This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Isn’t it funny how the corporate conservatives always offer the same solutions to every problem? Even when the solution doesn’t really have much to do with the problem? Iraq didn’t attack us, and Social Security doesn’t have anything to do with deficits. But the “solution” to 9/11 was to attack Iraq, and the proposed “solution” to deficits is to “fix” Social Security. And the “solution” to state budget crises is to get rid of public employee unions. Why?
Got a crisis? A tax cut will fix it. Getting rid of unions will fix it. Privatizing Social Security will fix it. And gutting government solves everything. Doesn’t even matter what the problem is!
“Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes” – Tom DeLay, 2003
Iraq And 9/11
Remember when everyone was in panic about Iraq? IA bunch of Saudis working with an organization based in Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11. The solution immediately offered by the corporate right was to invade Iraq, increase military spending and … cut taxes!
We were told that Saddam was getting ready to attack us with anthrax, smallpox, more terrorists and even nukes. Etc. On and on. How many different stories did we hear in the “runup” to the war of “shock and awe” that has cost so many lives and more than a trillion dollars? Let’s teach “those people” a lesson. It will be “a cakewalk” and will “pay for itself.”
The thing is, invading Iraq was a pre-packaged solution waiting for an excuse. When the excuse came, they ran with it. It’s what they do. We should learn from this.
They have a number of pre-packaged solutions” on the shelf and when a crisis pops up — or when they can create one — the “solutions” pop out of the box, ready to go.
Always A Crisis
Isn’t it funny how these “crises” keep coming up? People whipped into a panic, over and over (and over and over.)
Right now people are whipped into a panic about the deficit crisis. The “solution?” Gut the things government does for regular people, including Social Security (which by law cannot borrow, so can’t cause deficits._ They are even going to force a government shutdown — another crisis. Meanwhile the huge military budget is “off the table.” All this right after they just passed more tax cuts for the rich.
Social Security is in “crisis?” People are in a panic. Everyone “knows” we have to “fix” it. We are told this over and over and over and over. (The “crisis” is that in 2037 it will have a shortfall, and might have to cut benefits. The solution to the crisis of a cut in benefits is to cut benefits.)
State budgets are in crisis? People are in a panic. Solution? Blame unions and worker pensions (and cut taxes.) That’s what’s happening in Wisconsin. And Ohio. And Indiana. And Missouri. And New Hampshire. And Michigan. And Minnesota. And other states, many not even limiting the attack to public-employee unions.
Corporate/Conservative Pre-Packaged “Solutions”
How often do you see the same solutions offered up for any given problem? Tax cuts for the rich, gut government, get rid of unions, privatize Social Security, etc. (And more tax cuts for the rich.) When something shocking happens the right always has ready-to-go, pre-packaged solution waiting in the wings that they offer to fix the problem.
Take Wisconsin for example. They ginned up the appearance of a budget crisis, got everyone worked up, and wham-o, introduce a bill to kill public-employee unions, gutting worker pay and pensions and their ability to do anything about it.
But in fact, like so many of their “solutions” this was something they already wanted to do, and were just waiting for the opportunity to push it through, or creating the crisis to bring about the opportunity to push it through.
These pre-packaged “free-market” “solutions” are not what the public wants, but are always forced through before anyone can react. They don’t solve problems, just make the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us.
The Solutions Never Work — For US
When the public is worried, stirred up, hopefully to the point of panic you put in your pre-arranged “solution” and start getting them stirred up about the next problem you will “solve.” And those conservative solutions never seem to work out.
The deficits get worse, wages don’t go up, retirement gets harder… This is because the real purpose of these “solutions” — cut taxes, cut what government does for regular people, get rid of unions, privatize social security and for good measure cut taxes more — are not to solve the problem they were offered up to fix. They have another purpose: make deficits worse, make wages stagnate, make retirement harder…
It always, always, always comes down to a simple formula: more (and more) to the rich at the expense of everyone else.
PEOPLE WANT JOBS
People want jobs.
Cutting Social Security doesn’t create jobs.
Getting rid of unions doesn’t create jobs.
Gutting the things government does for We, the People won’t create jobs.
Cutting taxes certainly doesn’t create jobs.
Where are the corporate/conservative job-creation solutions? There aren’t any.
March 10 Summit on Jobs and America’s Future
On March 10, 2011, the Summit on Jobs and America’s Future will bring together leaders and activists who understand that America faces a jobs crisis – and who are committed to building a political movement for sustainable economic growth, dynamic job creation, and a revival of the American economy.
Free. $15 with lunch. Register here.
Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Should we cut Social Security to “save” it from cuts?
Just two days after the President pledged during the State of the Union address to improve Social Security “without putting at risk current retirees” and “without slashing benefits for future generations” the program is again being subjected to widespread, misleading attacks in the media.
With the headline Social Security fund will be drained by 2037, AP ran a (since-changed, original is still available here. It is worth comparing the original with the revised.) op-ed story that began,

Sick and getting sicker, Social Security will run at a deficit this year and keep on running in the red until its trust funds are drained by about 2037, congressional budget experts said Wednesday in bleaker-than-previous estimates.

“Drained?”
The CBO story about Social Security is part of a larger overall budget deficit projection, the result of the recent vote to give more tax cuts to the wealthy. The AP story, widely echoed in the media, is instead focusing only on Social Security. But it is not “news” that the trust fund will be exhausted in 2037 (assuming continuing poor economic and wage growth — read this and everything Bruce Webb writes about Social Security at Angry Bear), it is the projection that had been understood for years. However, using better economic assumptions that could result from policies that increase the wages of working people and reduce the concentration of wealth the trust fund does not run out at all.
Even so, in 2037, under these bad-case scenarios, Social Security will still be able to pay 78% of projected benefits, which are higher than today’s benefits. So in this poor-case scenario, if nothing is done, recipients will face a cut of 22%.
Saying that we need to cut Social Security now because it might — might — have to be cut 22% in 2037 is saying we need to cut it to “save” it from cuts.
Deficit Commission Recommendations?
The AP story wrongly stated that the “Deficit Commission” had made recommendations to increase the retirement age and cut the program through reduced cost-of-living increases. In fact the commission was unable to agree on any recommendations.

A debt commission appointed by President Barack Obama has recommended a series of changes to improve Social Security’s finances, including a gradual increase in the full retirement age, lower cost-of-living increases and a gradual increase in the threshold on the amount of income subject to the Social Security payroll tax.
Obama, however, has not embraced any of the panel’s recommendations. Instead, in his State of the Union speech this week, he called for unspecified bipartisan solutions to strengthen the program while protecting current retirees, future retirees and people with disabilities.

Experts?
To assist with its anti-Social Security formulation the AP story claimed “experts” (plural) are calling for “reform” by quoting one “expert” (singular) from the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.
Running A Deficit?
Conservative outlets are expanding on the CBO report, claiming that Social Security is running deficits — as long as you don’t cont the interest that the program’s bonds earn. For example, note the use of the word “effectively” in CNS’ CBO: Social Security to Run $45 Billion Deficit in 2011

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that Social Security will effectively run a $45-billion deficit in 2011 and continue to run deficits totaling $547 billion over the coming decade.

National Review, uses the word “broke” in CBO: Social Security Now Officially Broke, and claims the interest is only “camouflage,”

Today’s CBO report has some bad news about the deficit. But CBO has some really, really bad news about Social Security: It’s officially broke.
… But there’s a bit of camouflage attached: If you include the “interest” that the federal government “owes” the fictitious Social Security “trust fund,” then the program is in the black.

And so on…
Cut The Program To Save It From Cuts?
So does it make sense to cut the program to save it from cuts? The real agenda behind calls for cuts is so that the money does not have to be found elsewhere to repay the trust fund. The trust fund masked the harm done by tax cuts, and undoing tax cuts is what will be needed to pay back the money that working people have set aside for retirement,
Claiming that Social Security needs to be cut, or the retirement age raised, so that Social Security needs less funding is like your bank telling you that you need to cut back on food so they won’t have to pay you back the money you put into a savings account.
Update – As this was posted AP released an astonishing new attack, Social Security posting $600B deficit over 10 years. Ignoring the program’s huge trust fund and that there is no deficit at all when interest paid to that trust fund is counted, AP writes,

Social Security will post nearly $600 billion in deficits over the next decade as the economy struggles to recover and millions of baby boomers stand at the brink of retirement, according to new congressional projections.
This year alone, Social Security is projected to collect $45 billion less in payroll taxes than it pays out in retirement, disability and survivor benefits, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. That figure swells to $130 billion when a new one-year cut in payroll taxes is included, though Congress has promised to repay any lost revenue from the tax cut.
. . . But the new projections show nothing but red ink until the Social Security trust funds are exhausted in 2037.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Tuesday the President pledged to improve Social Security “without putting at risk current retirees” and “without slashing benefits for future generations.” With the State of the Union speech out of the way Progressives can claim some credit and breathe a little bit easier for a while. But the fight is not over — it never is. The door is still open for new attacks. And Social Security’s attackers never, ever, ever, ever give up.
Demonstrating that, Ross Douthat in the NY Times calls President Obama’s statement of support for Social Security “evasion,” lamenting the “looming insolvency of our entitlement system.” Others in the “conventional wisdom” machine continue to demand cuts to ward off the threat of future cuts, claiming the cuts will “save” the system from cuts.
There is one and only one reason Social Security is such a topic of discussion and that is because it is a target of the corporate-conservatives who denigrate government itself. Social Security is government, therefore it just can’t be true that it works well, helps people and is the right thing to do. But it is. All the facts line up on Social Secuirty’s side, so they have to use trickery. They have to claim “insolvency.” They have to claim that life expectancy is longer now — even though they are referring to the effect of infant morality on statistics.
If Social Security’s attackers truly want to “save” entitlements they would address the cost of health care in this country. They would look at the rest of the world and realize that the only thing that can work for that is some form of Medicare-For-All.
What Digby said,

I’m glad that he said he didn’t want “fixing” Social Security to come at the expense of the vulnerable or by restricting benefits, but like the AARP I think danger lurks in the fact that he spoke about it in the context of deficit reduction. Best to be vigilant on this one.

By the way:

Let’s Keep the Success Going
You did it! You helped the Campaign for America’s Future sound the alarm to President Barack Obama that he must embrace jobs, not Social Security cuts. And he got the message. But the fight isn’t over. And we need your help to keep fighting.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Sign this petition: Tell Obama: Keep Your Social Security Promise
Spread these around:

“I believe that cutting benefits is not the answer. … Raising the retirement age is not the best option. … Let me be clear, I will not do either. … The best way forward is to first look to adjust the cap on the payroll tax.” – President Obama during the campaign.
From CAF’s Social Security: Keep The Promise.

“I’m 59 and I’m just trying to make it until I can retire at 62.”
From PCCC, click here.

“Even though I don’t get a lot of money I would be homeless right now.”
From Social Security Online.

“What polls the worst is cutting Social Security.” “It will destroy the Democratic Party.”
From Sam Seder Majority Report Radio Show.
Another from Sam:

“For the public cutting benefits is the problem, not the solution, when it comes to Social Security.”

Harry Reid defending Social Security.
From The Young Turks.
Sign this petition: Tell Obama: Keep Your Social Security Promise

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Watch as GOP Rep. Jim Renacci (OH) is confronted at a local town hall meeting, asked what the heck he thinks he is doing saying he will vote to repeal the health care reform law. Renacci replies that he and fellow Republicans campaigned on reversing the “half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare.” (From Daily Kos.)

Republicans campaigned on protecting seniors from Medicare cuts. No way around it. In the 2010 election campaign Republican groups ran millions and millions of dollars of ads promising not to cut Medicare, and to increase Social Security. They campaigned against Democrats for “cutting $500 billion from Medicare” and not increasing Social Security cost-of-living. As a result, for the first time the senior vote went to Republicans.
Here are just a few of the ads that saturated the airwaves, saying that Democrats should be thrown out for cutting Medicare:

And voters were sent flyers like this: (click for larger)

Conservative Strategists Warn Republicans Against Cutting Social Security
National Review Senior Editor Ramesh Ponnuru, in a New York Times op-ed, How the G.O.P. Can Cut and Survive, warns Republicans not to touch Social Security,

Ronald Reagan suffered a defeat in his first year when he tried cutting Social Security’s early retirement benefits. Newt Gingrich’s 1995 Republican revolution fizzled when President Bill Clinton fought him over Medicare cuts. President George W. Bush’s effort to reform Social Security in 2005 ended any political momentum he brought to his second term.
Would-be reformers should draw two lessons from this history. The first is that reform can’t be sprung on the electorate. Reagan hadn’t campaigned on cutting Social Security in 1980, nor did the Gingrich Republicans promise to reduce the growth of Medicare.

Well, actually they campaigned on restoring $500 billion to Medicare and increasing Social Security, but everyone except the “low-information voters” they targeted understood they meant the opposite…

Keep in mind that most voters oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare, so they are likely to be very nervous about any proposals to restrain their growth, especially if opponents portray such cuts as excessive. Even worse, most members of Congress are not well informed about these programs, so they’ll have a hard time soothing public anxieties.

Don’t Cut Social Security, It’s A Trap
Conservative and “centrist” (corporate) calls for President Obama to go after Social Security at the same time they are warning Republicans not to are nothing more than a trap. If the President calls for cutting Social Security you will see ad after ad after ad after ad after ad after ad blasting President Obama and Democrats in general for cutting Social Security and devastating seniors. The voters do not want Social Security cut and any politician who goes against the wishes of the voters will face their wrath. And cutting Social Security will devastate seniors. It is the wrong thing to do. So don’t.
Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
The D.C. elite insist that the retirement age should be raised even more than the current 67. They have jobs where they sit in nice chairs behind nice desks in nice offices in affluent areas. They don’t even know anyone who waits tables or cleans or lifts boxes all day. They don’t even know anyone without a fat 401K, or who is in their 50s who can’t find work. That’s not their problem; paying their share of taxes is what they are worried about.
But when you leave the affluent areas it becomes obvious that the retirement age is too high and Social Security pays too little. The Great Recession began with waves of layoffs that seemed to concentrate on people over 50 — because of health care costs and reasonable pay (and they just smell bad). Two years later these people are having a very hard time finding work — and don’t even mention health insurance. Their savings are gone, their unemployment checks are stopping (the “99ers”) and they are heAded for the streets. The DC elite solution is to keep them on the streets even longer.
Lowering the retirement age solves part of the unemployment problem. It solves part of the foreclosure problem by helping many people pay their mortgages. And this is a very out-of-date thing to say but it is humane. It helps people.
James K. Galbraith writes in ACTUALLY, THE RETIREMENT AGE IS TOO HIGH,

In the United States, the financial crisis has left the country with 11 million fewer jobs than Americans need now. No matter how aggressive the policy, we are not going to find 11 million new jobs soon. So common sense suggests we should make some decisions about who should have the first crack: older people, who have already worked three or four decades at hard jobs? Or younger people, many just out of school, with fresh skills and ambitions?
The answer is obvious. Older people who would like to retire and would do so if they could afford it should get some help. The right step is to reduce, not increase, the full-benefits retirement age.

Digby adds,

When I was young, a long time ago, it was conventional wisdom that you wanted the oldsters to get out of the job market to make way for the youngsters. … But somewhere along the line it became an article of faith that anyone who didn’t want to work until they dropped dead was a spoiled parasite who expected young people to keep them in style by working 20 hour days.

The retirement age is too damn high! It should be 62 at most. 55 would be better and we could do that if we weren’t still paying for a military to keep the Soviet Union at bay. If affluent members of the DC elite want towork even longer, no one is stopping them. Of course, a lot of us have been wishing they would retire. I can think of a few pundits who have been writing the same column since the 70s.
Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
There are rumors that President Obama is going to ask for cuts in Social Security in his State of the Union speech. We have 4 weeks to stop him. People, we can stop this.
Tell The President: Stand Up To The Hostage-Takers! No Social Security Cuts
Last week in Obama to blink first on Social Security, Robert Kuttner wrote that the President, in his coming State of the Union speech, might follow up on the recommendations of his deficit commission by announcing a plan to cut Social Security.
If this happens it would be an utter disaster for Americans and for the future of American politics.
Millions of elderly people now and in the future absolutely depend on Social Security as the only thing keeping them from eating cat food because they can afford nothing else. On top of that, Social Security is the bedrock of people’s faith in and understanding of government. Politically, the Social Security program is the very symbol of what the Democrats Party is and does. If the Democratic Party doesn’t represent protecting Social Security then it represents nothing.
If these rumors are true we owe it to those elderly people now and in the future to do what we can to head this off. We owe it to the idea of democratic government. And we owe it to the President to stop him from listening to bad advice from advisors who are so out of touch with the American people! There is an elite concensus in DC, created by expert Wall Street propagandists, that it is “responsible” to cut Social Security, and it is just wrong. It is not a correct analysis, and it is the morally wrong thing to do because so many people depend on Social Security. If anything the program needs to be expanded and increased because that is what would help the greatest number of people.
We CAN stop this if we mobilize. We must spend the next month preventing this from happening. We shouldn’t assume that is is out of our control. We should assume that we have it in our power to do something. The vast majority of Democrats don’t want this to happen. Heck, even most Republican don’t want this to happen. Cutting Social Security would harm everyone (except Wall Street), including the President.
People, we can stop this. We have to mobilize to stop it. Don’t assume that the President is going to do it — we have to show up and make him not do it! Get engaged in the fight. Do not succumb to cynicism. Go out there and ask the president not to do this. Show up!
Action: Tell The President: Stand Up To The Hostage-Takers! No Social Security Cuts
Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.