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Social Security

The People Are With Us

May 4, 2014 Josh Sager, www.theprogressivecynic.com , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
It is a persistent belief among many in the political and media establishments that the United States is a “center-right nation” which finds progressives to be far too liberal for mainstream positions of power. If you look purely at electoral outcomes, those who assert this appear to have a fairly strong point. The last several decades of federal politics have been dominated by center-right policies and truly left wing politicians have been largely marginalized (ex. Bernie Sanders). Even Clinton and Obama—the last two Democratic presidents who, theoretically, should be leftists—are corporate-friendly moderates who have triangulated during negotiations with Republicans to pass center-right policy compromises (ex. Obama’s Heritage Foundation inspired ACAor the Clinton Defense of Marriage Act compromise). While electoral results support the idea of a center-right USA, looking beyond electoral politics—which involve a mixture of policy choices, party politics, fundraising, and propaganda—and focusing purely upon raw policy preferences, leaves us with an entirely different picture -- the people are progressive and leaning left on almost all critical issues.

The Battle For Social Security Is Not Over

March 23, 2014 Steven Rosenfeld, www.alternet.org , ,
Progressive organizersand blue-leaning media have been declaring victory because the Obama White House has dropped its push for using a new cost-of-living formula that would cut into future increases in monthly Social Security benefits. Articles such this detailed retelling from In These Times proclaim that Social Security was "saved,” when in fact, the formula for future Social Security benefits is unchanged, and is still insufficient for the retiring baby boom generation. Meanwhile, glee over the White House’s reversal eclipses the harsh truth that Obama’s proposed 2015 budget would raise out-of-pocket costs for 50 million seniors—saving the government $60 billion—starting in 2018 by increasing Medicare deductibles, co-pays and premiums, and adding a surcharge if people buy supplemental insurance coverage.

Media Misplaces Credit For Movement Success

February 24, 2014 Dean Baker www.alternet.org
The Washington Post gets infuriated at the thought that anyone who doesn't have lots of money could affect political outcomes in the United States. Hence it was quick to run a piece with the headline: "Liberals didn't kill Obama's Social Security cuts: Republicans did." The reference is to President Obama's decision to remove the proposal to reduce the annual cost of living adjustment to Social Security benefits. The proposal would have reduced benefits by roughly 0.3 percentage points annually against current law. This cut is cumulative so that after ten years it implies a cut of roughly 3.0 percent, after twenty years, 6.0 percent, and for someone who lives to collect benefits for thirty years the cut would be 9.0 percent. (Obama's proposal includes some offsets, so the actual cuts would be somewhat less, especially for the oldest elderly.)

Green Shadow Cabinet Responds To State Of The Union

January 30, 2014 Staff, www.greenshadowcabinet.us , , , , , , ,
It is astounding how much clear thinking you can find on the Internet criticizing President Obama's State of the Union address. It seems less people are fooled and more people are speaking out about the inadequacy of the speech and the over-the-top show-man-ship displayed in the made for TV presentation. The Green Shadow Cabinet has responded to the 2014 State of the Union address with a critique of the policies, priorities and omissions made by President Barack Obama on Tuesday night. The following articles represent an alternative set of principles and policies that acknowledge and address critical issues facing the United States and the world.

900 Weathiest Finished Paying Social Security Tax On Jan 2

January 5, 2014 Staff, www.rt.com , , ,
A small, elite group of US citizens has already met their 2014 financial obligation for Social Security two days into the New Year, and will no longer be required to contribute any of their income to the federal program. Nearly all working Americans will continue to pay the social security tax through the duration of 2014. The 900 wealthiest, however, have fulfilled their responsibility for the whole year on Thursday by earning $117,000 – the maximum total social security is allowed to take from an individual income each year - on the first and second days of the month. Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at the New School for Social Research, wrote that if everyone eligible paid all year long, “the Social security system would be solvent indefinitely and they still would be the richest and prettiest in all the land.”

Americans Want Improved Social Security & Medicare & Less Military Spending

November 22, 2013 Dave Lindorff, www.thiscantbehappening.net , , ,
A tectonic shift is occurring in the US body politic. Ignore the media-driven sideshow about the 2014 contest for control of the House or about the screwed-up Obamacare insurance-market website. The real political battle is over Social Security and Medicare, and there the story is a historic turn from fighting against Washington efforts to cut those programs to demanding that both be expanded. A coalition of progressive groups organizations, including of groups like the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, NOW, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Generations United, NARFE and SocialSecurity Works, last week protested outside the White House against a proposal, still included in the proposed Obama 2014 budget, to cut back on the inflation adjustment to Social Security, effectively assuring a gradual, but significant reduction in benefits in future years for elderly retirees and the disabled. Meanwhile, a small but growing group of US senators and representatives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent socialist from Vermont, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) and Sen. Bryan Shatz (D-HI), is calling for eliminating the cap on income subject to Social Security taxation, so that all Americans, including millionaires and billionaires, pay the full FICA tax on their income, a move which would effectively end any talk of the Social Security program “running out of money.”

Labor Fight Back: Time For Labor To Break From The Democrats

November 19, 2013 Staff, www.laborfightback.org , , , , ,
Not only is this a time to make fundamental changes -- such changes are long overdue! We're talking about labor and its allies having a meaningful voice in the political arena. And we're talking about labor mobilizing in the streets on a scale we haven't seen in decades. We believe that the AFL-CIO took positive action at its Los Angeles convention in calling for greater cohesion with our community partners. That is certainly needed. However, any proposed change in strategy that does not call for labor and its supporters to have real political clout misses the mark. And the same is true if there is not a call for periodic massive demonstrations, especially in the nation's capital. Consider our most pressing issues and how poorly labor has fared as a very junior part of the Democratic Party, a part relegated to the background. Is the Democratic Party really a party for labor and the working class? Has labor profited from its subordination to that party? Since the Democratic Party gets 70% of its funding from the big corporations, would it not be more accurate to describe it as a corporate party? And isn't it high time to put an end to a policy of supporting candidates who betray their promises to labor after an election has been held, either by agreeing to watered down and unacceptable compromises or by abandoning our issues altogether, which is what has happened to the Employee Free Choice Act?

Open Letter to MoveOn: Time To Change Course On Obamacare

November 19, 2013 Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org , , , ,
It is with great sadness that I watch you making last-gasp desperate attempts to save Obamacare and Obama’s reputation. You look foolish when you say that “Of course, it’s a good law” at the same time as your constituents see through the Obamacare illusion. The law is becoming less popular because people are beginning to see through the false partisan claims of Democrats. And worse, you are actually playing right into the Republican’s trap, really the trap of Wall Street and big business interests. It’s time for honesty. Obamacare is policy that has roots in the Nixon administration, was updated by the Heritage Foundation, a Right-wing think tank, and supported by people like Newt Gingrich. It was first put in place by Republican Governor Mitt Romney in Massachusetts (where it has not worked).

Time To Push For Expanded Social Security, Not Just Protest Cuts

November 17, 2013 Staff, www.ncpssm.org , ,
We are pleased to see people protesting the threatened cuts to Social Security. And, we are pleased that some are beginning to advocate for what is really needed, a significant increase in how much money Social Security recipients receive. The retirement system in the United States used to be a three-legged stool, but changes in the economy have destroyed two of those legs for the vast majority of seniors. There are no more pensions and most people cannot save enough for retirement. These changes are changes in the economy, not the fault of workers. That leaves the majority of seniors relying solely on Social Security, with its meager $12,000 annual income. This only ensures poverty retirement, not retirement security. Doubling the Social Security payments would not only lift millions out of poverty, it would relieve families of unfair economic burdens and would be a major stimulus to the economy since retirees would spend the additional money.

Bi-Partisans In DC Having Wrong Conversation On Social Security

November 11, 2013 Steven Rosenfeld, www.alternet.org , ,
A majority of Americans, especially women and people of color, will spend their final years living in poverty in coming decades unless Social Security is improved and expanded—not cut back as Republicans and President Obama seek—and there are many fair ways to accomplish that, experts told a congressional briefing last week. “Don’t listen to anyone inside the Beltway,” said longtime Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. She said she’s surveyed voters in every state and found Americans take a completely different view than Washington’s political leadership. “Real people are wildly in favor of Social Security, wildly supportive of it. And this is a voting issue in 2014.” “There is a retirement income crisis. It’s huge. Two-thirds of working Americans cannot maintain their standard of living in retirement—and that assumes they work until 65,” said Syracuse University’s Eric Kingson, co-director of Social Security Works, which convened the day-long session with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. “Somewhere in the discussion about Social Security we forget that its purpose is to assist the American people… The end is the kind of society we want; the kind of support we want.” Kingson and dozen other experts presented detailed plans on how Social Security can be modernized to better reflect real costs of living for the people it’s intended to help, from tens of millions of seniors, to students who lose a parent while in school.

Repubs and Dems Unite For Austerity

October 23, 2013 Shamus Cooke, www.counterpunch.org , , , ,
In practice, Obama’s neoliberalism is blatant: after bailing out the banks he continues to approve of the printing of thousands of billions of Federal Reserve dollars to give to the wealthy and big banks who are racking in record profits, while the jobs crisis is ignored and public services slashed on a state by state level without hope of a government bailout. Since Obama has been in office, a shocking 95 percent of income gains went to the richest 1%. This is not the blind hand of the free market, but government policy, which can be adjusted to reflect the priorities of working people. Obama dodges responsibility for his neoliberal policies by giving empty speeches about “hope” and whining about the very wealth inequality that he creates via policy. He gives speeches to labor unions about how it’s “unfair” that the rich just happen to be getting richer, while working people continue to suffer. Working people learned long ago to ignore Obama’s “progressive” blather, while the leaders of national unions drink in his words as if gulping from the Holy Grail.

AFL-CIO Warns Democrats Don’t Cut Social Security Or Medicare

October 21, 2013 Dave Jamieson, www.huffingtonpost.com , , ,
With fresh Capitol Hill budget battles on the horizon, the head of the leading labor federation planned to issue a blistering warning to unions' Democratic allies on Monday, saying the AFL-CIO would "never stop working" to end the political careers of Democrats who cut entitlement programs. "No politician … I don’t care the political party … will get away with cutting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. Don’t try it," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, according to prepared remarks for a speech in Las Vegas, Nev. "This warning goes double for Democrats," he said. "We will never forget. We will never forgive. And we will never stop working to end your career." The AFL-CIO has long opposed any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, and the labor federation has suggested in the past that it would consider pulling support from Democrats who help make those cuts happen. But Trumka's remarks on the issue Monday amounted to a far more aggressive threat: That the AFL-CIO would actively use its war chest to unseat Democrats on the other side of the issue.

The Real Goal Of The Shutdown: Cut Social Security, Medicare & Austerity

October 5, 2013 Glen Ford, www.blackagendareport.com , ,
What’s at stake in the partial “shutdown” of government? Certainly not Obamacare, which was never in danger. It’s all an exercise in drawing fake lines in the sandbox, so that the bipartisan business of gutting entitlement programs can recommence. Next stop: Grand Bargain junction. The government shutdown battle is more like a Civil War reenactment than the real thing. A face-saving bargain will soon be struck, returning 825,000 furloughed federal employees to their jobs at wages that have been frozen for the past two years – not by the Republicans, but on President Obama’s orders. The clock has been stuck with both hands on “austerity” since Obama came fully out of the closet as a GOP fellow-traveler following the 2010 midterm elections. From that moment on, Republican-imposed gridlock has been the only barrier to Obama’s long-sought Grand Bargain to eviscerate entitlement programs. When the current theatrics are over, Obamacare will remain intact and the president will be back on his ever-rightward stride. The GOP will take Obama up on his offer, earlier this year, to cut Social Security and will probably be offered other bits and pieces of the social safety net in the interest of “shared sacrifice” and domestic peace.

Get Ready To Fight ‘Grand Bargain’ To Avoid Shut Down & Default

October 5, 2013 Jon Queally, www.commondreams.org , , , ,
With plenty of evidence of Democrats' propensity to cave to Republican "hostage politics" in recent years, concerned citizens, progressive members of Congress, and advocacy groups were taking no chances on Thursday as they formed a "human-chain" outside the Capitol Building in Washington to declare their opposition to any cuts to vital social programs, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Amid an ongoing shutdown of the federal government, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus held a news conference and after joined hands with members of the Alliance for Retired Americans, Social Security Works and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare in order to protest the idea of a "Grand Bargain" between Democrats and Republicans that has been repeatedly floated over a series of budget battles in recent years.

Social Security Cuts Anger Retirees, Human Chain Across Nation

July 4, 2013 Bill Hughes, www.baltimorepostexaminer.com ,
Activists formed a human chain Tuesday at the Social Security Headquarters in Woodlawn, Baltimore to say “no” to cuts in benefits. The Obama-Biden administration put on the table “Chained CPI,” to appease some suspect the wirepullers on Wall Street. But activists say it will hurt folks on Social Security and aid the notoriously greedy 1 percent Gang. The plan’s purpose is to cut Social Security benefits by “letting inflation eat into annual cost-of-living increases.” One of the speakers at the rally was Fred D. Mason. He’s president of the Maryland State and D.C. AFL-CIO.
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