President Barack Obama endorsed an expansion of Social Security for the first time on Wednesday.
“We can’t afford to weaken Social Security,” he said during a speech on economic policy in Elkhart, Indiana. “We should be strengthening Social Security. And not only do we need to strengthen its long-term health, it’s time we finally made Social Security more generous, and increased its benefits so that today’s retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that they’ve earned.”
The increased benefits, he said, could be paid for “by asking the wealthiest Americans to contribute a little bit more. They can afford it. I can afford it.”
This was a far cry from Obama’s position on the program in late 2012, when his administration argued for reducing Social Security benefits by recalculating the way cost of living adjustments are made.
“President Obama’s evolution on Social Security, from at one time being open to cuts to calling for an expansion of benefits … is certainly welcome news, but not at all surprising,” said Alex Lawson, the executive director of Social Security Works, a nonprofit group that advocates for protecting and expanding the program.
Lawson’s organization has worked with lawmakers and other nonprofit organizations to oppose Obama’s proposed Social Security cuts and shift the conversation towards expansion. By the summer of 2014, a small group of Democratic caucus senators, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, started advocating for lifting Social Security’s payroll tax cap so wealthier people paid more into the system, and then increasing benefits to seniors. Polling by advocacy groups found broad support for expansion.
This idea became a central theme in Sanders’s presidential campaign. In the speech announcing his candidacy, the senator said that “instead of cutting Social Security, we’re going to expand Social Security benefits.”
“It has become impossible for elected officials to ignore the simple fact that Social Security is a solution and not a problem, and that the only thing wrong with it are that benefits are too low,” Lawson said.
In both 2008 and 2012, Obama explicitly campaigned on protecting the Social Security program and rejecting plans that would cut benefits. But shortly after re-election in 2012, the Obama Administration proposed re-calculating the way Social Security’s cost of living adjustments work.
The administration’s budget proposed using the so-called chained Consumer Price Index formula to calculate benefits instead, which would slow the rate of benefit increases in the future so as to reduce overall spending. Social Security Works estimated that under the chained CPI the average beneficiary who just started receiving benefits would receive a yearly benefit $653 lower after 10 years.
Then-White House spokesman Jay Carney defended the move, saying that the budget Obama put forward was “not his ideal budget,” but that it’s a “document that recognizes that to achieve a bipartisan solution to our budget challenges we need to make tough choices.”
Obama’s backtracking set off a furious reaction from seniors groups and progressive activists, who for the next few months mobilized their members to pressure Congress to reject the proposed change. By April 2013, 2.3 million Americans had signed petitions calling on the president to back off of chained CPI. The signatures were presented at a White House rally that featured Sanders, who vowed to “do everything in my power to block President Obama’s proposal to cut benefits for Social Security recipients through a chained consumer price index.”
The senator mobilized a wide coalition or organizations, including veterans, women’s rights groups, and labor unions to oppose chained CPI.
Under this intense activist pressure, the White House was unable to convince its own allies in Congress that this change was worth the political costs. The next year, the chained CPI was quietly dropped from Obama’s budget proposal.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s evolution on the issue could also be traced to Sanders. Clinton initially shied away from the question of expanding the program, issuing only noncommittal statements on the issue. But after being directly challenged on the Social Security program this past February by the Sanders campaign, Clinton tweeted, “As always, I’ll defend it, & I’ll expand it.”
.@BernieSanders I won't cut Social Security. As always, I'll defend it, & I'll expand it. Enough false innuendos. https://t.co/hBeTCQj6Fv -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 6, 2016
Her campaign website features a pledge to expand the program “for those who need it most,” although it does not outline specific legislation as Sanders does.
Obama didn’t explain his reversal. But as a candidate in the 2008 presidential campaign, he said: “In my two decades of public service to this country, I have seen time and time again that real change doesn’t begin in the halls of Washington, but on the streets of America. It doesn’t happen from the top-down, it happens from the bottom-up.”
Top photo: Obama speaking at a high school in Elkhart, Ind., on Wednesday.
To say Hillary’s website does not embrace protecting SS is inaccurate see website
Hillary Rodham Clinton
“My plan will strengthen Medicare by reducing health care costs, enhance and protect Social Security for future generations by asking the wealthiest to contribute more, and expand benefits for widows and those who took time out of the paid workforce to care for a child or sick family member. I’ll fight attempts to privatize or weaken these ”
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Jan 6, 2016
Ask a SSA or food stamp recipient: Social Security benefits have already been effectively cut, as have food stamps benefits. Recipients of both social services state that internal departmental regulations have been recalculating benefits amounts for the past few years, and reduced benefit awards are being made across the board.
Either the Oval Office has been misinformed of what the Health and Human Services Director (Social Security) and Department of Agriculture Director (food stamps) are doing internally, or this is pure misinformation.
Has to do with the change in how cost of living was/is calculated. Instead of focusing on stuff like food, etc. Because godforbid people are able to eat something other than subsidized corn derivative processed foods and diabetes medications too often. They might revolt.
The true is: Obama move forward in cutting SSS Insurance for 2016. He did it though the back door by tying the cut into his Obamacare package and the so called CPI published by the Labor Department. The yearly annual cost of living raise was cut from my benefits based on a statement from the Consumer Price Index. The CPI claimed there was no cost living during 2015. What a Joke. Just ask everyone going through the check counter at food stores. Now, if he had not cut the cost of living increase out of our Social Security Earned & Pay for Insurance Benefits. My standard of living would have stayed the same and I have even been able to afford an supplement medical insurance premium to cover cost of care that is not covered by medicare. Only with pressure from BERNIE SANDERS and Other CONCERNED Parties; is Obama on last leg of his administration thinking about rethinking his decision to cut social Security Benefits. It’s too late for 2016 and I am not looking forward to what happens next year allocation.
Obama – on one side of his mouth speaks to American College Students, telling them not to try to DO TOO MUCH at one time, that things change in increments, and then on the other side of his mouth, he tells Americans that nothing really changes unless people get out into the streets and demand that changes happen. This MAN is Confused, and messed up by all the time spent listening to voices who insist he do things in increments. He is not a Leader. He is a Follower. Whatever is in his ear, he adheres to. If Podesta tells him he cut off his nose when he spoke out against Lobbyists having too much power, then he stops focusing on lobbyists and their power. The man has no idea of what integrity and standing firm on a position is. He wants to push through trade agreements that have no value built into them for the actual PEOPLE of our nation – but plenty of value in giving Corporate Leaders even more power than they already have. Has he lost his mind?
Obama hasn’t lost his mind. He recognizes that the possibility of Trump winning in November is real. He will soft peddle the hot topics until the election results are known, THEN he will act as his corporate owners demand. Social Security will be butchered, and TPP will be passed, and any non-white person can forget about ever running for the White House once the voters learn what Obama has done to them.
Agreed. Good on him that he finally got his head straight on the right position. But why did it have to take several years of strenuous arm-twisting to get him to do it?
I agree. A real leader doesn’t have to be pushed. A real leader is out in front, pulling. So much for hope & change. Ha!
Obama, the man the establishment knew would do their bidding, bought and paid for, almost eight years ago.
And still the willfully blind remain blind, and are ready to place in office the latest Great Pretender, Hillary, who incidentally was bought and paid for, several times, all the way back to when her husband Slick Willie, was decimating the jobs in America, starting with NAFA, and Hillary is primed by her corporate owners to sneak the TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PARTNERSHIP, past us.
Way to go, America.
“Clinton tweeted, “As always, I’ll defend (Social Security), & I’ll expand it.”
Until I’m elected, and then I’ll work to cut it, just like the current Dissembler-in-Chief.
TONIGHT:
At 5PM PST – A LIVE Stream: Bernie Sanders Concert / Rally in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, CA – Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1eMbenv478
This will be YUGE! Senator Sanders’ and Jane Sanders’ kids & grandkids! A WHOPPER FOR SURE!
COULD BE 50,000+ attending!
Grass-roots activism on this was happening long before Bernie Sanders happened and he is nowhere near as relevant to changes in the positions of prominent moderate Democrats as this headline implies. He’s not ad relevant ad *I* am. http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/obama-s-proposal-to-expand-social-security-benefits-is-particularly-needed-by-marginalized-populations
The system as it is now also needs some tweaking. When S.S. recipients are denied a cost of living adjustment while the cost of living keeps increasing it is demeaning and an affront to the intelligence of seniors. The increase in the cost of drugs alone warrants an increase in benefits. While Congress continues to receive annual raises no matter what the state of the economy (I was told it is the Law) it is downright thoughtless to deny those who have worked all of their lives to supply Congress with their benefits. It is also thoughtless to refer to S.S. as something that is just a handout (entitlement) and not something that has been earned. If the money paid into S.S. over the years had been accounted for by itself instead of making it a nice place to ‘borrow’ (actually, stealing as it is never paid back) whenever it suits whomever is in charge it would have been solvent far longer than it is now.
Yesterday I noticed that hamburger (a luxury for seniors) is now $4 a pound. I have to assume that this fact went entirely unnoticed by all of Congress and especially by the President but you better believe that seniors are completely aware of it as it flies in the face of empty rhetoric of ‘no cost of living change this year.’
Maybe the Ponzi scheme should finally be stopped altogether…
And global warming is a hoax?
The problem they are running into is that they used Social Security funds to hide budget deficit machinations for years. Essentially, Social Security loaned the money to the Federal Government at low interest. Now the situation is reversed and they will start paying back money into the Social Security fund, which is a double whammy. Paying back Social Security is a drain on the general coffers making the deficit increase.
Some of this could be fixed with helicopter money. Some of it will be fixed by changing the accounting gimmicks used to hide the true deficit amount.
The deficit only matters when people in Washington want it to.
“for those who need it most,”
For those who aren’t fluent in Clintonese, the presumptuous Presidentress Wannabe means them in the 1% class and above,
not the least of which are her cronies, The Walmartian Waltons
Obama and Clinton are attempting to defeat their Sanders enemies by leading them. After election, they will lead Sanders supporters off a cliff. We are not fooled. Bernie or bust.
This article says the small group of Democratic caucus senators was “led by Sen. Bernie Sanders,” but the link supporting that claim (from “started advocating” above) actually states that the idea was “first put forward by Dem Senator Mark Begich of Alaska,” and supports *that* claim with a link to a 2012 story about a bill being introduced by Begich. Sanders isn’t mentioned at all in that 2012 story, and is mentioned only in passing in the 2014 story. There’s no evidence there to support the claim that the initial effort was “led” by Sanders at all.
The general concept here — that Sanders’ campaign has provided political cover for Obama to take a more liberal position on social security — is fair. Sanders is right when he says that change happens from the bottom up. So why inflate things unnecessarily? Let’s stick to the facts, Zaid.
Good stuff here at the Intercept; always good stuff-
Barack and Hillary are giving lip service to expanding Social Security.
These shills for the 1% have no deep convictions that seniors on Social Security shouldn’t starve; they’re just responding to public outrage.
Even Hillary can’t say “expand Social Security” without weasel words: “for those who need it most”. Just like she can’t say she opposes the TPP without saying “in its present form”.
Don’t be fooled by lying 1% shills! Hillary (and the other enemies of the 99%) will NEVER get my votes!
Exactly! Remember G W Bush ran on a green platform to capture carbon just to defang Al Gore’s famous environmental stance, only to “change his mind” two WEEKS after election and renegging on his carbon capture promise.
DON’T BE FOOLED AGAIN!
The worthless rich could not prevent the existence of Social Security but they will also never go away, they will constantly be waiting, planning, bribing, corrupting, till the day they either roll back what we have or kill us all. But it will not work, because every single capitalist knows there are circumstances in which they and their family will be the ones who will need social security. The economics of it is proven, but to the worthless rich it isn’t about economics, it’s about them wanting to own you.
I agree with no COLA’s after ten years of getting checks. By then, these retirees have taken more out of what they have put in. It’s more fair than raising the retirement age. Also, the spousal benefits need to go the way of the horse and buggy. It only helps women married to wealthy men who never worked.
“It only helps women married to wealthy men who never worked.”
By “never worked”, do you mean the endless unpaid, excruciatingly difficult and frequently isolating work that women have traditionally been subjected to? Cooking, cleaning, child rearing, elder care, planning, etc. have rarely been paid in the context of patriarchal industrial capitalism, but that certainly does not mean that it is not work. You would seek to punish women for widespread job discrimination as well, apparently (white women are still paid 78cents to the man’s dollar, and that number goes way down for women of color). Also, women are subjected to lower pensions (when there are pensions at all) due to job force discrimination. Personally, I have had to leave many jobs due to discrimination (less pay and forced hourly cuts while working circles around the men, sexual assault by male bosses and co-workers in the workplace, a boss who tried to rape me and did rape a coworker, etc.). It’s an extremely common phenomenon for women to be forced out of jobs while men stay and stay, accruing fat pensions and receiving regular raises. Your argument is discriminatory against women who for once in their lives should be able to have peace of mind after a lifetime of hard work, job insecurity, and unfair treatment .
Are you a complete moron? This isn’t a negotiation. There is no contraction here just an expansion. Stop doing the math unless you’re willing to do it for the DOD
Are you kidding? So if someone retires at 66, then at 76 they should get no more COLAs no matter the rate of inflation. Then if they live into their 90s they will be very VERY poor at a time of life when they have other stresses of age and poor health.
The people who draw checks for more than 10 years are balanced out by people who die before they collect 10 years or sometimes anything. That’s fair and produces social SECURITY for all of us. Those who die do not need the checks and collect less than they put in, those who live do need it and collect more. Good system.
The spousal benefits kept my mother alive until she hit 65 when she could take her own retirement. I resent your comment in the extreme. She did the math and knew that her primary benefit, left untouched, would beat the one left when my father had died 25 years earlier. But if she didn’t get the larger benefit at 65, she was smart enough to know that she wouldn’t make it past 10 years. Also your crack about stopping COLAs after ten years is so inhumane that I don’t want to touch it. I bet you’re a man with a lower life expectancy. You certainly can’t be expecting to survive more than 10 years after you stop working.
For the first time ever, Congress has dipped into Social Security Retirement to shore up Social Security Disability. SSD is growing fast and is ripe with fraud. It’s not fair to senior citizens who have been working and paying in 30 – 40 years. All the rich combind don’t have enough money to shore up Social Security.
The fraud has been present for years, but consistently gets worse each year. The Social Security Administration is the enabler in the incestual relationship between the corrupt Administrative Law Judges and attorney representatives. Fraudulent decisions are made on a daily basis by both groups, with the occasional assistance of corrupt psychologists who somehow come up with an IQ of 49 or less on each claimant they test who are represented by one of these crooked attorneys.
Congress is well aware of the fraud, as senate hearings have exposed this fraud to the public. It remains to be seen if there is an honest effort to curb it. Since much of congress consists of attorneys, you can probably guess how I’m betting.
Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions about the disability program, e.g., that one can get benefits for drug or alcohol addiction. Of course, the conservatives love to promote this bullshit.
He took money out of Social Security Retirement to shore up Social Security Disability for the first time ever. Social Security Disability is growing fast and is ripe with fraud. This isn’t fair to Seniors who paid in for 30 – 40 years. Besides, the rich don’t have enough money to cover Washington’s expenditures.
I suspect that if there is rampant fraud in the Social Security system then it is more pronounced in the SSI program which lately seems to have taken on a lot of people that would probably have, in a more just society, received more appropriate safety-net benefits (what in America is known as ‘welfare’). Is it fair to treat people who’ve paid fully into the Social Security system and then become disabled the same as people who’ve not? If there is fraud it’d probably do is well as a society to explore why and what’s broken, where the gaps are, and how we can more humanely approach them. Also I think you’re fundamentally misunderstanding how Social Security works in the first place, but for that, you have web search engines that could explain it more thoroughly than I can in a brief reply here.
You are so wrong. With a couple of minor exceptions, the disability requirements for SSDI and SSI are the same. The majority of the fraud consists of collusion between attorney representatives and Administrative Law Judges. The major incentive for these two parties to commit fraud lies within the SSDI decisions, as the attorney can collect up to approximately $6,000 for a favorable decision, ensuring a bigger payoff in the kickback to the judge.
SSI was taken over by the SSA from the states on 01/01/74. You do realize that no one gets rich from receiving disability, I hope. Since SSI eligibility to file is based on Income and Resources, as opposed to past earnings for SSDI claimants, the disparity in monthly checks becomes obvious. And yes, there are millionaires collecting monthly disability checks. I’m not arguing that they are not entitled to do so, but simply pointing out SSI payments are based on a flat rate. As I have commented before, congress and the DOJ are well aware of the collusion and fraud, but seem to be in no hurry to do anything about it. Surprise, surprise.
I should have noted that one does not have to be an attorney to represent a disability claimant, but I am unaware of any non-attorney being accused of the aforementioned fraud.
This is such good news! I have paid into Social Security all of my working life and in about 4 years I plan to retire.This has been a big concern for me.It is one of many reasons I am a Bernie Sanders supporter:)
2 more Sanders rallies, today, in Cali – THEY WILL BE BLOCKED BY MASS MEDIA! The corporate establishment wing of the Democratic party will literally hate me for this PSA, so here goes: (In the vein of Senator Sanders, “So, I’ll do it anyway!” lol)
1PM PST Fairfield, CA – here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b96nohcqDJA
7PM PST Santa Rosa, CA – here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxWSy_NNxz8
It was the same with Bill Clinton. He was also planning to put SS on the chopping block too, but got embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky affair so he didn’t have the political capital to push it through. Also, let us not forget that corporate Democrats have been on board the cut SS train since they supported raising he retirement age.
The little prick waits until hes leaving office
There is an easy way to fix this issue. Instead of just picking on the rich folks, who provide jobs for the rest of us, we should tax all income earning citizens. And not just the first 125,0000 bucks for SS. BUT ALL INCOME MADE. That would bring in much more needed cash to improve SS,& SSD. Why did they put a cap on the first$125,0000 anyway? It’s stupid. Tax a person’s entire pay and give the portion that is for SS a huge boost. Problem solved
Um, it’s the rich folks who aren’t paying their fair share of FICA. Poor income earning citizens pay, even when it means they don’t have enough to live on.
SS contributions rates should rise with income and not be capped at $14k what ever your income
“…rich folks, who provide jobs for the rest of us…”
So if there were no multi-millionaires, the rest of us would have nothing to do? Would you like to bet your trickle-down salary on that?
So Sander’s ideas are not so far fetched after all. It seems like Obama is suddenly calling for free 2 year college and now higher benefits for our elderly. Obama is obviously blurring the lines between Clinton and Sanders stance on change. Sanders has created waves. Big waves. I say to Democrats : ” what you pretend to be, be realy ” Nominate the dude will ya. Sanders represents smart thoughtful fair ideas. And he only got this far by refusing to be altered by the will of corperate and banking thugs.
Regrettably, since the beginning of his third year, term in office, our President Obama has become THE classic actor, who “talks the talk”, but virtually never, “has been able to walk the walk”. Notwithstanding, that a hostile Congress has blocked his every move, like we were at a soccer match; instead of seriously going about the task of governing an empire, properly.
Like it or not, (you have your rights), the United States of America can be a “Family” of states, rather than the current tyranny of corporate hegemony.. A “Family” has its its “relatives” who, together, combat climate change with a common sense tax on carbon, that will fuel our move to a fossil fuel-free, nuclear-free, economy. Not to do so is NOT COOL!
The neocons and the tea party factions have yet to offer-up, a single bill in six-years that would without doubt, help the poor, disabled or the unemployed who want to work. And work means meaningful work, fixing our crumbling infrastructure, among dozens of other common sensical endeavors that make Life a joy to live. A decent pay and benefits, CAN BE DONE, dammit. The “rich”, seen as “job creators”, is a laughable con, lol!
Back-off, I say to you bankster forces of economic oppression. You can’t have it all – and you won’t. The marches of the 99% are coming to an un-rigged election polling place near to all of us, if we want it to be.
Obama is one of the most erratic presidents I have ever watched. Degreed, smooth, humorous, handsome, ostensibly knowledgeable – and absolutely clueless about what actual people want.
Being in the talented tenth evidently cuts you off from reality. Harvard and all, you see. Which only goes to show that CLASS outweighs skin color.
We need to have a critical conversation about social security and Medicare because it’s not socially just to force people to pay 7-8% of their income in FICA taxes and then be forced to live at poverty wages for the last 20-30 years of their lives. As someone who paid FICA for years and then had to go on social security due to a major disability, I can tell you there are many flaws in the system. Since I was originally a high wage professional, I get higher monthly payments than most but it’s barely anything to live on. Without enough to be able to afford a place of
For funding: 1) get rid of the income cap on Social Security tax; 2) don’t pay benefits to rich people who don’t need the money; and 3) if more funding is needed, take it from the military budget.
Next!
ditto
ditto
ditto
Americans first.
Speaking as someone who is now drawing Social Security:
1. Agreed
2. Patently unfair. Part of the concept of social justice is the notion of shared expense and shared benefit. We already have too many aspects of our society in which the rich and poor are dis-incentivized from considering themselves fellow citizens. The last thing we need is to add to that.
3. The discourse on funding is hopelessly politicized and based entirely on ignorance. Social Security as it was set up, and as it is run in almost every advanced country, is self-funded. Since the initiation of the program in the US, increases in life expectancy have far outstripped the increases in the tax rate. The tax rate should be tied to life expectancy and inflation, but it is not. So because of the reluctance of the population and employers to adequately fund the program, and the inability of politicians to behave like adults, the program is running out of money. Simply taking the shortfall from other sources will eventually result in inadequate funding for education, infrastructure, medical research, and other legitimate government programs that are essential to the functioning of our nation. (Not that I disagree with the idea of halving the DoD budget. But I would use the money for infrastructure and non-military research.)
I agree with your comment except for-
“the program is running out of money”
The SS Trust has over $3,000,000,000,000 banked.
The corporatists never want to pay that money back to the American workers who overpaid in taxes to cover future annual shortfalls.
Until every penny of what was overpaid has been paid back, saying SS is running out of money just isn’t accurate, and feeds into the agenda of those who opposed SS from the beginning.
We can talk about long term solvency, or the disability funding shortfall… but as a matter of fact and integrity, we shouldn’t do either of those things with anyone who pretends the money in the Trust belongs to the government rather than the workers.
I’m guessing we’re on the same page there, but I wanted to stress the point for clarity.
Number 2 is also called ‘means testing’. It’s the fastest way to get a large part of the population to stop supporting Social Security because it will label it as a program only for the poor. And we’ve all seen what happens to programs that are labeled such.
See also TallyHoGazehound’s comment below:
If people contribute to SS they should also receive benefits once they reach the designated age. Period.
Yes, means testing is an insidious idea which most people think is a good idea, but actually undermines the program. Hillary Clinton’s explains her opposition to Bernie Sanders tuition-free college idea because she does not want to support free college for Donald Trump’s children. Ignorant people would find that argument reasonable.
Corporate Democrats favor means testing because it allows them to masquerade as the voice of the people; against people of privilege, in other words ostensibly against the interests of their donors.
Social Security has to pay benefits to everyone that pays into the system, otherwise it isn’t fair, and if it isn’t fair then it’s easier to attack, which is what the Conservatives want. Therefore, pay the benefits to everyone even the rich.
1. Most definitely.
2. Not fair, but people could opt out.
3. The system should be self-sustainable, more vision is needed to make it work.
Expand SS “for those who need it most” doesn’t sound like a full throated endorsement of the expansion. It sounds like an escape hatch which can be defined however one pleases whenever one pleases.
Amazing what some public profile will do to alter a weak politicians mind. Thanks to Bernie and others with a soul, he’s swayed both Obama and Clinton. So who’s the leader and who are the followers here?
#flipflopclinton #flipflopobama
I guess the ruling classes (and wall st) they both represent will have to extract extra cash from the poor peasants some other way. This slight of hand didn’t work out.
Barry and Hillary haven’t been swayed. They’ve only calculated that it’s best to play along with empty words on the subject until November 7th.
Where are we?
Obama pacified the populace, so it wouldn’t find common ground in ’08 and revolt against the looting ruling class. And now the American people are neutered and subdued by Big Brother watching them, accustomed permanently to begging for mere crumbs of progress in the consumerist shadow of a psychologically oppressive militarist/corporatist status quo.
Bernie Sanders represents the embers of an already-impotent rebellion, but even he is being used by the establishment as false hope to diffuse the stubborn frustrations of liberals – and he has no chance of the system granting him the nomination. They’ll take the braindead Zionist Joe Biden before him.
The showman Trump is simply the establishment’s way of giving false hope to the right-wing working class, and making Clinton look to Democrats better than the extremely dangerous crony-capitalist warmonger that she is.
The macho caricature Trump, close friend of the Clintons, is in on the ruling class’ game; so is Hillary, of course; so is the actor Obama, currently exuding his sporadic and typically vague promises from his butt.
We are disenfranchised, mentally and practically. Artfully, even. That’s where we are.
If you don’t think so, congratulations, I guess…
You’re either too rich or too deluded to know better. Or both.
once the population is presented with a new DOI & Constitution, the people of the US will begin doing a 180. It just needs drafting of by and for.
Beginning with a list of grievances and deservances.
In my opinion, unifying a deliberately distracted society that is constantly kept politically indifferent or divided by design is a very tall order. Especially after Obama, who appeared initially to have real passion and unifying depth – and whose subsequent betrayal of the sincerely heartfelt values that propelled his rise resulted in an understandable but hopeless ennui that has unnerved and rendered trivial many previously-effective activists and visionaries.
Translation of Obama’s remark: “I refuse to do anything of any significance.”
Translation of Obama’s remarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmzsWxPLIOo
great article
#feelthebern
#bernieorbust
What a disappoint this guy has been. Other than being the first Black President, and sure, steering the economy from the edge of the cliff, I’m not sure what he did that brought anybody together. I believe Helen Thomas called him a coward. Exactly how I feel.
Bernie or Bust!!
Recently the press has been full of tripe about his legacy. I’ll tell you what it is: Barack Obama has convincingly demonstrated that a black man can be just as bad a president as a white man.
That is another, albeit unintended, aspect of racial equality.
Oh, and if the past two election cycles were not enough, we are now asked to elect Hillary because she is a woman. (See numerous Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem quotes.) Strange that nobody says we should have a Jewish president, so vote for Bernie. . .
As for myself, it happens that the candidate I support is both female and Jewish: Jill Stein, of the Greens. It must be frustrating to all the hard core democrats that they cannot accuse us Greens of sexism!
We may have a broken link at the Chico Ralley. Here’s another that does work! Sorry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEghrytYoTE
The parents of all the young persons in America need to vote for the future of their children, not themselves, their children. AND THAT FUTURE IS BERNIE SANDERS.
and IF hillary is the chosen candydate, a BERNIE WRITE-IN is good because Bernie is good for America and because people need to speak their voice AGAINST ALL ODDS.
Obama’s evolution? Is the author serious?
The term “evolution” refers to the gradual transition from one thing to another. This more than implies that Obama has had a change of heart or an epiphany on the subject of social security.
That is false. Obama is a proven liar and his words on the p0rogram should have no more credibility now than they did the last time he flip flopped on the issue.
Obama evolved my ass. He’s posturing as a compassionate Democrats while he works tirelessly behind the scenes to get his magnum opus trade agenda on track, thereby selling out everything the Democrat party once stood for.
Whether he’s trying to make his administration appear more populist for his own ends or those of Hillary, one thing is certain – has has not evolved. He just shape-shifted.
Great! Senator Sanders begins a rally in a few in Chico, CA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4psc0q8a0g He’ll be in Fairfield, tomorrow at 2PM PST.
I’m disabled and at 70, finally, after a knockdown, dragged-out fight, wth the Department of Education and (an unnecessary) sub-contractor, my 30-year old, $5-figure$ student debt, had all but $3-grand left when the stroke hit. That was six-years ago. I still have one more year to go before I am FREEELEEEE!!!! (That’s when the three-year “debt probation” that the DOE imposed upon me (us “untrustworthy” stroke survivors, you know) will have been completely forgiven! If in that three-year period, I made anymore than my starvation SS check, I am to understand that all debt and accrued interest would be due, Stroke or not! Point is:
Sanders Rocks!
Clinton-2? – Please! Dammit. Not again!
“The Donald” as Bernie likes to say – A casino owner in the Whitehouse has a certain cynical ring , for sure! If I had the money and just a little help, I think it’s time for a new horizon. You have to win, BERNIE!
Yes, we can. Yes, we can.
If Hillary gets in she may not mess with CPI type cuts and could even slightly expand benefits, but we would have to be stupid to not understand whether she or Trump gets in that their play will be to privatize it
The thieves that run these two corrupt parties have been salivating for decades over the thought of getting their grubby hands on Social Security as there is just too much there to steal.
When they privatize it they totally have us because then everyone is tied into their pyramid scheme. They already got their hands on it under President Reagan when they moved to include it in the budget, so they could fund tax cuts to the rich, and never ending Military Industrial Complex exponential spending.
Well said.
Oh yes, Clinton will most certainly privatize social security. Look what Rahm Emanuel is doing to Chicago. Privatizing everything from parking meters to transportation. He and his good personal friend Rauner, our governor, will succeed in breaking our schools and teachers union this year, so Goldman Sachs can expand their Charter schools. Of course, now the TSA in Chicago is suddenly broken… no surprise, Rahm has privatization plans all drawn up. Now, when the taxes are collected they go straight to the corporate bank accounts instead of the city and everyone will be part time minimum wage employees, with no benefits. Hell, he is even outsourcing city jobs overseas. I voted for Obama, and I hate to say it… but Obama, Clinton, and Emanuel are 3 peas in a Goldman Sachs pod. They won’t stop until they control it all.
From the hinterlands of southern Illinois, I applaud you. When Emanuel shut down the 50 schools, he showed his true self. Rauner is Scott Walker all over again. He has cut the social programs and caused great harm to the middle class and poverty stricken, but I have yet to see one example of how his rich buddies have suffered. Not holding my breath.
The entire banking system was cartelized for the most thieving pathocrats in history. Jefferson forewarned us that private central banksterism would be more dangerous than any standing army, yet these racketeers are feudalizing us into serfdom without hardly a peep;
This faith-based gangsterism has made us believe globalization would be possible without us subsidizing our own demise via outsourcing GDP for bankster debt-money. We have been convinced that austerity during economic contraction will reduce rather than increase debt. We even subsidize the contracted technologies to automate us into redundancies. Add mercantilistic trade arbitrage with which we compete against our own subsidies via recycled imports of transnationals
Now we get to compete against mass incarceration
via a farcical drug war from which an insourcing counterpart that permits the transnationalists to contract convict labor. In both cases, the neoliberal paradigm permits more debt as nations are squeezed between the monopoly leverage of first-world privilege and inverted tariffs that protect globalists from the developed nation outlays for production.
All roads lead to neofeudal serfdom via deficits, moral-hazard socialism, tax-evasion welfare of royalists, austerity to perpetrate the LBO strategy of corporate raiders for takeover privatizations and asset-stripping, disaster
capitalism when bubble fraud engenders crisis-opportunism, and gutting the retail economy of its revenue base. This will continue to be ignored by the neoliberal duopoly who paint us as profligate spenders who must sacrifice social outlays and accept the inherently fraudulent private-public partnerships . Having ‘the’ reserve currency is forgotten as the hucksters pretend we could become insolvent. Until we remove these bankster parasites, they can monetize SS until the revenue base returns. QE for the retail economy.
you have a marvelous understanding of the symptoms of the rothchild currency con as it is playing out amongst populations, like a tornado- blocking and destroying good relationships and fair equity.
?? The US bubble economy is fundamentally insolvent and the hucksters are going to try to get SS to buy and support 1% asset prices, especially stocks and bonds imo.
In other words make turn SS into an annuity and the equivalent of a QE, yes? (They will then sell already overpriced assets which plays into their forever rising prices which they will proclaim as a gain in value but in real time translates to borrow debt and less affordable.)
Ummm, you might want to brush up on your knowledge of feudalism and what it actually was.
Do you need a break from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?
#feelthebern online concert for Bernie Sanders —
Future Jame’s remix of lifecouldbeadream
https://soundcloud.com/jamesasilo/lifecouldbeadream#t=0:00
Do you have family in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, North & South Dakota? Call and remind them to vote June 7th!
“In my two decades of public service to this country, I have seen time and time again that real change doesn’t begin in the halls of Washington, but on the streets of America. It doesn’t happen from the top-down, it happens from the bottom-up.”
That’s quite a cop out from arguably the leader of the free world and certainly the leader of one of its most powerful countries.
One would think the President of the United States would effect *SOME* change from the top down rather than openly acknowledging he can only jump aboard after the popular groundswell.
Or was it the masses who endorsed Wall Street bailouts, corporate tax giveaways, free-trade agreements, endless wars, etc.?
You got it right. Thanks
It shows what these politicians are. They are gate keepers for big miney interests. They keep good legislation from happening to make sure their patrons are paid off first with our tax $. Then they keep doing this to extort money from these big money interests in z vicious quid pro quo scam. All the while neglecting the people of this nation…..who are paying all of these taxes. Something has got to give.
Obama said it himself, that he likes to lead from the rear. Somewhat like generals who set up their headquarters far from the front. The troops do the fighting and dying, and the generals bask in the glory of victory or heroic defeat.
About the only good thing I’ve heard from the Obama administration is Wall St protector Eric Holder stating Edward Snowden performed a public service to our country.
Otherwise the Obama Whitehouse has been overrun by Wall St and Google.
Bernie Sanders is the only logical consistent candidate.
Does it effect social security payments received by the mentally ill or does it only pertain to retirement?
I’m curious. Why would you just refer to the mentally ill?
It affects all individuals receiving Social Security Disability payments as well (I.e., mental and physical disabilities).
Indeed it does. As a retired Social Security Disability Hearings Officer, I was curious about the wording.
Warning. For mature audiences only..
Social Security is a realtime recirculation system. It is NOT an investment system. If you are paying into social security, it is NOT an investment. It is a payout to those receiving social security. Retirement funds are investments, social security is not.
Making social security any type of investment would be a crime against humanity and a complete fraud. If you do not understand the difference between the circulation economy and the valuation economy then you are they typical wallstreet-go-alonger victim of a criminal ponzi private federal reserve currency printing system.
The current currency system in the US is a fraud. (There is a better system in planning and the current rothshild system in play will pay armies to kill a replacement system because the rothchild system creates wealth and poverty by falsifying valuations.)
The 1% live on false valuations which values are supported by
> draining the circulation system
> robbing people of return on productivity
> placing people into ever increasing debt
> and lowering the fed rsrv interest rate
The mechanism of this con currency is a ponzi scheme based on a infinite requirement of growth – more land and more people to own. The pretense that things will be worth more in the future is the spin on the requirement that things will cost more in a future that is being drained.
Wallstreet is seething to get their “mitts” on social security because wallstreet can then falsify future values to larger numbers (higher prices), and pay themselves for the prices they hike – which means when that pretense of a future becomes present, your affordability is less than what social security would have afforded you had wallstreet not interfered.
IN A NUTSHELL. The current currency system is comprised of valuation (pricing) and circulation (loans and debt) mechanisms whereby major asset prices must always rise thus precipitating wealth (accumulation, hording) and poverty.
Social Security is a realtime re-circulation system and is an inherently honest system because it is relative to the now.
UNDERSTAND AND DO NOT BE FOOLED by the promises of thieves who propose to change they typification of social security.
President Obama IS A FOOL. He accepts the rothchild currency system and thus buys into the TPP which plays into the infinite growth by involving more people to mine and a guarantee of profits (hording) that corporations demand, you have to pay. The TPP is a crime against humanity and serves only to enrich the 1% and mine the 99% of return on productivity, buying power and affordability.
“Making social security any type of investment would be a crime against humanity and a complete fraud. If you do not understand the difference between the circulation economy and the valuation economy then you are the typical wallstreet-go-alonger victim of a criminal ponzi private federal reserve currency printing system.”
Hear, hear!
He is no fool; before he went into Politics he was a corporate lawyer as was his wife. He is a corporate lackey courtier as are almost all American Politicians . As to the financial system/fractional reserve-credit/debit fraud; it has gone on for centuries aided by the ignorance/gullibility of the working class. The Pharaoh was getting workers to build his Tombs instead of homes for their families and only the actors and the mechanisms have changed. Greedy sociopaths at the top, ignorant workers at the bottom. Pharaoh never laid a brick nor did Trump but they got rich and put their names on what the workers built and, again, nothing has really changed.
Thanks for explaining…
Here is what I boil it down to (because I’m no economics anything…I have no money…so I tend to look at things this way)…
When it comes to ‘expansion’…esp. with the Government messing around with SS. It only means to me it’s a bigger pot for the AMA, The Nursing Home Assoc., Big Pharma, Insurance, and well you get the (daily dose) picture. I don’t trust any of them…because their hand in it will mean your hand will have less of it. So expansion really means reduction (at the end of the day).
To: Barabbas, Doug & Sparrow
Hear hear! Well said!
The three of your shared thoughts here place you again amongst Mr. Greenwald, Robin Hood of his day, and his writers and bloggers all residing within his TI Sherwood Forest, fighting a battle for the poor against the feudal lords of their day.
Can’t do it without you Little John…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nKSIc4jcrQ
delightful!
Excellent summary! Everyone should read this.
Balderdash.
If the cumulative surplus had not been invested in treasury securities over the last 80 years the program would be $600 billion in debt today (i.e. full scheduled benefits would not have been paid to date). Instead, the program is $2.8 trillion in surplus after $3.4 trillion has been earned in interest from those investments.
Had 25% of the surplus been invested in the stock market (the rest continuing to be invested in treasury securities) as suggested by many Democrats in 1985 but shot down by Alan Greenspan, the surplus today would be over $5 trillion.
p.s. the proposal was NOT for private accounts for individuals as the Republicans want, but simply 25% of the trust fund invested in a stock index fund either overseen or managed by the government.
You misunderstand the aims of Wall Street in wanting to privatize Social Security.
First off, you need to understand that the real money is to be made on transactions. You buy, you pay a commission. You sell, you pay a commission. The commission is the same whether you make or lose money.
Now here is the deal. The amount paid into Social Security in one year is now about $900 billion. Of that, 1%, or $9 billion, is used to administer the program. It is that money that Wall Street wants. Typically it costs no more than 0.5% to administer a fund (Look at your ETF fees; if you are paying more than that you are being ripped off). So Wall Street figures, $9 billion in fees, $4.5 billion (or less) in costs, profit 100%. Not bad. That is step one.
Step 2 is that after a year or so raking a few billion a year off us, they lobby Congress to increase the fee. Since Congress legislates about 90% of what they suggest into law, as a result of this they gradually increase the fee, perhaps by tiny steps at first (Oh, who will quibble over a lousy 0.5%, even if it equates to over $2 billion) then, emboldened by success, in larger ones, until they are taking 10% or more. At which point they lobby for an increase in Social Security taxes, which gives them an even larger take.
In short, Wall Street does not want to invest your Social Security dollars. They could care less! What they want is the management fee.
In short, Wall Street does not want to invest your Social Security dollars. They could care less! What they want is the management fee.
What you describe is probably hw they’ll approach it at first, but Wall St isn’t known for anything like sustainable harvesting, so I suspect they will move rather quicker than you lay out to ensure they have access to the whole thing, at which point they will crash the economy again in order to walk away with a much larger pot. Then it starts over again.
At this point they will never settle for mere skimming off the top anymore. Not when they’ve already gotten away with wholesale theft.
Pedinka what you added to what 24bJeff explained as the ever rising management fee scenario is right on as they will certainly pull off their pyramid bubble fraud, and they will have the masses so trapped and entangled into the scam that too big to fail will then be declared a national religion.
They will try everything they can to get their hands on Social Security and it will not be for the good of the masses. They know all the tricks. They know how to do it a little at a time if need be. They know how to use the dark altar of compromise. We will have to be vigilant and steadfast to keep them at bay.
Amen. Wall St will do on the macro level what the disability attorneys and judges currently do on the micro level, i.e., steal from those who are actually entitled to the money. Just as the attorneys and judges steal from claimants at present, Wall St won’t be able to resist their insatiable greed. FDR must be spinning in his grave.
Obama has always had the worst interests at heart when it comes to helping the American people. In this instance, popular outrage was momentarily sufficient to curb those worst interests. Obama’s “current” position does not represent evolution, on his part, but being stymied by the will of the masses, and being forced to respond to the consequences to his execrable party. Those worst interests will be back, in spades, and their current name is Clinton.
Of course we need to expand social security. We need to expand welfare for children and the disabled too. There are so many honorable and decent people who don’t deserve the struggle and worry our economy has placed upon them.
It should be impossible to write this article without crediting Duncan Black (aka, Atrios) who has been trying to mainstream the idea of Social Security expansion. A number of more progressive congressman and senators have gotten onboard over the years, but this started as a grassroots Democratic idea, and it’s finally made it to the top. David Dayen, before he joined FirstLook I think, chronicled the rise of the idea.
https://psmag.com/how-a-frustrated-blogger-made-expanding-social-security-a-respectable-idea-39f0d64e9d5f#.bddxibwbw
Bernie Sanders may have been the final catalyst, but this has been in the works for a while, and whatever Obama’s reasons for saying what he did yesterday, it needs to be welcomed. It’s good policy, and frankly, good politics for anyone who wants to run on the platform.
Even Obama can evolve. The only one who’s not evolving is Bernie b/c he’s had it right from the get go.
so true.
Obama is not evolving. That is wishful thinking. He is on his way out. He was a terrible president.
Yeah. He never evolved. He was always a Republican, in progressive Campaign clothing. He pulled one over everyone, didn’t he? I was certainly in love with him from 2007 to 2010.
Obama is not evolving. He’s an empty suited back slapper phony. Duncan Black’s blog is http://www.eschatonblog.com but his comments section is inhabited by middle of the road retired Dems who act like they’re still in high school, and the comments section is their clique.
With the government encouraged destruction of pensions over the last 2 decades and the massive increase of people who won’t have personal retirement benefits – its nice to see this being pushed forward cause we have made a future crisis for ourselves in all this (so good in the mean time for the companies though).
So nice to see the Dems have had their noses pushed away from the GOP doctrine for Social Security (reduce and destroy) with the near future (much less people having retirement) we’re looking at. Sad the Dems had their noses there in the 1st place…but other than some social issues they mirror the GOP in doing the corporate 1%’s bidding just at a lower volume (while pretending their for the common man).
As mentioned before, most people don’t even know Social Security is only taken out of the 1st ~$112k per year that you make – after that (folks that make more than ~$112 or whatever the limit is) no additional Social Security tax is taken out of your check. Just boosting the limit level up a little say to ~$120k per year and you fix the Social Security deficit. Raise the limit more and you can start increasing the benefits.
Social Security is currently taken out of the first $118,000 of income. I’m certainly not “rich,” I make more than that but I work 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. My Federal income tax paid in 2015 was around $50,000. I am trying hard to save for my retirement. I am nearly 60 years old, working since I graduated from h.s. in 1977. I didn’t go to college, I went to welding school. I am carrying a lot of people on my back including a disabled wife and a son with high functioning autism. I need to worry about their future. My son only makes $12,000 a year, I am worried sick about what will happen to him after I’m dead. He isn’t disabled enough to qualify for disability, he can work menial service jobs and drive a car.
You probably know federal income tax does not have anything to do with SS, which is good. You will likely receive a max on SS which is also good, you will need it. As for your son’s future, if you dont have other family or wife to lend support, i would make every effort to be free and clear on a home and car, be healthy and active, married to a person younger than yourself who would acquire the home and SS and be of good help to later pass the home and car to your son.
Asking the rich. Asking them to pay a little bit more. Well, thank god we can all rest easy now that that’s been fixed.
isnt that hillarious. After robbing the public thru sweetheart contracts, ceo extortion payoffs, consumer credit as bad as payday loans, bankster thieves stealing from everyone then stealing homes, fostering greed beyond sanity, we are asked to ask the greedy thieves to not rob us so badly? yeah right, i should feel a whole lot better now.
asking wealthies* to return what they have stolen should not be a problem.
*bankster wealth, not hard work earned or entertainment wealth.
This article fails to mention that chained CPI was a concession in Obama’s effort to get Boehner to agree to a “Grand Bargain” that reduced long term deficits through a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. Republicans argued that they would not concede to revenue increases without a cost-of-living adjustment and an increase in the age of Medicare eligibility. Obama didn’t just throw this out of the blue to crush grandma’s benefits.
As much as I like Bernie’s platform, the economics aspect is pie-in-the-sky. As Zaid said, Obama’s placing Chained CPI on the table resulted in a “furious reaction from seniors groups and progressive activists.” Bernie’s plan would yield a similar reaction from economists and fiscal conservatives. Sanders supports single-payer care, free college tuition, increased SS benefits. These all sound noble and I support them in the abstract, you cannot simply ignore the price tag and the politics. The Tax Policy Center estimates that Sanders’ plan would increase federal deficits by more than $18 trillion over the next decade (not including interest), a change of 7.5% of GDP. That’s an even greater 10-year increase in debt than Trump’s outrageous tax-cut extravaganza.
Changing to chained CPI is projected to reduce benefits by about 2 percent over the course of a person’s retirement while yielding a 10-year deficit reduction of $340 billion.
Well, it depends on which item your talking about with regards to whether its impossible to do or not. Since this is an article about Social Security we can look at that…which is actually quite doable.
Most folks don’t know that the Social Security tax only applies to the 1st $112k per year (or thereabouts) that you make. So most of the 1% don’t pay Social Security tax on most of what they make. If you just increase the amount taxed to ~$120k a year, you fix the Social Security deficit problem. Apply the tax to higher amounts of income (say to the 1st $140k a year you make) and you have more income to distribute. Easy. Scrooge and his party won’t like that though.
Considering that in 2015 the SS wage base was $118,500, I’m pretty confident that is untrue.
Even the ones who do know there’s a cap don’t understand that this low-wage-earner-only tax is used as a piggy bank to fund things that otherwise would have to go to a tax system that at least theoretically might tax the rich, and that if the money “lent” from it were paid back, the system would not be “insolvent”.
It’s always worth remember what the late George Carlin wrote: the word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.
Barry’s Grand Bargain was nothing but a piece of ass-covering theater to prevent the base from turning against him. “Sure, it may be fulfilling a load of retrograde neocon goals the GOP has been wanting for ages, but you see, it’s the only way to Get Things Done around here.” We’re supposed to just assume it’s good to get anything done, regardless of what it is. We’re supposed to forget how he adopted, expanded or pushed the right wing’s worst policies–SS cuts, sweeping Gitmo under the rug intact, the NDAA, the TPP/TTIP, endless warmongering, Obomneycare–without needing any pressure from his fellow Repubs.
Medicare for all would come with a negative price tag, putting billions back into the economy. Free tuition and SS expansion would be easy to pay for with just a fraction of the budget for unjustifiable wars. It’d run into political opposition, but that’s just an obstacle to overcome–it’s not an excuse to cut SS instead and put the burden back onto the people who can least afford it.
Yup. We’re just supposed to forget, shut up, be very very afraid, and vote for the war-mongering, profit-chasing, plutocrat-bedding sociopathic gorgon who is Hillary, while Obama burnishes his heinous “legacy”, and tries to hose off the blood and filth that has reached his eyeballs.
If this were Politifact you’d get a “pants on fire” for that whopper. Bernie’s own website says it would be paid for by several tax increases.
I believe Phil was referring to the costs to the economy, which would almost certainly be less than the current private insurance model. Taxes would go up, since health care is currently not paid for via taxes for most, but overall health care costs would go down.
I went on Medicare last fall, and while it is pretty good, it pays 80% of most things, it could be easily made more solvent with three fixes:
1-Negotiation of drugs, medical supplies and equipment prices. Currently these items are charged to Medicare at outrageous prices, sort of what you would see on a typical hospital bill. Medicare paid $21 for some special absorbent gauze pads that I got for $7.50 on Amazon. Medicare paid 80% and I could be billed for the rest, but I called the supplier and told them to take the excess they shipped back and to credit my bill. But they said they couldn’t, and haven’t charged me for the 20%, so I assumed that they felt they made enough and didn’t want a fight. There’s a ton of money to be saved without hurting suppliers if prices were negotiated as fees are.
2-Strict enforcement of rules and elimination of fraud by doctors/hospitals etc. with very stiff fines and jail terms, including loss of license to practice. Make a few examples and then watch the fraud decrease by huge amounts.
3- Eliminate unnecesssary and duplicate testing, which many people from other countries have noted occurs too much when they visit the US and need treatment.
These are three mostly administrative fixes that my limited experience with Medicare were immediately apparent as needed. I don’t have a supplemental plan, as I cannot afford one. But then again, I have never been bankrupt, so that’s a fall back for me if I ever need to because of any high medical expenses. I don’t own a home or have any savings, retirement, etc. I was “over” Obama by March 2009 due to his lack of interest in prosecuting the banksters, war criminals, all those it was his job to prosecute. He has been mostly a lousy president, but the Dems love him. I can’t understand it, but a lot of them love Clinton too, so it seems that the Dems have nothing on the TeaTards for intelligence and thinking. Both tribal political groups–like in the Middle East. Just with nicer clothing.
Most people misunderstand the SANDERS PLAN and it’s real effects. The SANDERS PLAN WILL NO INCREASE DEBT.
Since 1913 the people of the US have been conned into a rothchild currency scheme that is wealth centric. The people are the targets of this scheme and the people will break if this scheme remains in place.
the SANDERS PLAN flips the scheme on it’s had and is people centric – meaning that the crooked rothchild currency scheme in place today would instead bow to the people instead of vice versa. In time, this would break the scheme – not the people.
THAT SCARES THE BEJEEBERS OUT OF THE WALLSTREET BANKSTER THIEVES.
The Tax Policy Center begs to differ. What may I ask is your source?
i am quite sure that TPC differs. But that is because their standard of measure is the rothchild currency scheme. The SANDERS PLAN “flips” the dependency relationship, flips the priority, and will eventually bankrupt the rothchild currency scheme so that before them the new system can be introduced to replace it – thus ending the wealth accumualtion syndrome.
Mind you, i have nothing against wealth per se, but wealth that feeds itself and creates poverty and deprivation and imbalance of power? is poison for the planet.
capitalism (incentive) + socialism (shared resources for life support and earned comfort) + communism (ownership of public resources) is a winning combination. The fact is, America was just that way in the 1950’s and 1960’s and some of the 1970’s. It worked.
Sweet ad hominem attack! How utterly easy it is to dismiss an entire institution and their report. Yet, you yourself do not have a source to back your hot rhetoric. It’s just your word, based on “flips.” This is a Trumpian explanation.
You are arguing that there was a reason to “crush grandma’s benefits”, but the fact remains that SS benefits would have been cut.
As for your bashing of medicare for all, we are currently projected to spend $30 trillion in the next ten years on health care (insurance premiums, copays, etc., and government spending).
Bernie’s plan covering everybody and costing only $18 trillion in the next ten years would be a bargain.
Americans having an extra $12 trillion to spend is a problem I hope we have to deal with.
Of course, all the middlemen who provide no health care, and price gougers (and their think tanks) would lose out, so they and their gang will lie, cheat and steal to prevent such a change towards sanity.
Are they buttering your bread, or is this an ideological thing for you?
LOL. Oh please do provide a source for this fairy tale scenario. GOOD LUCK!!
The PresReagan-to-PresPresent Legacy is the GREAT ability to do bad and evil things well! The US and the peoples of the world OWE Sanders an verlasting thanks!!!
What a biased website. Laughable.
What a profound statement.
“Obama didn’t explain his reversal”.
I’ll explain it.
Obama is providing political cover for Hillary on the issue, because her campaign is both flailing against a mindless idiot and struggling to win over Sanders supporters on the left (aka the Democratic base).
Obama sells it, because Hillary can’t sell for shit.
She doesn’t believe in such policies, and it’s obvious.
And, it happens to be one of those campaign promises that “can’t” be fulfilled due to Republican opposition (which will remain because Hillary hurts all down-ticket races for Congress).
So, it’s pandering to help Hillary, with a promise her rich donors know is bullshit.
If Hillary is the Dem candidate, I fully expect to see more such bullshit from the corporatist neoliberal warmongers to deceive voters, so the corporatist neoliberal warmongering agenda can continue.
Anybody who believes Obama or Hillary will actually work towards expanding Social Security is gullible beyond belief.
Well said.
right on! they’re getting desperate.
Good insight. Couldn’t say it better.
You called it to a T.
I don’t think you need to wait til Hilarious is the Dem candidate to hear/see the bullshit. From what I read at TI, she and Debbie have them lined up to write the platform this year.
Great post!
Best explanation I ever heard!!
Bernie Sanders — a progressive who gets things done :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv1tRa9fr7A
It might be recalled that it was then-president Bill Clinton who changed the way the Consumer Price Index — the basis for cost-of-living adjustments — was calculated. They factored in such nonsense as a lower weight for fuel on the theory that many more people were going to bicycle to work. A lot of union workers got short-changed by the revisions. As is said, there’s lies, damned lies, and statistics — and statistics can do anything you want them to. While the government tells us inflation is very low, anyone actually going shopping in a supermarket knows better.
I live in Canada, yet I expect that my experience is North American wide. The price of food has dropped globally, yet I pay more for food these days when compared to N.A. historical standards, while being paid less than my parents and their parents. Time to tighten the belts and figure out what really matters to me as a citizen of this great experiment, I guess.
There’s a good reason Slick Willie is known as the most successful Republican president since Reagan. Weasels would consider him shifty.
Why insult the weasels? Willy remains a prion in America’s soul, virtually indestructible and corrupting all he contacts.
So reaching into my phone in my pocket to spy on me is bad but reaching into my pocket for my money is A-OK?
Look at the faces on the paper money and coins. It ain’t your face.
Effin’ pathetic.
Maybe what is pathetic is what the “Federal Reserve” stamped on those fiat bills does in printing endlessly that is the problem.
And maybe you are a know-nothing gold bug and don’t understand what money actually is, does or how and why it is “created”.
That is all entirely independent from the idea that the Federal Reserve should be more transparent to the public, serve both its functions rather than just one (full employment AND stable prices) and that banking generally speaking should be more highly regulated.
im a wibatawian too
im fwee years old
America Needs to Rethink ‘Retirement’
There is also mounting evidence that working later into life correlates with better individual health and satisfaction, and may contribute to them. Amid skyrocketing age-related health-care costs, this advantage can scarcely be overstated. Research by the Department of Work and Pensions in the U.K. found in 2006 that recipients of age-related entitlements “who move off benefits and re-enter work generally experience improvements in . . . mental and general health, and well-being.”
Only if you’re in the position of being and staying healthy in the first place, which, given the healthcare system in the US, is not possible for a very large percentage of the population.
Yeah, I call bullshit.
Here’s a link that doesn’t go to the WSJ paywall: http://www.globalcoalitiononaging.com/index.php?id=nicholas-eberstadt-and-michael-w-hodin-america-needs-to-rethink-retirement
When everything is premised upon one thing only, “economic growth” and “prosperity”, then the history of work in the US becomes a whole lot clearer. Post WW2 – and the GI BIll, which brought a LOT of people up into the middle class – a family could survive comfortably with a single wage-earner. After a while, that wasn’t enough and women had to enter the workforce as well to maintain the same economic status. Then even that wasn’t enough and families had to be convinced/connived/conned into carrying debt to maintain a status quo foisted on us by rampant consumerism all in the name of “economic growth” that no longer trickled down to the people doing most of the work.
Then, when the housing market crashed and the equity built up over years of hard labor was sucked into the maw of Wall St, even working two and three jobs wasn’t enough. We were told that the contracts of Wall St executives were sacrosanct – even after they crashed the world economy – but that the contractual retirement of everyone else must be sacrificed to the Gods of “economic growth” and “prosperity”. Some contracts are more equal than others dontcha know.
But now, even that isn’t enough. They’re raiding pension plans, destroying them with high fees and questionable investments made by the unelected cronies and bankster friends of politicians put in charge of public trusts and now that we’re looking at an entire generation of people living in abject poverty because we’ve been denied decent returns on our savings and forced to let the banks gamble with money that never belonged to them, we’re being told how good for us it will be when we dive back into the workplace, competing with young people who are desperate to find decent jobs as well in order to pay off the debt they leave school with, and that’s if they were lucky enough to be able to get that secondary education in the first place.
And all the while those piously telling us how healthy we’ll be when we’re once again exhausting ourselves in what passes for employment in a world where they’ve managed to suppress wages and ensure that all the “prosperity” and “economic growth” ends up in their own bottomless pockets, spend their golden years – and golden fucking parachutes – buying their 5th, 6th and 7th homes on tropical islands and in western ski resort towns.
Every time these assholes find a way to boost per capita output our wages and benefits go down. If people elect to keep working in their retirement, good for them, but if they’ve worked hard and saved and contributed to the economy for the greater part of their life and want to finally scale back and start enjoying life in other ways, even better.
My career ended after working 60+ hour weeks for the last 6 years of it wrecked my spine. The small, cost-effective changes including softer floors, orthopedic footwear and adjustable workstations didn’t get into my workplace in time to save my disintegrating disk. Such a fucking shame.
Mr. American Enterprise Institute and Mr. Global Coalition on Keeping the Aging Working Til They Drop Dead can kiss my ass. I’m lucky. They didn’t manage to steal my retirement before I got to it. But George Carlin was right years ago in his prediction that they’d be coming for it, and coming for it hard, because they really do believe that no one is deserving except themselves and they really do believe they deserve. it. all.
Mr. American Enterprise Institute and Mr. Global Coalition on Keeping the Aging Working Til They Drop Dead can kiss my ass. I’m lucky. They didn’t manage to steal my retirement before I got to it. But George Carlin was right years ago in his prediction that they’d be coming for it, and coming for it hard, because they really do believe that no one is deserving except themselves and they really do believe they deserve. it. all.
worth emphasis.
Thank you so much for this NEEDFUL comment. It reminds me of a certain local IGA market I go to. As soon as I would enter the store I would look for ‘my girl’ who was in her eighties working behind the cash register (you know…the modern computer types). She was slower but still lifted the heavy bags of say birdseed, charcoal, etc. Standing on the concrete…and always wishing you to have a nice day. Lately I haven’t seen her…and I’m too afraid to ask. Not one person could possible tell me…that she was in better health because she was working…God Bless her cause I miss her.
I hope you get the healing treatment that you need. You deserve it. God bless you too.
“…‘my girl’ who was in her eighties working behind the cash register…She was slower but still lifted the heavy bags of say birdseed, charcoal, etc. Standing on the concrete…and always wishing you to have a nice day”.
Is there anything more ironic then the fact that we blow up the world to bring them “American Values” and then exhibit values that do not honor and cherish our elderly. Instead we work them harshly at the end of their lives. We also make it so their family members desperate from living from paycheck to paycheck cannot properly take care of their beloved elderly when they are in most need at the end.
It makes me sad for them. She had no other income (she told me in conversation) except SS. Even though she would never admit it…it was evident she needed to make ends meet. I would give her a smile…and tried not to be intrusive…but inside I just wanted to give her the rest she needed without worries. Thanks for your comment. It gives me hope. :)
The system has told all of us that we need to have more…more…and more. In this dysfunctional consumerism it causes a throw away society…much to the systems’ desire. It has never cared about humanity or creation…only profit, exploitation and death. Having my needs lowered to such a level has allowed me to see it in grand light…it’s a never ending cycle that puts a new label on the can all the time. But we can get out of that cycle…if only the desire is there. Take care…peace
I’m sorry to hear about your disk. Hope you can still garden.
That’s the worst of it Baldie. I had surgery and, for a while, that worked, but now I think it’s ruptured again. So now I couldn’t go back to the sort of job I had even if I wanted to have the rest of my soul sucked out through my eyeballs, because no one sets up a workplace for people who have my kind of disability (which is actually terribly common due to workplace conditions), and I struggle to do any gardening at all. I’m lucky because my husband loves to eat out of the garden and/or my canning efforts, so he helps a lot, but he’s still fully employed so his energy and opportunity is limited.
It’s fine. I know how fortunate I am and I’m not complaining about my situation so much as laying it out as an example and plainly stating that most people who have such impairments are NOT as lucky as I to have been working for a reputable employer who still gives a shit about people who work hard for them for an entire career.
It’s good to see you here! :-)
You too. I’m sure your surgeon’s told you, but disks are tough to repair—what seems to work best to distribute the load is strong back muscles. Are you in physical therapy?
By the time my back is destroyed they’ll have it all figured out, because millions of people will have been sitting in chairs, hunched over screens, for decades.
By the time my back is destroyed they’ll have it all figured out, because millions of people will have been sitting in chairs, hunched over screens, for decades.
That’s exactly what did it. And, in essence, I was working two jobs but only getting paid for one. The funding I brought to my research unit for my service as co-Chair of the Lab Tech Committee of the international group wasn’t passed on to me, but the hours sure were. It was fucking criminal, but oh, so typical.
I’m not in PT currently, but know and do all my exercises. I found over the weekend that swimming helps and, of course, walking, so I’m doing a lot of that. It seems to be slowly getting better, but the fear of recurrence is worse than the fear of God dontcha know. :-)
Well, it depends how they reach in your pocket. If you’re forced to set aside a flat FICA tax – up to a maximum of $120,000 earned, and nothing on interest – that is nominally for your upkeep in old age, they feel free to write themselves unlimited IOUs to spend that on pointless wars and giving the rich cuts to their inheritance tax. But when the demographics shift and it’s time for you to actually retire on that money, then for them to “reach into your pocket”, i.e. the rich guy’s pocket, to make him pay back these things, is denounced as wasting money on “entitlements” and something has to be done to change that!
TLDR version: reaching into the pockets of the middle class worker is A-OK, reaching into the pockets of the rich is an unconscionable theft. Because they’re better than us and we damn well better believe it if we ever want to get a job to make up for the Social Security we don’t have.
It’s fiat currency owned by the US government and distributed through a public-private hybrid federal reserve banking system, not actually your money; get a coherent economic theory before whining about being granted insufficient socio-legal privilege.
You may want to read this, and be a little cheerier, like the great Rothbard was:
https://mises.org/library/what-has-government-done-our-money
Rothbard shows precisely how banks create money out of thin air and how the central bank, backed by government power, allows them to get away with it.
It’s A-OK for the vast, vast majority of US citizens who don’t mind being taxed since it pays for public K-12 education, social security and medicaid, roadway upkeep and other infrastructure building and repair, police forces, firefighters, park upkeep, the FBI, DEA, OSHA, DOD, EPA, state department, welfare, libraries, hospitals, etc.
If you don’t think any of that is A-OK, maybe move to Somalia if it bothers you so much?
You might learn something, which is a dangerous thing indeed:
https://mises.org/library/stateless-somalia-and-loving-it
Let me guess, Alex Lawson sent you a press release. You called him on the phone to get the quote and then you hit the submit button to your editor?
Your claim that Obama did this as a result of Bernie is rubbish. It’s your opinion. Are you the new Robert Mackey?
Check out youtube under bernie sanders congress or bernie sanders senate. You come across as being willfully ignorant.
Oh really?
Center for Economic & Policy Research:
Senate Unanimously Votes Against Cuts to Social Security, Media Don’t Notice
There are few areas where the corruption of the national media is more apparent than in its treatment of Social Security. Most of the elite media have made it clear in both their opinion and news pages that they want to see benefits cut. In keeping with this position they highlight the views of political figures who push cuts to the program, treating them as responsible, while those who oppose cuts are ignored or mocked.
This pattern of coverage was clearly on display last weekend. Both the New York Times and Washington Post decided to ignore the Senate’s passage by voice vote of the Sanders Amendment. This was an amendment to the budget put forward by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders that puts the Senate on record as opposing the switch to the chained CPI as the basis for the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA)….
http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/senate-unanimously-votes-against-cuts-to-social-security-media-dont-notice
“This pattern of coverage was clearly on display last weekend. Both the New York Times and Washington Post decided to ignore the Senate’s passage by voice vote of the Sanders Amendment. ”
That is not a pattern of corruption in the media. That is an example of another yahoo yammering about mainstream media bias. When you read conservatives crying about the war on Christmas, you probably laugh. Maybe you oughta be laughing about the war on social security also.
Who’s this Senator Sanders guy? I like him!
re: “for those who need it most,”
Read that as: “means tested”
Surest way to kill the program by restricting it and excluding the broader population. Broad programs have broad support when they cover broadly. Turning Social Security into another “welfare” program which serves only “special interest” groups is an enormous error.
My thoughts exactly, though, of course, it’s no error on the part of Clinton and her minions. It’s quite intentional.
Just like when they gave the right to gay marry to only gay people. The rest of us have been cheated!