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Democrats Stunned Social Security May Be Cut Following CPI Definition Adjustment
It appears that the AARP does have a powerful lobby. Not even an hour after we posted the AARP's stern displeasure with the revelation that the appropriately named Chained-CPI adjustment would cut into Social Security, and Nancy Pelosi is already making waves with her shock that this proposal was in fact among the options being discussed: "Before Thursday's White House meeting on the budget, congressional Democrats said they planned to remind President Obama not to leave his party and base behind. The Democrats' testiness followed reports that the White House was proposing to alter Social Security and Medicare as part of a potential debt-ceiling deal with Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., planned in the meeting to “express his feeling that we haven’t been kept in the loop,” according to a senior Democratic aide who asked not to be identified so he could speak candidly about the friction between the president and Democratic congressional leaders. That feeling is shared by many Democrats, irked not just by the potential cuts, but by the White House’s failure to float it to Democratic lawmakers before they learned of the proposal through media. “Good politics starts with good communication, and I think they should have come and talked to us about the direction, particularly when it’s the social contract and we feel so strongly about it,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md." That's interesting: so despite our observation well over two weeks ago that the CPI adjustment would have a major adverse impact on entitlement NPV and that it has been discussed for quite a while now, somehow nobody bothered to explain to the Democrats on the Hill that the immediate consequence of this action would have been a massive change in Social Security dues? Just how clueless and mathematically challenged is everyone over in Congress? As for the Democrats' claim that these discussions "only now" appeared on the scene, we leave that to those far more gullible than us to swallow.
Per the National Journal:
The debt-ceiling talks seem to be occurring in “a parallel universe,” Mikulski said. “The base is quite cheerless right now,” she added.
The White House appears to be gambling that Democrats, even if they gripe, will ultimately rally around the deal the president cuts, as they did last year on a tax package and this year on a continuing resolution funding the government through October. And Democrats, especially at the leadership level, recognize that because House Republicans are the chief obstacle to passage of a deal to cut the deficit and raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, the main negotiators must be Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
But any deal will still need votes from Senate Democrats and likely some House Democrats. And Democrats worked Thursday to suggest limits to what they will accept.
“I believe that if you are going to deal with Social Security, it should be done on a separate track unrelated to the deficit reduction,” said House Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who was a member of the bipartisan debt-reduction panel led by Vice President Joe Biden.
“My view is that you’re—just to be very clear—not going to balance the budget on the backs of Social Security recipients,” Van Hollen said.
But Democrats signaled they may not accept a deal that pairs immediate entitlement cuts with the prospect of future revenue increases.
In a statement, David Krone, Reid’s chief of staff, said spending and revenue should be balanced “in terms of timing, specificity and dollars.”
Enter the AARP lobby:
Several House Democrats on Thursday said they were pressing House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., not to accept any changes to Social Security or Medicare, though Pelosi did not commit to such a stance.
Many Democrats argue Social Security savings should remain in the program, not be used for deficit cuts. "Any changes to Social Security must be reinvested in Social Security and not used to offset tax cuts for millionaires," said Castor
Bottom line: now that enough stink has been raised about this stealth theft which somehow Congress thought would fly under the radar, the budget and debt ceiling debates are likely back to square minus one.
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Instructions for Obama:
Step 1: default
Step 2: reset
Much better for the country you claim to love so much.
Step 1.5: Martial Law, as millions rampage through the streets, halting all real commerce in the country.
Step 1.75 Mobilize the Military and reposition to quell riots in the cities. Happened back in 1968 at Baltimore, Detroit, etc.
Step 1.8: Watch as the population of this country goes back to (at most) 1980 levels. That's a loss of about 90,000,000 people. The only question is time frame.
How many do want out of the equation, and how soon?
So here's the deal ... I PAID (mostly in undeprepreciated $$) into what was termed a "trust fund" for a fucking LOT of years. Got my SS # in 1956 fergodsake. Filed a 1040 every year. And now my pittance you want to cut ??? FUCKYOU and everyone who looks like you and the horse you rode in on. Guess that says it all. Oh, yeah ... BTFD Silver appears the ONLY thing I've got going for me and the grandkids. And the garden. Crumbles
Sorry, the politicians that your generation elected spent your SS contributions on wars, moon rockets, bridges to nowhere, and lots of other junk. If you really wanted to collect SS in your old age, you should have voted for responsible politicians.
You shouldn't expect future generations to pay for your stupidity. After all, people have been warning for decades that SS was going to run out of money.
Fergodsake Crumbles...Pancho may be right the gods need a sacrifice. I'm thinking you may be suffering the same delusional mindset that public servants had in Prichard Alabama.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/business/23prichard.html
I heard through the grapevine that Social Security Anonymous meetings have begun in some parts of the country and a full recovery is possible.
What crumbles away can be fully restored however one must do the footwork if there is to be a full recovery.
Correction: misread thought you said you have been collecting since 56. Oh well, you got more than your "fair share" back.
How many knee replacements, viagra pills, dentures, diabetes/high blood pressure pills, catarac surgeries, etc have been paid for you on top of that? When the working cannot afford to buy health insurance for basic care?
I just about killed an acquaintance the other day. 66yrs old, told me she was "going back to college, it's free the gov pays for it". NEVER worked, hubby died, never paid a penny into SS/Medicare. Then she topped it off by saying she would haul her overweight stupid ass to a doctor to get a knee replacement (knees bad from hauling around her excess lard all her life) before "the medicare changes won't pay for it". Screw you fucking old people. You are complaining? I have paid into SS/Medicare for 37 yrs and I'll never see a dime. How much we paying for your meals on wheels and free "outings" at the Senior center? How often are you taking "Senior discounts" at the Casino barfet, where you blow your SS check playing the slots, driving there in your McMansion sized RV. Fuck you.
Oh, and I forgot the extra tax deduction you get for being over 65. And Senior property tax exemptions for being over 65. Shall I go on?
So Pancho, was that McCain or Obama? Responsible politicians = contradiction in terms.
dupe
Right back atcha.
Im sorry you were too busy dicking around to pay attention to what the government did with that money in your lifetime and instead prefer that your grandchildren begin their adult lives owing years of their labor to the government to pay for you.
You werent born under that burden and you damn well know it, it is disgusting and reprehensible that you want those grandkids of yours to pick up your bar tab. You got ripped off and snookered and want them to make the world fair and right for you.
Nice goin' grandpa.
Ponzi schemes never end nicely.
Don't forget to apply for your free scooter. It beats walking. Absolutely no cost to you.
Pretty sure that the last group of "investors" in Bernie Madoff's funds were pissed to find that they'd been scammed -- join the club!
"Any changes to Social Security must be reinvested in Social Security and not used to offset tax cuts for millionaires," said Castor
hahahaha what a joke, what a fraud - "reinvested"? like all the SocSec taxes collected in the past 30 years have been "invested".
now that many of the pensions are becoming due, it's time to renege
(not enough left over after the handouts to the war machine, payouts to pharma/insurance, and bailouts to vampire financials.)
Well goodness gracious. Who possibly could have seen this notable thing coming.
Fuck you AARP. You've been sucking Obutfucks cock from day ONE now it's time to swallow!
I guess when you're just plain fucking stupid you spend a lot of time "stunned."
Just to be stupid would be a monumental aspiration for our representatives...
True. Stupid people can be decent, honest and trustworthy.
I don't know why self finding Soc Sec is even a piggy bank to be cracked in the discussion of fed budget deficit. FICA is collected, put in a trust fund and benefits are paid out per what is available in that specific fund...when the tilt of FICA tax collections versus benefits has made Soc Sec trust fund near insolvency, the FICA taxes have been changed and the benefits changed.Currently Soc Sec good til 2030 somethingmand some relatively ,inordinate changes, like increasing wage at which FICA tax is stopped or slightly decreaing benefits or sligwouk imcrwsin retirement age, would make it solvent well into later par of century.
until recently, the surplus collected in Soc Sec since the 80s, with the knowledge it would be needed when boomers retired, that surplus has been lent to Fed govt general spending fund to help fiancé its deficit, and the non Soc Sec non Medicare federal budget is mostly spent on military and interest...so Soc Sec trust find surplus has finding military and rest of Fed budget....now Soc Sec, as expected is sow ing more than it is taking in, so it no longer lends money to rest of Fed spending, but it's not like it is insolvent, Soc Sec is spending money non baby boomer retirements as anticipated and provided for byn20 plus years of taking in more in taxes than spending on benefits.
To me, looking to a solvent Soc Sec trust fund to reduce deficit would be analogous to a state paying into a pension trust fund a set amount of money for each state worker during theirmworking time as a part of their compensation and letting the workers manage trust fund to keep it solvent while maximizing benefits. unlike unfunded pension, such a trust fund was paid for at the time the workers were hired, working for govt and cost of the eventual pensions was paid for unreal dollars at the time of the work being provided, and the trust fund pays out only what those original dollars contributed can afford. But then the state is in a deficit, and because it is legal, it raids the pension funds already collected previously over twenty years, uses it to make up deficit and reduces benefits to retirees.
Federal budget should be balanced, we did it in 2000, we can do it again. Medicare and Soc sec trust finds should be adjustedmto make sure theymare solvent 50 years out. But why should Soc benes be cut to fund military we can't afford. If you want military we have and don't want to cut it, then figure how to,pay for it...Soc Sec has figured how to pay for itself....fed agencies and Dod should either be cut or taxes raised to pay for the,.keep the already funded Soc Sec put of it
I don't know why self funding Soc Sec is even a piggy bank to be cracked in the discussion of fed budget deficit. FICA is collected, put in a trust fund and benefits are paid out per what is available in that specific fund...when the tilt of FICA tax collections versus benefits has made Soc Sec trust fund near insolvency, the FICA taxes have been changed and the benefits changed.Currently Soc Sec good til 2030 something and some relatively small changes, like increasing the wage at which FICA tax is stopped, or slightly decreaing benefits or slightly increasing retirement age, would make it solvent well into later par of century.
Until recently, the surplus collected in Soc Sec since the 80s, with the knowledge it would be needed when boomers retired, that surplus has been lent to Fed govt general spending fund to help fiance its deficit, and the non- Sec Soc, non-Medicare federal budget is mostly spent on military and interest...so Soc Sec trust fund surplus has finding military and rest of Fed budget....now Soc Sec, as expected is spending more than it is taking in, so it no longer lends money to rest of Fed spending, but it's not like it is insolvent, Soc Sec is spending money on baby boomer retirements as anticipated and provided for by 20 plus years of taking in more in FICA taxes than spending on benefits.
To me, looking to a solvent Soc Sec trust fund to reduce deficit would be analogous to a state paying into a pension trust fund a set amount of money for each state worker during theirmworking time as a part of their compensation and letting the workers manage trust fund to keep it solvent while maximizing benefits. unlike unfunded pension, such a trust fund was paid for at the time the workers were hired, working for govt and cost of the eventual pensions was paid for unreal dollars at the time of the work being provided, and the trust fund pays out only what those original dollars contributed can afford. But then the state is in a deficit, and because it is legal, it raids the pension funds already collected previously over twenty years, uses it to make up deficit and reduces benefits to retirees. Federal budget should be balanced, we did it in 2000, we can do it again. Medicare and Soc sec trust finds should be adjustedmto make sure theymare solvent 50 years out. But why should Soc benes be cut to fund military we can't afford. If you want military we have and don't want to cut it, then figure how to,pay for it...Soc Sec has figured how to pay for itself....fed agencies and Dod should either be cut or taxes raised to pay for the,.keep the already funded Soc Sec put of it
For the most part, I agree with your statement, except for one. The only reason we had the balanced budget in 2000 is because the govt. counted the SS payments as general revenue. It wasn't balanced in the way you think.
We just need to shut this down. No more. Doesn't work. May have work for quite a while longer but fed gov spent it all...why prolong the nonsense, they'll keep spending it in the future too. One way to cut them off from new funds...stop feeding the beast, so to speak.
Shut what down tho? we have to make choices and prioritize...Soc sec and Medicare provide real benefits, 95 percent of the people that get these benes really greatly benefit from them, its not some pie in sky space research, it's not a new military helicopter that might not work, it's not some grant for public education, it's real benefits to a lot of people that paid a big tax their whole working life for them.
So do we screw them and go to a cruel lord of flies old people dying I streets thing like India or Somalia?
Now people can get basic decent care In old age, it's expensive but we can afford it, our FiCA and medicare taxes pay for it. Medicare is getting more expensive but so is private health, in fact or private health care costs per person are going up in price much more quickly than Medicare cost. so if we shut down Medicare, do we just then for go health care for seniors altogether or do we privatize the care, which when done for Medicare Advantage just increased cost. So shutting it down means people will have to pay more to get less or just not get anything.
How bought we just go back to pay-as-you-go which, until repealed got us on a better fiscal trajectory....if you want a military sizes bigger than any other in the world, then figure out how to pay for it just as Soc sec is taxed to a level that pays for it. If you don't want to pay more taxes for defense as is, then cancel some defense contracts, pull the troops out of the 1000 plus bases we have all around the world, cut cut cut. I think we should just have big line items for funding for every major aspect of the federal budget and people decide what they want, either to cut that area or tax more to pay for it as it is or shoot increase it's budget if they want. Soc sec is already solvent but why not say it and Medicare must be adjusted either by increasing taxes or by cutting benes so they will be solvent for next 50 years.
And then decide on for rest of federal budget. If current Defense costs are say 1/3 of federal budget that is paid by federal income taxes...then how ever much we are in deficit we should have to make that up proportionately,again by either raising taxes or cutting defense...then move onto to cost of homeland security, federal policing like the DoJ and FBI And border patrol, then the cost if consumer safety, FDA, then cost of food stamps, extended UI, the cost of federal infrastructure etc.......just methodically work thru it.
When Americans have been presented with actual budget costs and how much revenue they could get from various taxes or various cuts, American people are able in these well-informed workshops, "polls" to balance budgets just fine...everyone has different priorities but on average they cut defense by 20 percent and raise some taxes here and on average they did not change social safety spending a whole lot.
That leaves one last item of federal budget where I'll get real radical, that is interest payments. Now that is presumably line item we can't cut.....but we can. Currently Fed owns a large percentage of US debt, more than China....when we pay interest to Fed they pay it back to govt, because we are paying interest on money the Fed printed, they then owe us the interest on it. so how bout the Fed buys all our debt and we pay interest to ourselves? I mean, right now banks go to the discount window get loans at almost no interest and thenbuy US Treasuries with it, so then we pay interest to banks on dollars the Fed printed and gave to banks...so why are we paying interest to corporations on money we let the Fed create? if there is inflation or devaluation of the dollar because of Fed printing too many dollars, we are already incurring that harm because the dollars are already out there, either the Fed has printed them or others have lent them to us and we have spent them on weapons systems or food stamps....so since we already suffering from the ill effects of money printing, why should we not at least reap the rewards in paying no interest on out debt. And while we are at it, if we are paying no interest and have not paid off our national debt since time of Andrew Jackson...why bother...the debt/dollars are already out there, just monetize and move on with our lives, balance the budget if you want, we can live prosperously and do that just fine...or don't even balance the budget but capture the benefits and hazards of money creation to be spent on national priorities: defense, policing, infrastructure, pretty natinal parks, Medicare....whatever it is rather than letting banks profit from the money creation but leaving us with all the harm...if I must suffer the harm of money creation, I want a say in how moneynis spent, rather than just letting bankers get the profits for a few elite people
Oblowme loves to take it up the ass, it seems, and deliver the same to his constituents. Or maybe he just wants to start the revolution before he's thrown out of office, so he can declare martial law and take this pisspoor excuse for a country over.
Obama Bin Lyin' makes Bush Jr. look smart... doesn't he??
George W Bush...
Give the new guy your Dunce Cap...
Is it stupidity, arrogance or pure contempt for consequences that allows one to post a felonious, a half-assed forgery as a true birth certificate after 2 years of stalling?
He could be born on mars, and I wouldn't care if we had an economy and wealth in the Us like the 60s and seventies... Your big important issue is whether Obama was out of country first week or two of his life, because he is born to American citizen, he was always a US citizen regardless of birthplace, and the definition of natural born form purposes of constitutionsPresidency requirements isn't even clear, so if some white guy fro IA is born in Germany when his parents are vacation, does that mean he couldn't be president...that question is not clearly, previously decided....so on your big issue if your petty conspiracy theory was right, Obama could still have been found to be qualified for presidency. at least the 911 Truthers have the dignity to have a conspiracy theory, that if right, would be of true importance
Forgery of the birth certificate is a felony--let's start there; next step, a felony committed on behalf of the president. If it doesn't matter, why would this felony have been committed?
This is easy to fix.
Just kill everyone over the age of 65.
Problem solved. If families really valued their oldsters, they'd let them live at their house.
Yup. "families". What is that? Now we call what used to be called "families", "extended families". We didn't stick gramma or gramps in an old folks home, or have them go into mortgage debt at age 65 at the "Villages", they stayed at home, watchin the grandkids, traveling and visiting other family. They also died at home instead of amongst strangers in a hospital that confiscates any wealth they have remaining or expecting the taxpayers to pick up the tab. Feh.
Even worse, they have no one to speak for them as the 21 year old nurse graduate lean on the break room table chatting about the beefcake on reality tv while the waves of pain drives the old one towards insanity and eventual death via failure of the heart or something else.
Anyone under 40 needs to go raise hell to stop this Social Security bullshit. It's not working and isn't going to work in the future. As discussed in previous posts, FICA is treated as general tax revenue and SS is treated as general outlay.
Let's break this turd. I'm willing to give up mine for the future generations. Anyone else willing to do the same?
Only if you are willing to get off your fat ass and help me string the rope up to hang ALL! those fuckers with!
I've watched movies like Braveheart and Gladiators and it seems most of the front line in the first wave gets mowed down.
They thought they could get this by the public and it didn't work. And your correct, it's now back to square minus one. Because I think that the republicans would repeal some loopholes if the president actually cut SS and medicare, but he can't come out and say it. So they tried to make it look positive and it fell flat on its face. Now the republicans are going to the wall with this and demanding more, much more before they do anything. Remember the Guns or Butter thing from a president long ago, I think we are at that point. We can't have both anymore, we either have empire on the backs of the US citizens or no empire.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/152223-reid-accuses-gop-of-threatening-social-security-in-funding-fight
“It’s not just an exaggeration that Social Security is headed for bankruptcy, it’s an outright lie,” Reid said.
Reid and other Democrats at Monday’s event note that Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus and is projected to pay out 100 percent of benefits until 2037. After that point it is projected to pay out about 80 percent of owed benefits unless changes are made to the program.
Money McBags hears that the new CPI calc is going to involve the government remembering to carry the ones and then dividing by something called "hopes and dreams."
Tell Reid I've got a 100 Trillion dollar Zimbabwe note that I will donate - problem solved, you can toss out all that other "paper" backing SS.
No money need be printed to pay for Soc sec, it's already paid for, it's the general Fed budget thatnis in massive deficit, and that is mostly the cost of military...so if we are printing dollars, or taking on debt, it is to pay for a military we can not afford...
Zimbabwe note and the Bennie Bernanke Buck are now par...
what you don't think the republicans don't know that once you get Obama involved he gives up the entire farm without a fight. he's done it everytime. It's why he's a one term president. even if the republicans are worse.
So we can afford Obamacare and Medicare schedule D, but not SS?
I call bullshit.