Dems plead with Obama to shelve Social Security cuts
The Hill reports that Democrats are begging the President to abandon plans to cut COLA increases to Social Security benefits, because, you know the president is only in the business of cutting benefits that Americans have earned, rather than cut the benefits of the leeches who have added nothing to the greatness of the nation. But that’s not the problem that Congressional Democrats have with the cuts;
But Democratic lawmakers say Obama should shelve the idea now that they are facing a difficult midterm election where they need to turn out the liberal base to preserve their Senate majority.
“I’m not sure why we should be making concessions when the Republicans show absolutely no willingness to do the same,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).
Democrats acknowledge it may be awkward for Obama to rescind his proposal, but say it would unwise of him to repeat the offer in the budget that is due out next month.
“I think it’s difficult for the president to pull it back after he already floated it but I would love to see it shelved until Republicans show they’re actually going to do something on their side of the ledger,” Murphy said.
Now, wait a second, these are the same sorts of cuts that Congress made to COLA increases in the pensions of disabled and retired veterans, now that’s not enough for Democrats. “Their side of the ledger” is code, or dog whistle, or whatever you want to call it, for further cuts to defense spending. I’m pretty sure that “Republican cncessions” might include those cuts to veterans’ pension increases, but apparently it doesn’t count.
Liberal Democrats say cutting Social Security benefits, even what centrists view as moderate cuts, is broadly unpopular across age groups. They say there mere proposal of reductions would amount to a self-inflicted political wound that would come back to haunt their party in the midterm election.
“It’s a very controversial issue at a difficult time for the senior community,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who declined to express support or opposition to the proposal.
Yeah, it’s pretty unpopular in veteran communities, too, you ditz, but that didn’t stop anyone from going ahead with it anyway, and I don’t remember Feinstein trying to halt cuts on veterans’ pensions.
For the record, I oppose this cut to Social Security benefits, just like I do for veterans’ pensions, because as I said, many of the people who receive Social Security benefits actually paid money into the system and earned their pay outs. But, I’m pretty sure I won’t see USAToday or the Washington Post editorial boards telling us how cuts to COLA benefits for social security recipients is a wonderful idea and argue how “miniscule” the cuts will be.
Category: Congress sucks
Funny, I seem to recall Obumbles mentioning something about everyone having “skin in the game” but I guess that only applies to people who aren’t his voting blocs.
At some point, the pain is going to be felt by EVERYONE. Hell, it already is now. I’ll have to look it up, but in the 2008-09 recession, the average family income declined by something like $1100/year. In the “wonderful recovery” we’ve had since, incomes have DECLINED by another $2500/year. Add to that the higher taxes (yes, they are, libruls) the crushing costs of Obumblescare, employers not hiring, etc., and it’s even worse than that.
Trends also ain’t good, NHSparky. Job creation in Dec was the lowest since 2011 (74,000). Over 1/2 million (525,000) quit the labor force. This combination led to a false drop in unemployment (due to the fact that over 7 times as many quit looking for work as new jobs created).
The labor participation rate is now at a 35 year low (that’s 1978, or freaking Carter administration, territory). And a quick look at the LPR graph here shows a distinct, steady, and fairly well linear declining trend since what looks like early 2009. Yeah, that’s all 5 years of the current administration.
Bottom line: IMO, the current administration has no freaking clue as to how the US economy works. They’ve done nothing but make things worse since they began work in Jan 2009.
B. Hussein 0bama doesn’t give a damn as long as he gets to go golfing, fundraising, or vacation whenever and wherever he wants to on our fine!
Cuts to entitlement programs won’t do anything to fix the problem, except delay it a bit longer. SS and Medicare need a total restructuring, not just cuts in COLAs.
Countries that have privatized SS have been very successful. You start with people young enough to save enough, leaving older people in the existing system.
BTW, most people get far more from SS than they ever paid in.
@2 Actually the reason people are leaving the job market is due to demographics, not because people are inexplicably giving up on working. Baby boomers are retiring in mass. They gave up retiring briefly after the Bush administration and the Republican congress decimated their 401Ks. But now thanks to 4 years of good governance people feel they can retire again:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/09/study-retirees-can-explain-the-entire-drop-in-the-labor-force-since-2012/
TeeJay: that argument might hold water if the labor participation rate were holding steady or rising. However, the fact that it’s been dropping steadily since 2009 – and is now at a 35-year low, as in 1978 levels – shows that argument to be nothing other than male bovine organic fertilizer. Let me spell that out for you in simple terms: it’s bullsh!t.
If the change were due to retirements alone, the labor participation rate would be holding steady or (far more likely) rising in order to fill the openings created by said retirees. It’s not. If anything, companies are cutting back. New job creation is in the toilet, and has been since late 2008. People are simply getting fed up and are quitting looking for jobs that don’t exist.
The economy has been in the toilet since late 2008. But the current administration is so clueless it actually seems to think it’s doing a good job of managing same. In reality, they’re f’ing it up by the numbers.
And “good governance” over the last 4 years? YGBSM. You’re joking, right?
#4 – that last asssertion was true for many years as people retired who had not paid in to the sytemn for too many years, but anyone recently retired or planning to retire will never see all the money they paid in.
Bingo, David. Based on current average life expectancies, folks retiring for the last couple of years on average won’t ever see the full present value of their forced contributions to Social
istSecurity. Neither will folks retiring from here on out.Of course, that’s not the problem. The problem is the demographic changes that have occurred since the program’s inception. Originally over 10 workers contributed for each person drawing benefits. Now, it’s between 2 and 3.
If you want to truly get depressed, you might want to take a look at this article. It tells you just how badly you’re getting the shaft from Social Security – and gives you tools to calculate what a hypothetical REAL retirement savings account with employer matching that you actually owned would be worth, based on your own earnings record.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=31646
You’ll have to look up DJIA end-of-month data since Aug 2012 and enter your own earnings record to use it for yourself. Fair warning: it’s pretty depressing to know what you’d actually be worth if the government had actually let you keep your own money vice taxing you to pay for something that is, speaking plainly, welfare for the aged.