Hands Off Social Security

On Nov. 17th 2011 roughly 200 people packed the Senate Budget Committee room and hallway to hear Sens. Bernie Sanders, Barbara A. Mikulski, Ben Cardin and Rosa DeLauro urge the super committee to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Social Security In Far Worse Shape Than Official Numbers Show

By Janet Novack, Forbes Staff

Over the last 15 years, the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Chief Actuary has consistently underestimated retirees’ life expectancy and made other errors that make the finances of the retirement system look significantly better than they are, a new study by two Harvard and one Dartmouth academics concludes. The report, being published today by the Journal of Economic Perspectives, is the first, the authors say, to compare the government agency’s past demographic and financial forecasts with actual results.

In a second paper appearing today in Political Analysis, the three researchers offer their theory of why the Actuary Office’s predictions have apparently grown less reliable since 2000: The civil servants who run it have responded to increased political polarization surrounding Social Security “by hunkering down” and resisting outside pressures—not only from the politicians, but also from outside technical experts.

“While they’re insulating themselves from the politics, they also insulate themselves from the data and this big change in the world –people started living longer lives,’’ coauthor Gary King, a leading political scientist and director of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, said in an interview Thursday. “They need to take that into account and change the forecast as a result of that.”

In its annual report last July, Social Security predicted its old age and disability trust funds, combined, would be exhausted in 2033 and that after that point the government will have enough payroll tax revenues coming in to pay only about three quarters of  promised benefits. King said his team hasn’t estimated how much sooner the fund might run out, but described it as in “significantly worse shape” than official forecasts indicate.

In addition to underestimating recent declines in mortality (i.e. increases in life expectancy) for those 65 and older, the Actuary has overestimated the birth rate—meaning the number of new workers who will be available to pay baby boomers their benefits 20 years from now , the researchers assert.

Before 2000, the Actuary also made errors, but they went in both directions and the Actuary was readier to adjust the forecasts from year to year as new evidence came in, King said. Since 2000, he added, the errors “all are biased in the direction of making the system seem healthier than it really is.’’

A Social Security spokesman said today that Chief Actuary Stephen Goss couldn’t comment on the papers because he wasn’t provided them in advance and is tied up today in meeting with the Social Security Advisory Board Technical Panel. But he pointed to an Actuarial Note Goss and three colleagues published in 2013 in response to a New York Times op-ed by King and one of his current coauthors,  Samir Soneji, an assistant professor at Dartmouth’s Institute for HealthPolicy & Clinical Practice.

In that op-ed, they attacked the Actuary’s methods of projecting mortality rates and predicted the trust fund would be depleted two years earlier than predicted. In their response, Goss and his colleagues called Kind and Soneji’s methods of predicting death rates “highly questionable” and noted that the Actuary’s methods have been audited since 2006 by an independent accounting firm and received unqualified opinions.

The dust-up might be ignored as bickering by the pointy heads, if it weren’t so consequential.  In a recent Gallup survey, 36% of workers said they were counting on Social Security as a major source of retirement income. Differences over the estimates are important, King observed, because they affect “basically half of the spending of the U.S. government,’’ including Medicare.  Moreover, the forecasting assumptions affect the projected impact of any proposed changes to the program.

In their political paper, King, Soneji and Konstantin Kashin, a PhD candidate at King’s institute, recount how partisan fighting over Social Security intensified in the late 1990s, when conservatives began arguing the program was unsustainable and should be partially privatized, with younger workers offered individual savings accounts. In 2001, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed a commission intended to support such a change, but he put the issue aside after the September 11 terrorist attacks. After his reelection in 2005, however, Bush started pushing for changes in a series of town halls and speeches that, the paper notes, put the Social Security actuaries under “an extreme form of political pressure.’’

Democrats and news reports pointed to changes in the language used by the Social Security Administration that seemed (in line with White House policy) to emphasize that the program was not financially sustainable. Goss openly clashed with a Republican Social Security Commissioner.
Bush’s privatization push flopped and during recent elections Republicans have attempted to cast themselves as the protectors of Social Security, which enjoys strong support from voters across the political spectrum. In 2013, after President Obama proposed a deficit reduction deal that, along with raising taxes on the rich, would have chipped away at inflation adjustments in Social Security, the idea was attacked by politicians from both parties.

But the problem of how to solve the system’s long term funding deficit has hardly gone away and the partisan divide seems to be widening again. Democrats have slammed a provision adopted by the new Republican Congress that they would block a transfer of money from the Social Security old age fund to the Social Security disability fund, which will be depleted next year. They say such transfers have been routine in the past and that it is a ploy by Republicans to force cuts tor retirement program too. Last month, Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a possible Presidential candidate, proposed that the age for receiving full Social Security benefits be raised gradually to 69 and that benefits be limited for individuals with more than $80,000 in other income and ended completely for those earning more than $200,000.

King emphasized that there is “no evidence whatsoever,” that Goss and his actuaries are bending to political pressure from either Democrats or Republicans.  On the contrary, he said, while resisting such pressure, they’ve put too high a value on remaining consistent in their forecasts, in part because they don’t want to “panic” the public.  “They’re trying to show the numbers don’t change because they think it will inspire confidence. Maybe in the very short run it will inspire confidence by not changing the numbers. But having the numbers be wrong doesn’t  inspire confidence at all,’’ King said.

The political paper asserts that  Goss has resisted changes in forecasting assumptions suggested by the  Social Security Advisory Board’s Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods—a panel of actuaries and economists that meets once every four years and is in session now. In some cases, the paper claims, the Actuary has made some  suggested change in an assumption, but then changed another, unrelated assumption in the opposite direction “to counterbalance the first and keep the ultimate solvency forecasts largely unchanged.”

In their 2013 Actuarial Note, however, Goss and his colleagues say that while the 2011 Panel did push for faster changes in mortality assumptions, the panel’s recommendations, if adopted in full, would have actually resulted in a projection that the Social Security trust funds would run out a year later.

King, who presented his own findings to the Technical Panel yesterday, is pushing for one big change in the Actuary’s practices that he says the Panel has also favored: making all the Actuary’s data and methods open for scrutiny by others. 

“This is a period of big data. When you let other people have access to data, things like Money Ball happen,’’ King said. In addition to new algorithms, he said, the government actuaries need to take note of recent findings about unconscious bias by researchers and apply new methods social scientists have developed to guard against such bias.

“Four hundred years ago you had people sitting in a monastery and thinking they thought great thoughts and that was their entire life,’’ King said. “Now we check on each other. If they would leave things open they’d have so much help and they’d be better off politically because their forecasts would be better.”

How Privatization Rips Us All Off

Average Americans are the products, and few of us see any profits.

By Paul Buchheit

The Project on Government Oversight found that in 33 of 35 cases the federal government spent more on private contractors than on public employees for the same services. The authors of the report summarized, "Our findings were shocking."

Yet our elected leaders persist in their belief that free-market capitalism works best. Here are a few fact-based examples that say otherwise.

Health Care: Markups of 100%....1,000%....100,000%

Broadcast Journalist Edward R. Murrow in 1955: Who owns the patent on this vaccine?
Polio Researcher Jonas Salk: Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?

We don't hear much of that anymore. The public-minded sentiment of the 1950's, with the sense of wartime cooperation still in the minds of researchers and innovators, has yielded to the neoliberal winner-take-all business model.

In his most recent exposé of the health care industry in the U.S., Steve Brill notes that it's "the only industry in which technological advances have increased costs instead of lowering them." An investigation of fourteen private hospitals by National Nurses United found that they realized a 1,000% markup on their total costs, four times that of public hospitals. Other sources have found that private health insurance administrative costs are 5 to 6 times higher than Medicare administrative costs.

Markup reached 100,000% for the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, which grabbed a patent for a new hepatitis drug and set the pricing to take whatever they could get from desperate American patients.

Housing: Big Profits, Once the Minorities Are Squeezed Out

A report by a coalition of housing rights groups concluded that "public housing is a vital national resource that provides decent and affordable homes to over a million families across the country."

But, according to the report, a privatization program started during the Clinton administration resulted in "the wholesale destruction of communities" and "the displacement of very large numbers of low-income households of color."

It's gotten even worse since then, as Blackstone and Goldman Sachs have figured out how to take money from former homeowners, with three deviously effective strategies:

1. Buy houses and hold them to force prices up
2. Meanwhile, charge high rents (with little or no maintenance)
3. Package the deals as rental-backed securities with artificially high-grade ratings

Private Banks: Giving Them Half Our Retirement Money

The public bank of North Dakota had an equity return of 23.4% before the state's oil boom. The normally privatization-minded Wall Street Journal admits that "The BND's costs are extremely low: no exorbitantly-paid executives; no bonuses, fees, or commissions; only one branch office; very low borrowing costs.."

But thanks to private banks, interest claims one out of every three dollars that we spend, and by the time we retire with a 401(k), over half of our money is lost to the banks.

Internet: The Fastest Download in the U.S. (is on a Public Network)

That's in Chattanooga, a rapidly growing city, named by Nerdwallet as one of the "most improved cities since the recession," and offering its residents Internet speeds 50 times faster than the American average.

Elsewhere, 61 percent of Americans are left with a single private company, often Comcast or Time Warner, to provide cable service. Now those two companies, both high on the most hated list, are trying to merge into one.

The Post Office: Private Companies Depend on it to Handle the Unprofitable Routes

It costs less than 50 cents to send a letter to any remote location in the United States. For an envelope with a two-day guarantee, this is how the U.S. Postal Service recently matched up against competitors:

• U.S. Post Office 2-Day $5.68
• Federal Express 2-Day $19.28
• United Parcel Service 2 Day $24.09

USPS is so inexpensive, in fact, that Fedex actually uses the U.S. Post Office for about 30 percent of its ground shipments. As Ralph Nader notes, the USPS has not taken any taxpayer money since 1971, and if it weren't required by an inexplicable requirement to pre-fund employee benefits for 75 years, it would be making a profit. Instead, this national institution has been forced to cut jobs and routes and mailing centers.

Paul Buchheit teaches economic inequality at DePaul University. He is the founder and developer of the Web sites UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org and RappingHistory.org, and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

Why the Right’s Free-Market Health Philosophy Is Ludicrous

 They claim that the SSDI program is rife with fraud and that far too many people just refuse to work.

 

By Heather Digby Parton / Salon

 

It was startling to see physician and Senator Rand Paul claim the other day that people on disability were faking bad backs and anxiety to get on the dole and cheat the taxpayers. These are real ailments, sometimes totally debilitating,  as anyone who has suffered from either can tell you. Severe back pain can make it impossible to work at any job, even those which only require sitting. Anxiety disorder is a terrible condition that can even make some people unable to even leave their house. What kind of medical doctor would deny such a thing? (If you answered, “one who will willingly trade his professional integrity for political points” you’d be right.)

But this is actually part of the GOP’s ongoing quest to degrade “entitlements” and make America’s health care system the worst in the world for anyone who isn’t wealthy. Their ongoing attack on The Affordable Health Care Act opened up a window to their underlying philosophy about affordable health care.  (They’re not for it.)

And now they are taking legislative aim at the Supplemental Security Income portion of the Social Security System. This is the program that makes it possible for people with disabilities to live without begging on the streets.   Despite the fact that the congress has always routinely pushed money back and forth between the retirement and disability portions of the program as the need occurred, the Republicans in congress have decided that they no longer support doing such a thing. The result, if they have their way, would be to cut the meager stipends of millions of disable Americans within the next year.

They claim that the program is rife with fraud and that far too many people are able bodied and just refuse to work. (They haven’t used the term “disability queen”  in public yet, but you can be sure they’ve thought it.) Representative Tom Price, another erstwhile medical professional committed to proving that trusting a Republican doctor to treat you is like asking a convicted robber to house sit, said:

“There are a number of studies that demonstrate that a lot of people who are on the program are no longer eligible. People get well, people do other things and other opportunities become available from a medical standpoint to treating whatever disability they have to make it so that they can contribute to a greater degree.”

That’s a convenient story but it’s just not true:

About 8.9 million people receive disability benefits from the fund and its eligibility guidelines are stringent. Beneficiaries must have worked at least one-quarter of their adult life and five of the last 10 years. They must be unable to work because of a severe medical issue that has lasted five months and is expected to last at least another year.

Roughly a quarter of recipients have a mental impairment, some have muscular or skeletal problems and others have diseases like diabetes, Lou Gehrig’s disease, congestive heart failure and cancer. A majority of them are 55 or older and many die within a few years of first receiving the insurance, according to CBPP.

Think Progress noted that the reports of disability fraud are actually extremely low and noted:

The severity of the disabilities of those who get benefits is underscored by the fact that one in five men and nearly one in six women die within five years of being approved.

Once on the rolls, payments are far from cushy: they average $1,130 a month, just over the federal poverty line for a single person, and usually replace less than half of someone’s previous earnings. Very few beneficiaries are able to work and supplement that income: less than 17 percent worked at some point during the year in 2007, but less than 3 percent of those people made more than $10,000 annually.

Apparently, even that’s too much. The government needs to crack down on these lazy moochers and put them to work. Back in the day they used to sell pencils and apples on street corners, amirite? And in third world countries you see plenty of horrifically disabled people making a tidy living by begging. They show the kind of gumption we are denying our paraplegics and mentally ill by molly coddling them with a poverty level stipend.

These Republican officials are not alone in holding this philosophy. Recall this confrontation between a Tea Partyer and a disabled citizen during the health reform debate:

A man with a sign saying he has Parkinson’s disease and needs help sat down in front of the reform opponents. Several protesters mocked the man, calling him a “communist,” with one derisively “throwing money at him.” “If you’re looking for a handout you’re in the wrong end of town,” another man said.

He added, “nothing for free, over here you have to work for everything you get.” The lovely gentleman who threw a dollar in his face put the begging principle in stark terms yelling “I’ll decide when to give money!”

The immediate future of the health care reforms will be decided this June by the Supreme Court as they take up King vs Burwell (also known as the “Typo Of Death” case.) In the meantime, as that argument is on hold the right is moving against the safety net from this other direction. Basically, they are challenging the the definition of modern medicine itself:

Fox News Radio host Tom Sullivan told a caller who said she suffered from bipolar disorder that her illness is “something made up by the mental health business” and just “the latest fad.” When the caller told Sullivan that she “would not be alive today” if she hadn’t received mental health treatment, Sullivan wondered if “maybe somebody’s talked you into feeling and thinking this way.”

Sullivan, who is also a frequent Fox Business contributor and guest anchor, began his January 28 program by complaining that people with mental illness have figured how to “game the system” by receiving disability benefits. “They’re mostly government employees and they know how to do it,” he added. Sullivan also defended Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) controversial and false statement that “Over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts.”

Obviously, that is nonsense. But it’s becoming quite common on the right to suggest that illnesses are not real, that people are faking them anyway and that those who are sick are lazy parasites who should find some way to make a living. We have Republicans, some of them medical doctors, publicly declaring that fellow citizens who have been unlucky enough to have an accident or contract a debilitating illness need to be harshly scrutinized by the government to ensure they aren’t stealing that generous $1,000 a month.

I think we probably need to consider the alarming idea that this is going to be the right’s overall approach to dealing with health care. They have no real ideas for how to deliver affordable health care to every citizen and they have no methods for controlling the spiraling costs of the former system. In order to maintain their “free-market” health care philosophy they are going to have to make it clear that you must get rich if you expect to live through catastrophic illness or accidents. If you are sick, it’s up to you to figure out how to pay for your care and shelter. That’s the only solution available to them.

As a libertarian theorist posited in the Washington Post last week,”people could die and that’s ok”:

[It] is an acceptable price to pay for certain goals — including more cash for other programs, such as those that help the poor; less government coercion and more individual liberty; more health-care choice for consumers, allowing them to find plans that better fit their needs; more money for taxpayers to spend themselves; and less federal health-care spending.

I’m going to guess that more money to help the poor is an unlikely “choice” that people who want less government coercion and more individual liberty are going to make. But the rest of that sounds like it’s right in the current Republican wheelhouse. If you get sick and can’t make enough money by begging, well, you can console yourself with the knowledge that other people have more freedom, less government, and more money to spend on themselves. And that’s what life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are all about. Well, maybe not life.  But two out of three ain’t bad.

First on the list: Cut the disabled people

Posted by stbalbach

On the first day of the new Congress, a Texas Republican is leading an effort to make deep cuts in Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) to take effect within about a year. Democrats appear to have little recourse due to the recent election results. Fraud in SSDI is not a major problem despite Republican claims and mythmaking by NPR and 60 Minutes. The inspector general found only about 0.4 percent of cases were approved by fraudulent judges.

More and more people are on disability. This reflects an aging and sick population, not fraudulent activity. Demographics explains most of the increase. See Just The Facts on Disability.

Republicans fought against SSDI throughout the 50s its passage was a dramatic story that few know or remember today. The current "crisis" is a manufactured one, part of the long-view Republican strategy to eliminate SSDI and a broader attack on Social Security. In 1983, a Republican effort moved funds that had been allocated for the disabled into the Social Security Retirement program, artificially creating an imbalance that is coming due today.

The New Republican Attack on Social Security Starts Now.

Why Defending Social Security Needs to Be Next on Obama’s To-Do List

“[People in power] use the word ‘reform’ when they mean ‘privatize,’ and they use ‘strengthen’ when they really mean ‘dismantle.’ They tell us there’s a crisis to get us all riled up so we’ll sit down and listen to their plan to privatize … Democrats are absolutely united in the need to strengthen Social Security and make it solvent for future generations. We know that, and we want that.” (Senator Barack Obama, 2005)

GOP's Sneak Attack on Social Security

Thom Hartmann talks with Senator Sherrod Brown (OH) about the GOP's sneak attack on social security.

Sherrod Brown Condemns Dangerous Move by the House That Would Undermine Social Security by Attacking Disability Insurance

More than a Third of Social Security Beneficiaries are Disabled Americans and Other Non-Retirees. House Rule Released Today Would Prevent Clean Reallocations of Social Security to Fund Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)

Tuesday, January 6, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) condemned a dangerous new rule in the House of Representatives that would undermine Social Security by attacking Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). The unprecedented rule change would prevent the House of Representatives from passing clean reallocations of the Social Security Trust Fund.

“Today, House Republicans are trying to change rules that have been in place for decades as a way to attack social insurance,” Brown said. “Rather than solve the short-term problems facing the Social Security Disability program as we have in the past, Republicans want to set the stage to cut benefits for seniors and disabled Americans.”

Reallocation is a simple procedure used by Congress to rebalance how Social Security payroll tax revenues are apportioned between the two trust funds - the equivalent of transferring money from a checking to a savings account.  Reallocation is commonsense, bipartisan policy that has been utilized by both parties 11 times since 1957– most recently in 1994. At that time, it was projected that reallocation would keep the trust fund solvent until 2016.

“Reallocation has never been controversial, but detractors working to privatize Social Security will do anything to manufacture a crisis out of a routine administrative function,” Brown continued.

“Reallocation is a routine housekeeping matter that has been used 11 times, including four times under Ronald Reagan. Modest reallocation of payroll taxes would ensure solvency of both trust funds until 2033. But if House Republicans block reallocation, insurance for disabled Americans, veterans, and children could face severe cuts once the trust fund is exhausted in 2016.”

In July, Brown attended a Senate Finance Committee hearing to examine SSDI and its importance to the entire Social Security system. The hearing was entitled “Social Security: A Fresh Look at Workers’ Disability Insurance.” That same month, Brown delivered a keynote speech on SSDI at the Center for American Progress (CAP) where he outlined future threats that Social Security faces from those who seek to privatize and cut the program. Brown warned how undermining SSDI represents an effort to siphon public support from the entire Social Security program and urged Social Security advocates to organize to prevent detractors from “dividing and conquering” the program.

With more than a third of Social Security beneficiaries being non-retirees, SSDI now more than ever needs to be protected. SSDI is one of our nation’s most successful insurance programs and helps millions of disabled Americans, children, and veterans. Further, SSDI is the sole source of income for one in every three beneficiaries. Without SSDI, half of all beneficiaries would be below the poverty line.

In December, Brown announced that he will introduce the Strengthening Social Security Act – championed by retired U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA). The bill would extend the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund, which nearly two in three Americans rely on for at least half of their income in old age.

Brown’s prepared opening remarks from the July hearing on SSDI can be found below.

Senator Brown Prepared Opening Remarks for Finance Subcommittee Hearing on “Social Security Disability Insurance”

Thursday, July 24, 2014

I want to begin today’s hearing on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) by talking about 52-year-old Sheila in Youngstown.

Sheila works in a steel factory along the Mahoning River. She punches a time clock each day on her way into the factory and again on her way out – the same routine every day for the last 18 years.

Sheila has no union strong enough to demand a defined pension, retirement savings account, or even a fair wage, and it’s a grueling job – standing on her feet all day.

But in a town that’s seen far too many factory gates closed and more plants shuttered than most will ever see in a lifetime, Sheila knows that she is fortunate.

One day before heading out the door to work, Sheila decides to throw a load of laundry in the washer before her shift.

She hoists the laundry basket onto her hip and opens the basement door with the other hand. But as she reaches to turn on the lights, Sheila loses her footing and falls down the hard, wooden steps to the concrete floor.

The accident leaves her permanently paralyzed.

Sheila can no longer work.

She doesn’t know how she is going to pay her mounting medical bills, let alone her regular bills now that she has lost her income. Then, Sheila finds out that she has been paying into Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) her entire working life.

This insurance is now Sheila’s lifeline.

She always thought Social Security would be there for her once she retired, but now – Social Security is all she has.

She is now one of the nearly one-third of Social Security beneficiaries who are not retirees.

Nearly nine million disabled workers are SSDI beneficiaries – and 4.4 million children also receive assistance.

One in five SSDI beneficiaries lives in poverty, and nearly half of disabled workers younger than 50 are poor or near poor.

Social Security – as a whole – is a plan that offers working families a bundle of insurance products: retirement, life, and disability insurance – social insurance that most working families couldn’t afford to buy on their own.

That’s why most Americans do not support making cuts to Social Security. In fact, overwhelming majorities are willing to pay more to preserve this program.

Detractors of Social Security know this so they seek backdoor ways to dismantle the program.

That backdoor?

SSDI.

Detractors divide Social Security into “good Social Security” and “bad Social Security.”

They say “bad Social Security” is disability insurance and that the program is bankrupt and rife with fraud, which in turn, undermines Social Security as a whole.

We will address these claims in today’s hearing.

Disability insurance is not bankrupt. The disability trust fund simply needs to be reallocated.

Reallocation is commonsense, bipartisan policy. Since 1957, it has been done 11 times– most recently in 1994.

At that time, it was projected that reallocation would keep the trust fund solvent until 2016 – which it did.

Rebalancing the fund ensures there is adequate funding so that SSDI is there for all of us, if the worst should happen.

Many in this town claim to sympathize with low-income workers.

But when it comes to supporting disability insurance – a program that provides a modest safety-net to the most vulnerable Americans – they dismiss beneficiaries as lazy scammers looking to game the system.

They’re wrong.

Keep in mind, the average SSDI check is about $300 a week.

In my home state of Ohio, the typical annual SSDI benefit for a disabled worker was $11,988 in 2012.

That’s barely over the federal poverty level for an individual.

Go back to Sheila. She worked 18 years in a factory, standing on her feet all day.

More than half of disability insurance beneficiaries are like her – they too worked in jobs that demanded physical labor.

To call people like Sheila lazy – to prey upon the most vulnerable in society – is wrong and unacceptable.

Where fraud exists, we can address it to maintain the protections that SSDI affords us all.

But to divide Social Security into good parts and bad parts is not how we will solve this issue.

I want to share a letter with you from the grandfather of one of my staff.

He received this letter from his employer, the Pennsylvania Gas and Electric Company, on December 24, 1936.

The letter reads:

“On August 14, 1935, Congress passed the Social Security Act. Under the provision of this Act, the company is required to deduct 1% of your wage beginning on January 1, 1937. These deductions, which are matched by your company, are designed to provide for a retirement at age 65.”

Imagine receiving this letter and being told your wages would start being taken away, and that you would get it back when you reached the age of 65.

This was a time when most people didn’t know anyone who lived to 65, so to receive a letter telling you this was controversial to say the least.

When Social Security began, it was an untested idea that was met with a great deal of misunderstanding and resistance.

Today, it is woven into the fabric of our country.

A few years ago, the idea that we would expand Social Security seemed unlikely. All of the conventional Washington wisdom was that we would have to cut the program.

Today, not only are cuts to Social Security deeply unpopular, we are now debating how much we need to expand Social Security to make sure the program continues to be there for all of us.

In today’s hearing, we will examine ways to strengthen Social Security by protecting disability insurance.

We will examine why reallocation is a simple and commonsense administrative function.

And, we will examine the need to cut fraud so the program continues to safeguard against fraud.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

###

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Most Of The Population Now Needs Government Assistance To Make Ends Meet

By Susie Madrak

Nearly 50 million Americans, (49.7 Million), are living below the poverty line, with 80% of the entire U.S. population living near poverty or below it.

 

All too true. It always amazes me to see people on my TV singing the praises of the growing new economy, and I think to myself: Don't you know any normal people? Via Political Blindspot:

If you live in the United States, there is a good chance that you are now living in poverty or near poverty. Nearly 50 million Americans, (49.7 Million), are living below the poverty line, with 80% of the entire U.S. population living near poverty or below it.

That near poverty statistic is perhaps more startling than the 50 million Americans below the poverty line, because it translates to a full 80% of the population struggling with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on government assistance to help make ends meet.

In September, the Associated Press pointed to survey data that told of an increasingly widening gap between rich and poor, as well as the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs that used to provide opportunities for the “Working Class” to explain an increasing trend towards poverty in the U.S.

But the numbers of those below the poverty line does not merely reflect the number of jobless Americans. Instead, according to a revised census measure released Wednesday, the number – 3 million higher than what the official government numbers imagine – are also due to out-of-pocket medical costs and work-related expenses.

The new measure is generally “considered more reliable by social scientists because it factors in living expenses as well as the effects of government aid, such as food stamps and tax credits,” according to Hope Yen reporting for the Associated Press.

Some other findings revealed that food stamps helped 5 million people barely reach above the poverty line. That means that the actual poverty rate is even higher, as without such aid, poverty rate would rise from 16 percent to 17.6 percent.

Latino and Asian Americans saw an increase in poverty, rising to 27.8 percent and 16.7 percent respectively, from 25.8 percent and 11.8 percent under official government numbers. African-Americans, however, saw a very small decrease, from 27.3 percent to 25.8 percent which the study documents is due to government assistance programs.

Non-Hispanic whites too rose from 9.8 percent to 10.7 percent in poverty.

“The primary reason that poverty remains so high,” Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan economist said, “is that the benefits of a growing economy are no longer being shared by all workers as they were in the quarter-century following the end of World War II.”

The rise of the precariat promises a renewal of the left

In sociology and economics, the precariat is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare as well as being a member of a Proletariat class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labour to live. Specifically, it is applied to the condition of lack of job security, in other words intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.

By Guy Standing, The Guardian

Next year is the 800th anniversary of one of the greatest political documents of all time. The Magna Carta was the first class-based charter, enforced on the monarchy by the rising class. Today’s political establishment seems to have forgotten both it and the emancipatory, ecological Charter of the Forest of 1217. The rising mass class of today, which I call the precariat, will not let them forget for much longer.

Today we need a precariat charter, a consolidated declaration that will respect the Magna Carta’s 63 articles by encapsulating the needs and aspirations of the precariat, which consists of millions of people living insecurely, without occupational identity, doing a vast amount of work that is not counted, relying on volatile wages without benefits, being supplicants, dependent on charity, and denizens not citizens, in losing all forms of rights.

The precariat is today’s mass class, which is both dangerous, in rejecting old political party agendas, and transformative, in wanting to become strong enough to be able to abolish itself, to abolish the conditions of insecurity and inequality that define it. A precariat charter is a way of rescuing the future.

Every charter has been a class-based set of demands that constitute a progressive agenda or vision of a good society. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. A radical charter restructures, being both emancipatory, in demanding a fresh enhancement of rights as freedoms, and egalitarian, in showing how to reduce the vital inequalities of the time. Since the crash of 2008 and during the neoliberal retrenchment known as austerity, many commentators have muttered that the left is dead, watching social democrats in their timidity lose elections and respond by becoming ever more timid and neoliberal.

They deserve their defeats.

As long as they orient their posturing to the “squeezed middle”, appealing to their perception of a middle class while placating the elite, they will depend on the mistakes of the right for occasional victories, giving them office but not power.

This retreat of the laborist left does not mean progressive politics is dying. Costas Lapavitsas and Alex Politaki, who wrote for this site earlier this month asking why Europe’s young are not rioting now, are too pessimistic. Appearances deceive. The reason for the lack of conventional political activity reflects a lack of vision from the left.

This is changing, and quickly by historical standards. Let us not forget that the objectives and policies that emerged in the great forward march a century ago were not defined in advance but took shape during and because of social struggles.

I have been fortunate to witness the phenomenal energies within the precariat while traveling in 30 countries over the past two years. But a transformative movement takes time to crystallize. It was ever thus.

To make sense of what is happening, one must appreciate that we are in the middle of a global transformation. The disembedded phase dominated by the neoliberal Washington consensus led to the crisis of 2008 – fiscal, existential, ecological and distributional crises rolled into one. By then, the precariat had taken shape. Its growth has accelerated since.

What Jeremiahs overlook is that a new forward march towards a revival of a future with more emancipation and equality rests on three principles that help define a new progressive agenda.

The first principle is that every forward march is inspired by the emerging mass class, with progress defined in terms of its insecurities and aspirations. Today that class is the precariat, with its distinctive relations of production, relations of distribution and relations to the state. Its consciousness is a mix of deprivation, insecurity, frustration and anxiety. But most in it do not yearn for a retreat to the past. It says to the old left: “My dreams are not in your ballot box.”

The second principle is that a forward march requires new forms of collective action. Quietly, these are taking shape all over the world. No progressive moves can succeed without forms of collective voice, and the new forms will include a synthesis of unions and the guilds that for two millennia promoted occupational citizenship.

The third principle is that every forward march involves three overlapping struggles, which take time to spring into effective life. The first struggle is for recognition. Here, contrary to the Jeremiahs on the left, there has been fantastic progress since 2008.

Recognition has been forged in networks boosted by a string of collective sparks, through the Arab spring, the Occupy movement, the indignados, the upheavals in the squares of great cities, the London riots of 2011, the spontaneous actions in Istanbul and across dozens of Brazilian cities in 2013, the sudden rise of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy’s elections last year, the riots around Stockholm, the brave, prolonged occupation of the streets in Sofia, Bulgaria, until usurped by an oligarch’s thugs, and the even braver outrage of the precariat in Kiev in recent months. These events are messy, loosely linked at best. But the energy out there is vivid, if one wants to see and feel it.

What has been achieved is a collective sense of recognition, by millions of people – and not just young people. A growing part of the precariat perceives a common predicament, realising that this is a collective experience due to structural features of the economic and political system. We see others in the mirror in the morning, not just our failing selves. The precariat is becoming a class for itself, whether one uses that word or another to describe a common humanity. There is a far greater sense of recognition than in 2008.

That was necessary before the next struggle could evolve into a unifying call for solidarity. That is a struggle for representation, inside every element of the state. It is just beginning, as the precariat realises that anti-politics is the wrong answer. Again, there are encouraging signs that the energy is being channelled into action. We demand to be subjects, not objects to be nudged and sanctioned, fleeced and ignored in turn.

The precariat must be involved in regulating flexible labour, social security institutions, unions and so on. The disabled, unemployed, homeless, migrants, ethnic minorities – all are denizens stirring with anger and collective identity. We are many, they are few. The years of slumber are over.

The third struggle is for redistribution. Here, too, there is progress. The social democratic, lukewarm left has no clothes, and neither does the atavistic left harrying at its heels with empty threats, wanting to turn the clock back to some illusionary golden age. They would not understand the subversive piece of precariat graffiti: “The worst thing would be to return to the old normal.”

Unstable labor will persist; flexibility will increase; wages will stagnate. Now what? The struggle for redistribution is in its infancy, but it has evolved into an understanding of class fragmentation, of how the plutocracy seduces the salariat and placates the proletariat. The struggle will show that with globalization a new distribution system must be constructed, far more radical than that offered by a living wage, however desirable that might be.

A precariat charter should revive a rights-based path towards redistribution of the key assets denied to the precariat, including security, control over time, a reinvigorated commons, assets essential for its reproduction and eventual abolition. This vision is taking shape, messily but perceptibly.

In 1215, the class of barons forced a powerful monarchy to concede to demands for recognition, representation and redistribution. Throughout history, emerging classes have done much the same, from the French Revolution with its radical Enlightenment and the wonderful achievements of Thomas Paine and others to the Chartists of the 19th century and the spate of human rights charters after the second world war. The progressives of the era have always reinvented the future. They are doing it now. Cheer up.

Abby Huntsman Needs A Reality Check On Social Security

By karoli

Abby Huntsman is leading her generation astray with bad facts and a clueless perspective about Social Security. 

Abby Huntsman, shame on you! You have a platform to use responsibly, not to spout talking points that have been debunked over and over again.

Yes, the granddaughter of a billionaire, daughter of millionaire and 2012 presidential candidate Jon Huntsman went on a rant last week about how millennials aren't going to get Social Security. That's an old saw. We baby boomers heard it, too and quite nearly were sold the same bill of BS goods back in the early 80's.

Michael Hiltzik slammed her today in his LA Times column:

Huntsman wants to tell it like it is, but she fails due to lack of information. And if her generation believes what she said, it's going to be in deep trouble.

A lot of her spiel resembles the rants issuing from the mouth of former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, 82, a veteran font of Social Social Security misinformation--which shows, one supposes, that error and ignorance is no respecter of age. Most of it has been debunked so thoroughly and repeatedly that one is tempted to believe that the misrepresentations are deliberate.

But as a favor to Huntsman and her generation, we'll set her straight. Again.

Gawd, I love Michael Hiltzik. Read the whole thing.

RJ Eskow followed that up with an open letter:

Even more importantly, it was disappointing to see you repeat the phony claim that there is a "generational war" between the young and the old. The real "war" in this country is between the haves and the have-nots, and it's no secret who's winning that one. In fact, this notion of a "generational war" was dreamed up in the think tanks and PR firms of billionaires, so that credulous journalists, politicians, and yes, news anchors, would pick it up and repeat it endlessly.

Mission accomplished: many of them have.

Let's be real here. We know that Social Security cuts aren't likely to affect baby boomers nearly as much as they will the generations that follow -- particularly millennials. So why push the idea that old people are greedy, when all that does is provide ammunition for an argument that will be used to shaft your fellow young people?

Again, we know who's getting all the national wealth, and it's not old people. Let's look at the facts: in 2012, the average Social Security benefit was $13,648, or $1137 a month.

And that's the average -- for workers with low earning, or those (primarily women) who take time out of the workforce to perform caregiving work, benefits are often much lower. For two-thirds of beneficiaries, Social Security makes up half their income or more.

We've heard all of Abby's points for decades. Actually, they've been around since Social Security passed and are nothing more than the product of resistance by the 'haves' who don't think they live in a society where the elderly should have a solid safety net under them. She does a disservice to all of us by repeating them, especially under the guise of a doomsday message for her fellow millennials.

Social Security is - bar none - the most successful and solvent social program in this country. It will be there for millennials and generations following if they choose not to listen to Abby Huntsman's tired arguments against it.

Now is the time to expand Social Security, not cut it. We should make that expansion for Abby's generation and those who currently benefit, because it's the right and moral thing to do.

President Obama says no to Social Security cuts

President Obama is doing what critics have urged him to do for years: he’s saying what he wants. His new budget will say no to austerity and no to Social Security cuts. Richard Wolffe and Joy Reid discuss.

The 7 habits of highly ineffective political parties

When it comes to major policy battles, since 2009 the GOP is 0-3. Before it fails again, David Frum offers up seven ways the party is shooting itself in the foot.
By David Frum

Republicans have lost three major fights since 2009. They seem likely soon to lose a fourth—and all in the same way.

The three previous losses (in case you’re feeling forgetful) were, in order:

(1) The fight over Obamacare. Result: the most ambitious new social insurance program since Medicare, financed—unlike Medicare—by redistributive new taxes on investment and high incomes.

(2) The 2012 election. Result: Despite the worst economy since the Great Depression, the reelection of President Obama, Democratic retention of the Senate, and 1.4 million more votes cast for House Democrats than for House Republicans.

(3) The fight over the “fiscal cliff” at the end of 2012. Result: In order to preserve some of the Bush tax cuts, Republicans for the first time since 1991 left their finger prints on a tax increase for upper income groups.

Now comes fight (4), the fight over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling. This one isn’t lost yet. But unless Republicans are prepared to push the country into the catastrophe of national bankruptcy sometime around October 17, it’s hard to see how this one does not end in a Republican retreat, clutching whatever forlorn fig leaf they can negotiate from President Obama.

Behind all four defeats can be seen the same seven mistakes: what you might call the seven habits of highly ineffective political parties. Let’s call the roll:

Habit 1: Maximalist goals.

There’s a lot about Obamacare for a Republican not to like. But to demand Obamacare’s outright repeal (which is what “defunding” amounts to) barely 10 months after decisively losing an election in which Obamacare occupied a central place—well, that’s shooting for the moon. we’ve seen equivalent moon shots again and again since 2009. During the original Obamacare legislation, Republicans took the position: no, no, not one inch. During the election of 2012, Republicans were not content merely to replace one president with another. They also campaigned on the most radical platform the party since 1964. They wanted the biggest possible mandate. Instead they got whomped.

Habit 2: Apocalyptic visions.

Republicans have insisted on maximal goals because they fear they face a truly apocalyptic moment: an irrevocable fork in the road, with one path leading to socialist tyranny, the other to the restoration of the constitutional republic. There sometimes are such moments in history of nations. This is not one. If the United States has remained a constitutional republic despite a government guarantee of health care for people over 65, it will remain a constitutional republic with a government guarantee of health care for people under 65. Obamacare will cost money the country doesn’t have, and that poses a serious fiscal problem. But it’s not as serious a fiscal problem as is posed by the existing programs, Medicare and Medicaid, which cover the people it costs most to cover. It’s not a problem so serious as to justify panic.

Yet panic has gripped the Republican rank-and-file since 2009—and instead of allaying panic, Republican leaders have aggravated and exploited it, to the point where the leaders are compelled to behave in ways they know to be irrational. In his speech to the “Bull Moose” convention of 1912, Teddy Roosevelt declared, “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord!” It’s a great line, but it’s not a mindset that leads to successful legislative outcomes.

Habit 3: Irrational animus.

 

Barack Obama was never likely to be popular with the Republican base. It's not just that he's black. He’s the first president in 76 years with a foreign parent—and unlike Hulda Hoover, Barack Obama Sr. never even naturalized. While Obama is not the first president to hold two degrees from elite universities—Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did as well—his Ivy predecessors at least disguised their education with a down-home style of speech. Join this cultural inheritance to liberal politics, and of course you have a formula for conflict. But effective parties make conflict work for them. Hate leads to rage, and rage makes you stupid. 

 

Republicans have convinced themselves both that President Obama is a revolutionary radical hell-bent upon destroying America as we know it and that he's so feckless and weak-willed that he'll always yield to pressure. It's that contradictory, angry assessment that has brought the GOP to a place where it must either abjectly surrender or force a national default. Calmer analysis would have achieved better results.

 

Recently, GOP lawmakers have been pointing fingers at Democrats for a supposed unwillingness to compromise.

 

Habit 4: Collapse of leadership.

The Republicans have always been the more disciplined of America’s two political parities, and today they still are. But whereas before, discipline used to flow from elected leadership down, today it flows from factional leadership up. An aide to Sen. Mike Lee told the National Review: “The minority of the minority is going to run things until our leadership gets some backbone.”

The Lee aide was specifically referring to the Republican minority in the Senate, but the language has broader implication. According to Robert Costa, a well-sourced reporter at NRO: “What we’re seeing is the collapse of institutional Republican power ... The outside groups don’t always move votes directly but they create an atmosphere of fear among the members [of Congress].” Large organizations are inherently vulnerable to capture by tightly organized militant tendencies. This is how a great political party was impelled to base a presidential campaign on the Ryan plan—a plan that has now replaced the 1983 manifesto of the British Labour Party as “the longest suicide note in history.” It’s the job of leadership to remember, in the words of Edmund Burke, “Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.” That job is tragically going undone in today’s GOP.

Habit 5: Self-reinforcing media.

The actor Hugh Grant once bitterly characterized his PR team as “the people I pay to lie to me.” Politicians do not always need to tell the truth, but they always need to hear it. Yet hearing the truth has become harder and harder for Republicans. It takes a very unusual spin artist to remember that what he or she is saying isn’t actually true. Non-politicians say what they believe. Politicians sooner or later arrive at the point where they believe what they say. They have become prisoners of their own artificial reality, with no easy access to the larger truths outside.

This entombment in their own artificial reality was revealed to the entire TV-watching world in Karl Rove’s Fox News election night outburst against the Ohio 2012 ballot results. It was the same entombment that blinded Republicans to the most likely outcome of their no-compromise stance on Obamacare—and now again today to the most likely outcome of the government shutdown/debt ceiling fight they started.

Habit 6: Politics as war.

The business of America is business, as Calvin Coolidge said. American politics has been businesslike too. Americans understand that the business of the nation is ultimately settled by a roomful of tired people negotiating their differences in the small hours of the morning: everybody gets something, nobody gets everything. It’s a grubby business, unavoidably, and most of the time, Americans understand that. They build statues to Martin Luther King. They elect Lyndon Johnson.

From time to time in American politics, differences arise that are too wide to negotiate. Slavery versus no slavery. Prohibition versus drink. Pro-life versus pro-choice. Professional politicians usually keep their distance from absolutist movements. As George Washington Plunkitt observed, “The politicians have got to stand together this way or there wouldn’t be any political parties in a short time.”

That line was meant as a joke, but it contains truth. Professional politicians are disagreement managers. Since 2009, however, the GOP has given unprecedented scope to those who for their own ideological, financial, or psychological reasons refuse to allow disagreements to be managed—and instead relentlessly push toward the kind of ultimate crises the country so nearly escaped in 2011 and teeters again on the verge of today.

Habit 7: Despair.

The great British conservative historian Hugh Trevor Roper scoffed at the Marxist claim that history runs in one direction only. “When radicals scream that victory is indubitably theirs, sensible conservatives knock them on the nose. It is only very feeble conservatives who take such words as true and run round crying for the last sacraments.” The great conservative poet T.S. Eliot explained that there are no lost causes, because there are no won causes. How many ways can one express that idea? So long as there is life, there is hope; everything old is new again; etc. etc. etc.

The trouble with these assurances, however, is that they contain an implicit moral that politics is very hard work. Free-market economics—so discredited in the 1940's—returned to favor in the 1970's because of tireless research by brilliant economists. The excesses of the 2000's have undone that success, and now it will take serious thinking, and some necessary reforms, to repair the damage. It’s a tempting shortcut to throw up one’s hands and say, “I’ve seen the best of it.

The future holds only darkness.” It’s especially tempting for a party that disproportionately draws its support from older voters. The fact is that for those of us over 50, the future offers us as individuals only decline leading to extinction. It’s natural to believe that what happens to us must happen to the world around us. Who wants to hear that things will become much, much better for humanity shortly after we ourselves shuffle off the scene? Yet of all mental errors, despair is the most dangerous to a democracy. The “politics of cultural despair” lead to authoritarianism and worse, as the German historian Fritz Stern warned in his history of that same title.

The man who has no hope will make the most irrevocable errors—and unnecessarily plunging the United States into the first national bankruptcy since the 1780's would be about as irrevocable as an error as history contains.

Graham Offers Sanders Help 'Reforming' Tax Code in Exchange for Help 'Reforming Entitlements'

By Heather



I've generally been staying as far away as possible from CNN's new stinker of a show, which is the revival of Crossfire, but this Tuesday, the inclusion of Sen. Bernie Sanders as one of their panel members actually gave me a reason to sit through most of it.

Towards the end of the show, they spent some time arguing about the Senate filibuster rules and whether Republicans have been allowed to air their grievances over the Affordable Care Act or not, along with Ted Cruz and his stunt of a fake filibuster. Sen. Sanders took the opportunity to do what he does best, and advocate for working Americans out there, and the record income disparity and the fact that the Congress has done very little to get Americans back to work and rebuild our infrastructure.

So naturally, his fellow guest on the show, Sen. Lindsey Graham thought it was a perfect opportunity to make an offer to Sanders to "reform entitlements" in exchange for flattening the tax code. What a deal. Thankfully Sanders was there to remind the audience of just what Graham's "reforms" would mean for average Americans.

SANDERS: Let me just jump in and say I happen to think -- and by the way, Newt, when you were speaker, you ran a pretty tough ship there, as well, I recall.

But I happen to think that the rules in the Senate are pretty crazy. You or I could go down there and basically stop the entire United States government. One person could do that. Is that what democracy is about? I don't really think so.

But here's the point. Lindsey correctly says there are some bills that he thinks are not getting to the floor that might pass. Fair enough. But let me tell you something else. I happen to believe that the reason that Congress is now held in such contempt is the American people are hurting very badly. Middle class, in my view, is collapsing. Poverty numbers are at an all-time high, and the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider.

JONES: And they blame Obama for that. Do you blame Obama for that?

SANDERS: No. I mean, it's a -- you know, it's a long-term trend.

JONES: Just checking. Just checking.

SANDERS: The bottom line is, what do the American people want, Lindsey? They want us to create jobs.

GRAHAM: Yes.

SANDERS: They want us to rebuild a crumbling infrastructure and create millions of jobs. They want us, in my view -- Newt, you quoted polls -- to raise the minimum wage substantially above where it is now. They want us to end these absurd loopholes that billionaires and corporations enjoy.

One out of four corporations doesn't pay a nickel in taxes. And Republicans are saying, "Oh, we have to cut 4 million people from Food Stamps."

GRAHAM: Bernie, if I -- if I was willing to flatten the tax code and take deductions away from the wealthy to pay down debt, would you reform entitlements by extending the age, based on the fact we're all living like Strom Thurmond?

SANDERS: Absolutely not. Not at a time where we have so much...

GRAHAM: That was a moment of bipartisanship that quickly passed.

SANDERS: Now let me ask you. Let me ask you.

GRAHAM: OK.

SANDERS: At a time when the top 1 percent own 38 percent of the wealth in America and the bottom 60 percent own all of 2.3 percent, will you work with me to ask the wealthy to start paying their fair share of taxes so we can deal with...?

GRAHAM: Here's what I will do. I will create a tax code that creates jobs for more Americans, because that's a good thing. But I would tell the wealthy people of this country, when it comes to Medicare, you're not going to get any more subsidies. When it comes to Social Security, you're going to have to take less, because we can't afford to give everybody what we promised.

If you will help me reform the tax code, I -- help me reform entitlements, I'll help you reform the tax code, because we're becoming Greece if we don't do this.

SANDERS: All right. But when you talk about reform entitlements, I understand.

GRAHAM: Yes.

SANDERS: Correct me if I'm wrong. You want to raise the entitlement age to Social Security?

GRAHAM: Over 30 years.

SANDERS: Over 30 years to 70 years.

GRAHAM: No. What I want to do is harmonize Medicare with Social Security: go from 65 to 67 over the next 30 years. And I want means testing for people in my income level, Newt's income level, Van's income level. Have to pay the actual costs.

SANDERS: But you also support the chain CPI.

GRAHAM: Yes, I do.

SANDERS: Which cut benefits -- let me talk. Which would cut $650 from Social Security benefits between the ages of 65 and 70. And make massive cuts for disabled vets.

GRAHAM: Well, no. What I'm trying to do is save the country from bankruptcy. And when the president of the United States, who I usually don't agree with, put CPI on the table, I thought it was a very courageous thing to do. And I am willing to flatten that tax code. I can go to the rich people in America and all the corporations, say, "We're going to take deductions off the table you now enjoy. Take that money back for the many, not just the few."

But if you don't help me reform the entitlements, there's no way to get there by taxing people.

SANDERS: I want everybody to understand, when Lindsey talks about reforming entitlements, what he means is cutting Social Security and cutting Medicare. I think that's a bad idea.

GINGRICH: OK. And I would say -- and we're about to run out of time. But I would say what you're talking about is going bankrupt, and that's a debate we want to invite you to come back.

GRAHAM: ... program. I've actually spent...

GINGRICH: We'll have you back on access for health care, which will be a great topic, the two of you. And we ought to come back and talk a little bit more about how do we solve this?

GRAHAM: Eighty million Baby Boomers are going to retire in the next 40 years. How do we replace them? We need rational immigration.

JONES: The first thing, maybe stop giving those subsidies...

GRAHAM: How do you save Medicare and Social Security with 80 million people coming into the system?

JONES: What about first of all, you supported $4 billion subsidies to oil company that don't need them. We've got -- we have a lot of conversations we need to have -- I'm going to give it back to you, Newt, to take us out of here.

GINGRICH: Kind of -- You almost agreed with him for a second. I was sitting back.

JONES: I changed my mind.

GINGRICH: Let me -- I want to thank Senator Sanders and Senator Graham.
Next, we "Ceasefire." Is there anything out of all this that the two of us can agree on?

I think Sanders did a good job here, but it would have been nice to see him push back harder when Graham pulled the "we're becoming Greece" card."

When Graham wants to address what's gone on with Wall Street and the banks and what they did with Greece and allowing them to mask their debt, maybe we can have an "honest conversation" about that as well, but I've seen no desire on the part of the likes of Graham or his fellow Republicans to do anything other than further deregulate financial markets and make those sort of problems worse and not better.

The fact that he continually brings up Greece to justify gutting our social safety nets is dishonest and disgusting, but that hasn't stopped him from doing it over, and over, and over, and over again.

Ed Schultz outlines his four step plan to save Detroit

By the Ed Show staff

Republicans have given up on the city of Detroit, they want to wipe the slate clean and start privatizing city assets, and in the process, city workers are in danger of losing their pensions.

Ed Schultz outlines his four step plan to save Detroit. Lansing, Michigan Mayor Virg Bernero and Michael Eric Dyson join Ed to discuss.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

8 Stupid Lies Fox News Keeps Telling About Food Stamps

By Elisabeth Parker

Way to go, Congress! Three weeks ago, the GOP-led House of Representatives approved a bill providing millions in farm subsidies, while removing food stamps from the farm bill package entirely.  Then, on July 11th, they actually went ahead and passed this travesty of a bill even though it disproportionately penalizes people in their own states!

Believe it or not, “red” states are the real welfare states, and the states most dependent on food stamps are all run by Republicans. As those “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” in France might murmur in their cafés over glasses of wine and acrid Gitanes cigarettes, “quel ironie.”

Meanwhile, here in “blue” America, we’re covering our ears against a heavy, clangorous din as millions of jaws drop to the floor. How do these conservatives keep getting away with this crap? Maybe it has something to do with all the vile myths and outright lies churned out by the right wing propaganda machine — oops, I mean, ‘media’ — on a daily basis. As is generally the case with legislation and sausages, right-wing propaganda is a messy and unappetizing business, and most of us really don’t want to watch it being made.

That’s why this video from Media Matters for America is such an eye-opener. After watching this montage of casually callous, ignorant, and appalling statements from Rush Limbaugh and the talking heads at Fox News, you’ll have a better idea of why folks from high-poverty states — like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Maine, and Arkansas — keep voting for these conservative meanies.

Here’s the video:



The quotes from this lovely video cliptage all center around eight tired, inaccurate, and mean old myths about food stamps and poverty in general:
(1) If you need food stamps, you’re a loser and it’s your fault;
(2) Liberal politicians promote food stamps so people will become dependent on welfare, and vote for them;
 (3) People on food stamps aren’t really poor, and don’t really need help;
(4) We can’t possibly have hunger in America, because so many Americans are clinically obese;
(5) Speaking of which … maybe some of these food stamps recipients should go on a diet;
(6) People on food stamps are welfare cheats;
(7) Who needs food stamps when we can go dumpster diving?; and
(8) Having a social safety net is bad, because it creates a culture of dependency.

1. If you need food stamps, you’re a loser and it’s your fault.

“The image we have of poor people as starving and living in squalor really is not accurate.  Many of them have things, what they lack is the richness of spirit.”
– Stuart Varney

Not only does this sort of thinking promote the idea that people are poor for lack of a work ethic and good morals, it also catches those of us who do need help in a vicious cycle of self-hatred,  self-blame, and secret shame that encourages us to hate food stamp recipients and vote against welfare programs even while we’re being helped by them. We’re not the ones who should feel ashamed. People who think it’s okay for people to starve and go without basic necessities in a land of wealth and plenty are the ones who should feel ashamed.

2. Liberal politicians promote food stamps so people will become dependent on welfare, and vote for them.

“Re-elect Obama, food stamps for everyone.”
– Laura Ingraham

Obviously, this is not true … otherwise the folks living in the Republican-dominated states listed above would stop voting for these jerks!

3. People on food stamps aren’t really poor, and don’t really need help.

“They’re all gonna have a phone, a TV set, a car, and 120 free minutes, and food stamps.”
– Rush Limbaugh

First of all, having a cell phone, television, a car, and food stamps does not make you well-off. We are only able to afford cheap consumer electronics because they’re produced in countries with low wages, unsafe working conditions, and few regulations. Meanwhile, many of us don’t have secure employment any more because globalization’s incessant race to the bottom has unfairly forced us to compete against these workers. Instead of promoting fairness, safety, and higher living standards amongst our trading partners, we’re lowering our own standards. Thanks to Walmart, we can afford to buy lots of cheap, plastic crap. But life’s necessities — like food, housing, healthcare, and gas or transportation remain impossibly expensive for many of us.

4. We don’t have hunger in America, because so many Americans are clinically obese.

“Sixteen MILLION children face a summer of hunger. Now, Michelle Obama told us they’re all so fat and out of shape and overweight that a summer off from government eating might be just the ticket.”
– Rush Limbaugh
“Poor people in America have an obesity problem. And yet, we give more people food stamps.”
– Geraldo Rivera

I can barely even get past the spectacle of a disgustingly obese, cigar-chomping, mean-spirited slob like Rush Limbaugh giving health advice to the less economically fortunate amongst us … but here goes. Believe it or not, it is possible — and increasingly common in America, according to Elaine Watson’s recent article in a trade publication for nutritionists — for us to be obese and malnourished at the same time. That’s because there’s a vast gulf between getting enough — or too many — calories, and getting enough nutrition and exercise. Calories and junk food are cheap. More nutritious foods, like fresh produce, are often more expensive and inaccessible to low-income people living in isolated rural or inner city areas (and who often don’t have cars). Exercise opportunities are also challenging in unsafe and isolated neighborhoods, especially if you have chronic health problems from obesity and malnutrition.

5. Maybe some of these food stamps recipients need to go on a diet.

“I should try it, because, do you know how fabulous I’d look? I’d be SO SKINNY!”
– Andrea Tantaros’s giddy thoughts on taking the food stamps challenge and spending only $130 per month on food.

Squeeeeee! She can look caring AND lose weight! Sounds like a win-win for Tantaros, who is already such a slender wisp of a thing — both physically and mentally — she might flat-out disappear. Which could also be a win-win for the rest of us. What’s not to like?

6. People on food stamps are welfare cheats.

“Remember that lottery guy? Still getting food stamps! Come on!”
– Gerry Willis

This old and tiresome trope started when Ronald Reagan conjured up images of welfare queens driving pink Cadillacs. Funny, I always thought those were Mary Kay saleswomen. But it makes absolutely no sense that this hypothetically undeserving thief would risk felony charges just to scam $130 in food stamps per month. If you’re going to game the system, why not just throw on a suit, work for a bank, and cheat investors and mortgage holders? It’s easier and better paid, plus Wall Street’s white collar criminals almost never do jail time.

7. Who needs food stamps when you can go dumpster diving?

“There’s always the neighborhood dumpster. Now you might find competition with homeless people there, but there are videos produced to show you how to healthfully dive and survive until school starts back up in August.”
– Rush Limbaugh

Yikes! If our local homeless population here in San Jose, CA saw Rush Limbaugh’s plumber-butt sticking out of a dumpster, they’d run screaming for the hills. I don’t even know where to begin, because the image of desperate parents digging around in dumpsters to feed their children scraps of moldy food until free school lunches resume is downright Dickensian. Do we seriously want to live in the squalid world of “Oliver Twist“? I’m seriously starting to think our Republicans actually do. I don’t know how Limbaugh caught wind of the Freegan movement (the practice of … um … “reclaiming and eating discarded food”), but this is hardly how we should expect citizens of a supposedly first-world democracy to live.

8. Having a social safety net is bad, and creates a culture of … um … Depends™ency.

“Well, it’s like we’re wearing one, gigantic Depends undergarment. It’s like, hey, we’re America, don’t worry about it. Now, pretty soon we won’t have to go to the bathroom for ourselves.”
– Kimberly Guilfoyle

Is this some new and even more vile version of what “All In The Family‘s” Archie Bunker hilariously malapropped as “tinkle down theory?” Like, if we come together as citizens and build a safety net that catches us when we fall into hard times, we’re literally shitting on each other? Like, ew. Thanks for the lovely image, Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Why do we think it’s so horrible for people to take care of each other? Families and human societies have done exactly that since long before civilization began. Having a social safety net to help in times of misfortune — especially when so many people’s fates are determined by huge, global, multi-national corporations and rich people who keep not creating jobs — is a crucial hallmark of civilization. In fact, our ability to form emotional bonds, work together cooperatively, communicate, and form mutually supportive communities is a big part of what supposedly sets humans above other life forms (though the opposable thumbs and more complex/proportionally larger brains certainly help).

Since conservatives claim to love Jesus Christ so much, you’d think they’d want us to love and take care of one another the way Jesus so famously taught. Instead, they envision a dark, dystopian world dominated by a sociopathic elite that either uses or crushes everyone in their path. I’d call it “social Darwinism,” if these religious zealots actually believed in Darwin.

Author: Elisabeth Parker Elisabeth Parker is a writer, Web designer, mom, political junkie, and dilettante. Come visit her at ElisabethParker.Com, "like" her on facebook, "friend" her on facebook, follow her on Twitter, or check out her Pinterest boards. For more Addicting Info articles by Elisabeth, click here.