(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Cross posted from The Star Hollow Gazette
As you know, if you read this blog, or any of the true left wing sites, like FiredogLake and Corrente, that Pres. Obama has once again gone back on his word that cuts to Social Security were off the table as a bargaining chip for a “Grand Bargain.” He has proposed to use the chained CPI to calculate cost of living increases in Social Security benefits. Now House Minority Leader Nancy is saying that she could live with tying Social Security to the chained CPI, plus she said Democrats would stick with the president to avoid going over the fiscal cliff.
David Dayen at FDL News summed up Pelosi’s meaning and later White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said at the press briefing:
Pelosi tried to emphasize the unformed idea that there would be “protections” for the most vulnerable. For example, the disabled on Supplemental Security Income might not be subject to chained CPI, and there could be a “bump-up” for people aged 80, to compensate for the cumulative effect of the benefit cut. Again, the vulnerable are a massive part of this population (pdf). This is almost the entire income source for almost half of seniors, and for 3/4 of widows or unmarried women. And 15.1% of seniors live in poverty. And if you hold all of them harmless, you erode the actual savings you can derive from this. The three-legged stool of retirement has withered away, especially since the dot-com bust and the Great Recession. This argues strongly for increasing Social Security benefits, not cutting them and not even mitigating cuts.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney called this a “technical fix” to better calculate inflation. Bullshit. If this were just a technical fix, you would adjust so that the fix wouldn’t hit beneficiaries in a regressive fashion, with the most pain at the bottom. This plan doesn’t, to any real degree. The goal isn’t to properly measure inflation, it’s to save money for the federal government. It always has been.
Well, it time to make noise and fight back. Atrios has sounded the alert and we should take to the phones:
White House
202-456-1111
No cuts to Social Security.
Keep it up everyday, jam the lines until the President and Congress get the message:
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I’ve not been blogging for a bit because I do not believe in our Congress anymore at all. But you are still here saying all the right and good things.
We have been sold out – and we will continue to be sold out.
Recently Dick came out saying that SS should not be part of what is laughingly called the fiscal cliff
– he never came out strongly against the cuts.
In any event, he is a liar. As they all are.
However, I continue to call Rep. Lipinsky (mostly because he has nice staffers.)
Question: has anyone here ever heard obama mentioning FDR, Harry Truman, LBJ, Kennedy (well maybe Kennedy) in his magnificent speeches — I don’t recall. Just askin.
It sounds now almost certain the loons will take us over the fiscal cliff.
Obama’s current surrender seems sure to be rejected. Of course nothing prevents another surrender in 2003.
Best, Terry
I’ve been at the phones off and on all this week and last, e-mailing, writing, rallying, etc.
Note how careful they’ve all been to avoid any talk about cutting the Defense Dept. budget significantly? Or watching over Defense Dept. waste? Or suggest, gawd forbid, that the oil company subsidies be dropped? ETC.
No, let’s go after the people who have already sacrificed until they’re black and blue, you know, the so-called “middle-class.
What “sacrifices” has the top 2% “shared” in these past twelve years? Does anyone know what they were? They’ve profited, instead — they’ve profited from the wars, the Bush tax cuts, the foreclosures, the 401-k’s, the bank bailouts, the tax code loopholes and even not having to contribute to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, while the consequences of all of the foregoing have been borne by the now decimated so-called “middle-class”. Yet many of those 2% rich paid little, if any, taxes at all. And whatever taxes they paid were nowhere near in proportion to their incomes, while the “middle-class” paid proportionately more on their incomes right down the line.
There is a concerted effort, it seems, by our government, to continue to drive this country into a third world status. (The corporations would be only too glad to come back then.)
I plan to call everyday. The lines were very tied up today, including Obama’s. In that case, I call their local offices. I urge everyone to get on the bandwagon and call until your fingers drop off from dialing! (Well, maybe, not to that extent, but close!) Obviously, the matters at hand concern each of us today and the future for our children and grandchildren.