Democrats in Congress are, incredibly, discussing the option of compromising even more.
But reasonable compromise to avert the fiscal cliff is impossible. Republicans, as a whole, don’t even seem capable of linear thinking about the budget. They don’t know what they actually want on spending. They don’t understand why Obama wants more revenue or what role this would play in the broader fiscal picture. They don’t even seem capable of politically organizing in a way that maximizes their fanatic principles. The House Republican caucus is simply a teeming pit of revanchist anger.
Chait is hopeful that Obama’s latest remarks on the mess in which he outlined a smaller proposed solution to the standoff may be a sign that the president has once again let go of his fantasies of postpartisan cooperation.
Obama’s remarks today indicate an apparent acceptance of the dynamic and a desire to at least steer the process toward minimizing the economic harm that would result if the contractionary policies scheduled for next year take effect. Obama is again demanding a tax cut for income under $250,000 a year, along with canceling out some of the more punitive spending cuts. He can get that if he holds absolutely firm on his income threshold. Unfortunately, his offer to Boehner confused the matter. Obama offered to lift the tax hike level to $400,000 a year. Now, he was proposing to make up the revenue through reducing tax exemptions, so he really changed only the delivery system for higher taxes rather than the end result, but this fact has gotten confused in the reporting, and Obama needs to re-solidify it. (In his press conference, he didn’t.)
The president also needs to learn about the uselessness of the corporate media.
Roll Call had an interesting insider report on the goings on during the GOP battle over Boehner’s Plan B on Thursday night.
Even his allies admit that Boehner’s stunning failure to find the votes for his “plan B” tax legislation was a major blow to his credibility, provoking befuddlement and even outrage from fellow Republicans.
But there is also considerable anger in the GOP conference directed at the conservative lawmakers that forced Boehner’s shocking defeat.
That fractured reaction — coupled with the lack of a plausible challenger — mean Boehner is unlikely to face any significant challenge to his position as speaker in the near term.
“These are people that, they don’t have a leader amongst them, and they don’t want to be led,” said a GOP member and Boehner loyalist. “He had probably 200 people lined up for him, for his position. And those 200 are pretty dad gum loyal to the speaker and pretty angry at that group.”
Read lots more at the link.
Finally, Rob Urie, who describes himself as an “artist and political economist,” writes at Counterpunch on why Obama and other Democrats are determined to cut Social Security even though it is political suicide and Republicans will use it against them in successive elections–and why we might fight back: Democrats, Social Security and the Fiscal Cliff
Why cut Social Security? The program is currently solvent, is expected to remain solvent for decades to come, and projected shortfalls in the future could be better addressed by raising the incomes of the people who pay into the program, not by cutting payments to those who depend on them. What is to be gained by ‘solving’ a problem that isn’t?
If cutting Social Security isn’t necessary, why then is it being proposed? Barack Obama provided copious evidence in prior proposals, television interviews and speeches that doing so is his intent. Congressional democrats and labor leaders quickly acceded to his proposal to do so, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi going so far as to actively lie that proposed cuts will ‘strengthen’ the program. And given the cuts will eventually put tens of millions of Americans into dire poverty from a program they paid into for all of their working lives, what rationale could possibly justify doing so?
The reason I ask is a coalition of democrats, labor, liberals and progressives just re-elected Mr. Obama and democrats in Congress to what—cut Social Security? Mr. Obama created the ‘fiscal cliff’ to first push his stacked (in favor of cutting social insurance programs) ‘deficit commission’ to develop a plan to cut government spending and second, to force the issue to be revisited immediately after the election if no plan was agreed to. And Republican threats to refuse to raise the debt ceiling for leverage to ‘force’ spending cuts are idiotic—George W. Bush and congressional Republicans just led the largest increase in government spending in modern history. And that is not a difficult point to make. (And had it been on beneficial programs, it would have been laudable).
Ultimately the entire ‘debate’ is nonsense—the U.S. doesn’t fund spending directly from taxes. As the Federal Reserve is in the process of demonstrating with its QE (Quantitative Easing) programs, it can buy an unlimited quantity of government debt with money it ‘creates’ –the ‘debt limit’ is an arbitrary misdirection.
None of this is news to any of us who went into this with our eyes open about Mr. Obama, but it’s a very good summary of what’s happening and well worth reading in full. And remember, George W. Bush did his darndest to privatize Social Security and failed miserably. Perhaps Obama will succeed, but I believe can be tripped up too. The Republican hatred of anything Obama wants will probably help–after all Social Security wasn’t even addressed in Boehner’s “Plan B” proposal.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the politicians have left for their luxury vacations (leaving unemployed people to wonder whether they’ll have any money at all after Dec. 31); so I guess we can relax for the moment and try to enjoy some peace and quiet for the next week.
I’ve focused on only two issues in this post, so I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading and thinking about. What’s on your list for today?
Someone Needs to Remind President Obama Who Won the Election
Posted: December 19, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Republican politics, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: AARP, AFL-CIO, Bush tax cuts, Chained CPI, debt ceiling fight, fiscal cliff, inner child issues, John Boehner, Markos Moulitsas, Social Security 53 Comments
Barack Obama’s inner child?
In November, President Obama won reelection cleanly and decisively–it was a landslide. Immediately after his victory, Obama appeared determined to stand up to Republican intransigence in the battle over the “fiscal cliff” and the debt ceiling. He “assured a gathering of progressive and labor leaders…”
“I am not going to budge,” he told the group, according to an attendee who relayed material from the meeting on condition of anonymity. “I said in 2010 that I’m going to do this once, and I meant it.”
….two other sources who attended the meeting confirmed the quote. The administration seems to have staked out a firmer position than during the first stand-off over the Bush-era tax cuts, in November and December of 2010, leaving the impression that it won’t sign off on a compromise that doesn’t increase the tax burden on the wealthy as a means of paying down the deficit….
Top Democrats in the Senate have said they would be comfortable letting all the tax rates expire — as they are scheduled to do — at the end of the year, after which they will put together a tax cut bill that would re-establish the Bush-era rates for incomes below $250,000.
As the talks began, the White House emphatically stated that Social Security was not part of the deficit and that cuts in this important program were off the table. But just a few weeks later, the odious New York Post is laughing at Obama for “caving” on Social Security. Why should Boehner negotiate in earnest when he knows his opponent–one of the most powerful men in the world–will eventually give in because of some perverse need to demonstrate “bipartisanship?”
A short time ago Obama gave a press conference in which he admitted,
“I have gone at least half way” to meet Republican concerns, Obama told reporters at the White House after he announced the formation of a special panel to recommend steps to prevent gun violence. “The fact that they haven’t taken it yet is puzzling.”
Obama’s offer includes raising tax rates on income above $400,000; increasing rates on capital gains and dividends to 20% from 15% for incomes above $250,000; and billions of dollars in cuts to health care and other programs.
While Obama has backed off on earlier proposals — including a $250,000 threshold for higher income taxes — Republicans continue to say that the president’s fiscal-cliff plan is flawed.
“It is not ‘puzzling’ to reject an agreement that…fails to remotely meet the test of balance [the president] himself has promised,” said Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, in a post on Twitter.
He’s sounding whiny again. Why is he so surprised? He’s like Charlie Brown with the football. Obama never seems to finally learn that if he stands strong against Boehner, he not only will defeat the Republicans but also he’ll earn the respect and support of the American people.
Markos has an interesting post at Dailykos that demonstrates this: It wasn’t Obama’s negotiating style that won him reelection. It almost cost him. Markos demonstrates with a chart and timeline that Obama’s approval rating rose and fell dramatically during his negotiations with Boehner over the debt ceiling last year.
President Barack Obama entered the debt ceiling negotiations with a net-negative approval rating. As House Speaker John Boehner became more belligerent and confrontational, Obama soared. The people were firmly behind him! But then he began offering concession after concession, hoping to seem “reasonable” and look like the “adult in the room,” and his numbers simply tanked. That’s a mathematical fact, not opinion.
He didn’t return to net-positive approvals until the Democratic convention this September. People didn’t reward Obama’s conciliatory approach to the negotiations. Rather, they saw it (rightly) as weakness, and reacted accordingly. No one likes a weak president.
Then Markos uses the 2012 exit polls to show that Obama was reelected despite his “leadership style,” because people sensed that the President really cared about their problems.
For those who based their choice on leadership, Obama got killed 61-38. And the president lost the “vision” and “values” questions handily as well. So how did he win? He cleaned up 81-18 with people who voted on which candidate cared about them the most. In other words, voters thought Mitt Romney was an aloof dick and trusted Obama most to look out for them. So maybe he should validate that trust.
Obama isn’t doing himself any favors by drawing lines in the sand and then inevitably capitulating.
Republicans have learned that there isn’t a negotiating stance that Obama won’t compromise. That doesn’t lend itself to smart negotiations. Rather, it creates unbalanced ones, as Republicans simply wait for Obama to cave on his demands. They’ve learned that for Obama, making a deal is more important than what’s in the deal.
Why does Obama repeatedly do this? I can’t possibly know for sure, but I think he has inner child issues. We all have times when we regress back to a time in childhood when we were weak and had few options. It’s important to learn how to deal with that when it happens.
Obama needs to learn to remind himself that he’s no longer a small child abandoned first by his father and then by his mother–sent away to be raised by his grandparents. That must have been very difficult for him, but he’s not that sad, lonely little boy anymore. He’s the President of the United States, and those of us who voted for him need him to act like it.
Cutting Social Security and backing off the $250,000 income level for those who must pay more taxes is unacceptable. Not only will caving on these issues hurt seniors, disabled people, and force middle class and working class Americans to pay more than their share, but also giving in to Boehner’s demands will hurt Obama’s legacy and the Democratic Party as a whole. As David Johnson of The Campaign for America’s Future points out, “Social Security is Still the Third Rail,” and cutting it would be “political suicide.”
We JUST had an election where the public (not to mention Every. Single. Poll.) overwhelmingly said no cuts to Social Security or Medicare, and raise taxes on income over $250K. That ought to mean something. But the “word” out of DC is that a deal is underway that cuts the Social Security COLA and increases the income level subject to a higher tax from $250K to $400K.
Senators and Representatives who are thinking of touching the “third rail:” How many constituents are calling your office today to say, “Yes, I want you to cut the Social Security COLA”?
Cutting Social Security makes no sense, and is bad politics because it hurts people. Old people depend on this meager benefit and by law Social Security can not contribute to deficits. But never mind the numbers, look at the social and political effects of a deal that cuts the Social Security cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) immediately after the public voted not to do this.The social effect: Does our society care about people, or just about money? Cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security hurt PEOPLE. Raising tax rates on the wealthy is just money. What does it tell the public about our society if their government cuts Social Security benefits immediately after we have an election in which the public overwhelmingly votes against cuts in Social Security or Medicare, and to increase taxes on $250K and up? This reported deal raises that $250K to $400K, reduces military cuts, and ignores that the same amount of money could be raised in ways that actually help the country and economy, like a Financial Transaction Tax.
The AARP has come out strongly against applying the chained CPI to Social Security.
“Adopting the chained consumer price index for Social Security benefits will take $112 billion out of the pockets of current Social Security beneficiaries in the next 10 years alone, and is neither fair nor warranted.
“Social Security is currently the principal source of income for nearly two-thirds of older American households, and roughly one third of those households depend on Social Security for nearly all of their income. Half of those 65 and older have annual incomes below $18,500. Every dollar of the average Social Security retirement benefit of about $14,800 is absolutely critical to the typical beneficiary.
“The Chained CPI is a stealth benefit reduction that will compound over time and cut thousands of dollars in retirement income for current beneficiaries. A typical 80-year-old woman will lose the equivalent of 3 months worth of food annually. The greatest impact of Chained CPI would fall on the oldest, eventually resulting in a cut of one full month’s benefit annually. This dramatic benefit cut would push thousands more into poverty and result in increased economic hardship for those trying desperately to keep up with rising prices.”
Labor unions are also warning Obama to “Back off Social Security.”
The AFL-CIO is pushing President Obama to back off from Social Security benefit cuts in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations.
The nation’s largest labor federation sent an email Tuesday to activists asking them to email the White House and lawmakers and oppose the changes to Social Security that the president has offered to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in deficit-reduction package.
“Boehner has been talking to President Obama about cutting Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs), which are especially important to keep inflation from eating away the benefits that seniors and people with disabilities depend on,” said the email, signed by Damon Silvers, the AFL-CIO’s director of policy.
“Email President Obama, your member of the House of Representatives and your senators to demand they reject House Speaker Boehner’s proposal to extend tax cuts for the rich and that they oppose COLA cuts and any other cuts to Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare benefits, regardless of who proposes them.”
These are the people who worked in the trenches to get out the vote and get Obama reelected despite the weak economy and high unemployment. But Obama the people-pleaser only seems to care about what the Republicans think of him. He probably knows intellectually that he’ll never get them to like him, but he just can’t help it. It’s as if Boehner somehow represents Barack Obama, Sr., the man who abandoned a little boy decades ago.
Obama needs to listen to the people who got him where he is and stop worrying about pleasing the people who hate him. He needs to listen to the AARP, Labor, and other progressive groups. It’s not too late to withdraw his latest offer–after all, Boehner has already rejected it and moved on to “Plan B.”
Take Social Security off the table, Mr. President. Go back to your original stand on taxing incomes over $250,000. Your place in history and the well being of the American people depend on it.
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