Skip to content

Social Security under threat

Monday, August 23, 2010

As I believe I’ve written before, I have a pretty strong belief in maintaining a strong social security program. My family depended on Social Security survivors benefits, along with other socialistic stuff like worker’s compensation, to survive after my father died. Right now I represent a lot of social security claimants, and I see how important the system is for so many people.

George Bush failed to destroy social security when he made a more or less frontal assault on the program in 2005. Given the fact he’d lost so the trust of so many, he wasn’t able to pull the con job of persuading people that “privatization” was a harmless little word.

But the right wing is nothing if not persistent. If they can’t take a position by direct assault, they’ll try a sneak attack. At the moment their trying to sell cuts in Social Security and Medicare as a necessity to balance the budget. Social Security is an off budget program that pays for itself, so the argument makes no sense from an economic standpoint, but that makes no difference.

Obama has promised not to let the Republicans privatize the program, but as Dean Baker notes here, this tells us nothing about his real intentions, because privatization is not where the action is: the Republicans have moved on to stealth benefit cuts:

President Obama is telling us that he will stand up against Republican plans to privatize Social Security.

That is nice to hear, but it really is beside the point. President Bush did try to privatize Social Security in 2005 and, no doubt, many Republicans would still like to do so today, but privatization is not currently on the agenda of their leadership. The immediate threat to Social Security is plans to cut benefits by either changing the benefit formula and/or raising the retirement age.

This threat comes not just from the Republican Party, but from the top levels of the Democratic Party as well. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the majority leader in the House, explicitly called for raising the retirement age to 70 in a speech earlier this summer. Erskine Bowles, the co-chairman of the deficit commission appointed by President Obama, also explicitly said that cuts to Social Security would be on the agenda of the deficit commission. Of course, former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, the Republican that President Obama appointed as the other co-chair of the commission, never misses an opportunity to say that he wants to cut Social Security.

It has become quite fashionable in elite policy circles to call for Social Security cuts like raising the retirement age. In fact, support for cutting Social Security is almost a requirement for being accepted as a serious person in places like The Washington Post opinion pages and other centers of elite opinion.

The entire article is worth reading. If Obama buys into cutting social security benefits, or even concedes that the program has fundamental problems (which he has hinted on occasion) then he will be a reverse Nixon. Just as only a Republican could go to China, only a Democrat can destroy social security, which is the ultimate objective of all of these plans. The “fix” for social security is obvious: raise the amount of earnings subject to the social security tax. Problem solved, and for once, the more affluent have to share some of the burden. We do have the right to know where Obama, and the rest of the candidates, Republican and Democrats, stand on this issue. But of course, we have more important things to talk about, like whether some Muslims should be able to have a prayer room in their community center.

The irony is, as always, that the deficit hawks on social security are the same folks who are anxious to, as Paul Krugman writes, “cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country“.

In a rational world we would be amazed that anyone would want to destroy a program that works so well and so efficiently. But the fact is, the Republicans, and some like minded Democrats, don’t want to destroy Social Security despite the fact that it works so well. They want to destroy it because it works so well. After all, if people see one government program working, they might get the idea that other government programs could also improve their lives.


Filed in Economics | | Comments (0)

Fuzzy math

Monday, August 23, 2010

This morning the Day devoted much of page 2 (with a teaser on page 1) to an anti-mosque (here we must be reminded that they’re not really even building a mosque) demonstration in New York City, which according to the Day (I couldn’t find the article on-line) drew “hundreds” of people.

I have often noted how the media seems to find any gathering of two or more wackos news, but ignores massive anti-war or pro-immigrant demonstrations. But isn’t this getting a little ridiculous. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that hundreds means that there were a thousand people at this demonstration. Probably a stretch. The present population of New York City, according to Wolfram, is 8,364,000.00 people with the metropolitan area containing about 19 million. That means this demonstration drew .011956001913% of the city’s population, which rounds off to zero. That in a city where it’s pretty easy to get around, and anyone really interested could have showed up. New London has a population of 26,184, which means a proportionally sized demonstration in the Day’s home town, if I have my math right, would have drawn three people. Why is this news?

For reasons unfathomable, our news organizations have come around to accepting that the racists among us are a downtrodden minority. If three or more of them gather, attention must be paid with understanding and respect. If today’s press had been covering Martin Luther King they would have devoted gallons of ink to the stress and strain to which those dog handlers were exposed in Birmingham, not to mention that the March on Washington would have been totally ignored.

This may sound like carping, but this phenomenon has real life implications. The media dances to the right wing tune, covering stories that at best are trivial, at worst are inflammatory, and always are diversions from the real problems we face.


Filed in Media | | Comments (0)

Same old song

Sunday, August 22, 2010

There’s nothing new under the sun. The year is 1834 A religious structure, erected by a despised religious minority, and built too close to “sacred ground”, is attacked by an angry mob.

Full disclosure, the erudite historian (despite his use of the word “anyways”) is my son.


Filed in History | | Comments (3)

Time to pull together

Sunday, August 22, 2010

During the primary campaign I was privileged to be a member of a Lamont google group. I don’t tend to join the conversation in these sorts of things, but I read the emails that went back and forth, sometimes at a blistering pace.

I can certainly understand that there would be a bit of residual bitterness after a hard fought primary, and I certainly, agree, on balance, that Malloy was most responsible for the nasty tone in the campaign. But, now that it’s over, it’s time for us to pull together, get behind Malloy, and concentrate our fire on Foley. The primary is over, but the group is still somewhat active, mainly carping at Malloy. So, a word to my fellow Lamont backers: it’s over, let’s forget it and get on with the job ahead.

Speaking of the primary, I wasn’t around for the last few days, and I never really read the results, which I understand were pretty horrible for Lamont, perhaps signaling that the undecideds broke heavily for Malloy. I also understand that Lamont blanketed the state with robocalls the last few days of the campaign, and I don’t think the two facts are unrelated. I hang up on all robocalls, and they irritate the hell out of me, particularly if I am interrupted in doing something more important, which is pretty much always the case. Ned’s robocalls were positive, in the sense that he was selling himself and not attacking Malloy. That, in my opinion, is a real mistake. Human nature being what it is, we tend to blame the attackee when we get a negative robocall, because that’s the name we hear. In other words, they work. When we get a positive robocall, we blame the candidate, because that’s the name we hear. In other words, they don’t work, they merely irritate. In an August primary, when people aren’t paying that much attention, they may very well decide to vote against the guy who has interrupted their life several times the previous weekend. Just a theory.


Filed in Local issues | | Comments (3)

Curiouser and curiouser

Sunday, August 22, 2010

My first thought upon hearing about the warrant for the arrest (followed hard upon by the dropping of the charges) of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was “CIA”. It took me a long time to come to this sort of reflexive thinking. I remember back in the dim and distant past, the halcyon days of the sixties, thinking that all those people blaming the CIA for all kinds of things were merely indulging in paranoid conspiracy theories. Turned out that they were right on almost all counts, so I have slowly come around to their point of view, at least to the extent that I think of the CIA when something that doesn’t sound quite right pops up in the “national security” field.

Assange is a Swedish citizen, and assuming he stays in Sweden, probably beyond the jurisdiction of American criminal law, despite our recent propensity to extend jurisdiction to everyone, anywhere in the world. (Empires do that sort of thing) The Swedes were unlikely to indict him for the leaks, since he wasn’t breaking any Swedish laws, and everyone knows that the leaks caused no harm, other than exposing what everyone already knew: we are losing in Afghanistan, as we were always fated to do. If they wanted to teach Assange a lesson, they needed to get him for something the Swedes would actually prosecute.

I’m not saying I’m right about CIA involvement, but, as Alice said, the whole thing gets “curiouser and curiouser” the more it plays out.

UPDATE: I erred in saying Assange is a Swedish citizen, though he is currently residing in Sweden. He is Australian.


Filed in Creeping Totalitarianism | | Comments (0)

Friday Night video-desperation

Friday, August 20, 2010

I am in the Ludlow Vermont public library on one of the ten most beautiful days of the year. I must be crazy. I have discovered that, for reasons I can’t fathom, you cannot copy embed code at youtube when using an Ipad. I think I may have worked around it, but if this doesn’t work, accept my apologies because I can’t watch flash on this thing anyway.

I haven’t had much time to look around for good stuff, so I found this instead. It’s so cheezily bizarre that I figured I’d put it up. Some of the commenters at youtube claim it’s the first music video, which only goes to prove that the art form hasn’t progressed much. I can’t tell if this is lip synced, though I suspect it is, since I’m listening on bluetooth headphones, which, for some reason, cause the sound to be slightly out of kilter with the video. I liked this song when I was a kid, but I’m putting it up mostly because I’m running out of time and because I got such a kick out of the costumes and the whole set up. Johnny Horton singing (sort of) the Battle of New Orleans.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsRK3DNoa_Q[/youtube]

Filed in Music | | Comments (1)

The Filibuster Redux

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

One of my right wing commenters (I always have one) posted a comment in response to my recommendation that we, one and all, sign Kos’s petition to end the filibuster.

The comment was to the effect that you need 67 votes to change the filibuster rule.

Kos isn’t stupid, and if he thought you needed that many votes to change the rule, he wouldn’t bother to press for it, since it’s pretty clear that you couldn’t get a single Republican vote to change it at this time. As is usual, our right wing friend is wrong.

But the fact is, you don’t need 67 votes to change the rule. You need 51 votes, provided you take the vote at the beginning of the session. We can thank Nelson Rockefeller for that. He was Vice-President in 1975. More importantly, he was president of the Senate at that time, and in that capacity he ruled that it took only a majority of votes to change the rules at the beginning of a session. The filibuster was in danger at that point, because it took 67 votes to break one, and his ruling could have spelled the end of the filibuster at that time. The Senate compromised, and passed a new rule requiring 60 votes to break a filibuster, but Rockefeller’s ruling stood, meaning that in January of 2011 the Senate could, be a mere majority of Senators, change its rules again.

I am beating this dead horse simply because it’s such an important issue, and everyone on our side should know the facts.

Filed in Politics | | Comments (3)

End the Filibuster

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Sign Kos’s Petition.

Filed in Uncategorized | | Comments (1)

Saying the right thing

Sunday, August 15, 2010

I haven’t hesitated to criticize Obama, so it’s only fair that I take note when he does something right. It was good to hear about his statements about the New York Muslim Cultural Center. Being sort of out of circulation, I heard about them somewhat belatedly, and by the time I find an internet connection to post this, his remarks will be several days old, but I can’t let the occasion pass, since it’s so refreshing to see a president defend the Constitution, particularly the good bits. They all seem eager to defend unwritten presidential prerogatives, but it’s always different when mere core constitutional values are at stake.

I read somewhere, can’t remember where, that any president would have had to take the same position that Obama did, since the constitutional question here isn’t even close. You would like to think that’s true, but recall what happened when the Supreme Court ruled that flag burning was protected speech. Bush Sr. led the charge for a constitutional amendment. What was scary about that, beyond the fact that the amendment almost passed the Senate, was the fact that a constitutional question that should not even have been close was decided on a 5 to 4 vote.

From what I gather, there has been some parsing of Obama’s statements because he defended the right of the Muslims to build their facility without taking a position on the advisability of their doing so. Apparently some folks can’t see the distinction. It’s not really his business to decide whether the exercise of a constitutional right is a good or bad thing under any particular set of circumstances; it is his business to defend the right of a person, or in this case a group, to exercise their rights no matter the circumstances. I share Obama’s position, albeit, I’m sure, for different reasons. I look forward to the day when churches, synagogues, temples and mosques throughout this land will close for lack of sufficient numbers of dupes to fill the pews. A forlorn hope, I know, in this land of dupes. But there is no inconsistency in my saying, at the same time, that every dupe should have equal rights with every other dupe, until the hoped for day of deliverance comes. Nor is it inconsistent for Obama to stick up for the Muslims in New York without taking a position favoring or disfavoring construction.

So good for Obama. It would be ever so nice if he would start making principled statements a habit, and even nicer if he would follow up with deeds. For instance, there’s that little matter of Guantanamo.

Filed in Obama, Religion | | Comments (0)

Friday Night Music-Early Edition

Friday, August 13, 2010

Since I probably won’t have internet access again today, this is going up early.

Originally I intended to find a good version of Moonlight in Vermont, but the only actual video I could find (as opposed to music with a picture of the artist) was by Frank Sinatra. I realize he was immensely talented, but I’ve never liked the guy, so I was loathe to post anything with him in it.

Then it occurred to me that Phish is from Vermont. Luckily, my son is here as I wasn’t sure what would be a good selection. He suggested Bouncing Around the Room. This version appears to get cut off a bit too soon near the end, but the audio and video quality are both good.


Filed in Music | | Comments (0)