When the Democrats took over Congress in 2006, Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House. One of her first acts was taking impeachment of the war criminal George W. Bush off the table. It’s 2012 now, and she is no longer speaker after the 2010 mid terms. Can you guess what she wants to put back on the table now?
(Image accredited to dakiniland.files.wordpress.com at Sky Dancing)
Simpson Bowles and the Zombie Cat Food Commission just keeps coming back from the dead as I and joanneleon showed you in the past, and here we are again. The copout about how there was only a caricature of Simpson Bowles offered up thus making the original somehow “worth voting for” is disingenuous to say the least. This is especially true when it comes to a proposal that attacks Social Security in more than one way.
Former progressive Democratic Senator Russ Feingold doesn’t like Nancy Pelosi’s newfound love for Simpson Bowles, either. He has found his inner Eugene McCarthy and has called out Nancy Pelosi as much as it may pain him to do so to a former Democratic colleague; that’s how you know who remembers the Democratic Party platform and who doesn’t.
Would-be Speaker Pelosi's "No I Won't" that means "Yes I Will" cut Soc. Security
A quick hits follow-up to the "Pelosi & Hoyer killing Social Security" story.
Yesterday, Russ Feingold called out once-and-would-be Speaker Pelosi for her new-found support of the Simpson-Bowles "Grannie's New Diet" proposal (my emphases everywhere):
Russ Feingold ... said in an email to supporters that Pelosi "has signaled a disturbing potential willingness to adopt a plan that could slash these benefits. And it follows a pattern: Too many House Democrats, including Steny Hoyer, are already on board."
Social Security is irrelevant to the deficit as a transfer program leaving aside the fact that the deficit will never be a problem at all in the United States.
As I have covered before, all of these nonsense projections about insolvency whether with Social Security or Medicare rely on Intergenerational accounting which are complete garbage (counting all liabilities and no assets in the future). The CBO needs to drop it, and it needs to be defined out of the Financial Accounting Standards Board framework.
Because of these horrible accounting standards in addition to the idiocy of deficit reduction in general, a prominent Democrat resurrecting the idea of Simpson Bowles is again putting Social Security back into danger. I say danger because this deficit commission talked about Social Security being a problem that must be dealt with in regards to the deficit. This was in the original Simpson Bowles proposal.
To sum up what this whole stupid deficit commission is all about I’ll reference the brilliant economist James K. Galbraith as I do a lot in my work. He had this deficit commission summed up from the start. The best place for any deficit commission is no place at all.
James K. Galbraith's Testimony Blasts Fiscal Commission
Read full text of testimony here.
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-That the Commission's work is illegitimate
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-That Social Security and Medicare "solvency" is not part of the Commission's Mandate.
-That as a transfer program, Social Security is also irrelevant to deficit economics.
-That markets are not calling for deficit reduction, either now or later.
-That in reality, the US government spends first & borrows later; public spending creates a demand for Treasuries in the private sector.
-That the best place in history (for this Commission) would be no place at all.
This idiotic deficit debate is a self induced debate based on a total ignorance of Social Security, national accounting, monetary, and fiscal policy. Not only that,
the nefarious chained CPI metric is part of the original Simpson Bowles proposal which measures up to a cut. It is a total garbage metric, and it’s merely a way to further stick it to seniors as
politicians have tried before by tooling with the CPI.
This is what the former speaker would have voted for? And this is the “good Simpson Bowles” which doesn’t really exist but we see where the former speaker’s mind is at. This is not how you motivate your base to give you back the gavel, Nancy. Social Security benefits need to be raised and eligibility needs to be lowered. There needs to be more income and demand in the economy, not less based on the assumption that seniors will just buy cat food because it is cheaper.
And HELLO?! Where are the jobs commissions? Why can’t we at least talk about having one of those, instead of even “progressively balancing the budget” which can’t really be progressive under the circumstances because it’s just not a good idea. By some measures, it will probably happen if nothing is done in the do nothing Congress, anyway. All you have to do is look at the UK, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland to see that austerity will bring no magical bond vigilante confidence fairy pixie dust that our politicians believe in.
Our massive unreported unmeasured unemployment problem is a waste of idle resources. That is what is tragic and wasteful, not government debt which puts money into the pockets of everyone in the private sector. Wasting idle human productive resources is what we really can’t afford. We are still the tired, the poor, and the hungry yearning for a better life.
We are the idle resources with only one life to live. As Keynes said in the long run we’re all dead. And so then what is left to decide is…
And once we’re gone, we’re gone forever along with our potential unless we are given the room and dignity to explore it. You see, unlike numbers marked up with keystrokes in accounts at the Fed plus interest by whoever comes along to press the buttons, our lives’ potential is tied to our limited time on this earth. You cannot add years to your life similar to your score at a bowling alley which can never run out of points; which is how money is created and debt paid off by nations with a currency monopoly operation circa electronic monetary data operations.
If we don’t oppose deficit lies meaning Social Security’s political demise(not insolvency but misallocation, privatization, and cuts) seniors will become the walking dead; they will all live the rest of their lives full of misery and not just in their head. What is the lesson? Those that lie to you, stressing, that as a nation we are broke so you must “share sacrifice” with Oligarchs don’t really care about you.
Those politicians that tell you that you must sacrifice your hope for a decent life because of the “scary” debt they ran up, which isn’t scary or dangerous at all, are either stupid or lying to you. If you buy their budget mythology, you will be blinded into no wage or low wage servitude. This is what happens when deficit propaganda is continually sold to you in every “remember the 90s” style campaign, but in a 30s like economic atmosphere.
What they don’t mention is they’d like to dismantle all of those programs from the 30s like the Rubinites did partially in the 90s in the financial sector.
It doesn’t help when so called “progressive” bloggers deemed as “serious” and “wonky” like Kevin Drum tell us scare monger fairy tales in the same vein as Simpson Bowles; tall tales telling us we need to “buck up and get serious about social security’s sustainability.” I may not always agree with Armando on everything, but I think his front page piece taking on Kevin Drum and his ignorance on national accounting, monetary, fiscal policy, and the federal budget with regards to Social Security was spot on and really made me proud to be a kossack.
Insolvency, tax cuts, military spending and social security
Yes, bankruptcy and insolvency are "helluva dramatic event[s]." But sovereign nations who control their own currency don't go bankrupt or insolvent in the way the phrase is used with regard to Social Security.
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How would Social Security become "insolvent" or go "bankrupt"? It can't in the true sense of the word. It can't in the governmental sense of the word either.
What Drum describes are choices for the government. Choices the government has with EVERY SINGLE PROGRAM it runs. Oh, by the way, that includes the military. It includes Medicare. It includes funding for student loans for colleges. It includes enforcing the environmental laws.
It is as much a lie to say Social Security is "going bankrupt" or "insolvent" as it is to say the military is going bankrupt.
As pointed out, if Social Security is going bankrupt then the people lying to you about Social Security while on the government payroll are going to go bankrupt, like the military and every other government program if we are to believe these lies that treat the federal budget like a household which is pure hogwash. Our country can create dollars at a keystroke and deficit spend without driving prices up as long as you see the reserve army of the unemployed across the nation out in the streets marching in the Occupy movement and elsewhere.
We can’t afford not to spend under these conditions. We can’t afford not to preserve social security income; we should increase it and we can increase it. The only things right now our country can’t sustain are deficit lies bringing on our demise politically destroying ourselves through politicians and their budgetary fairy tales. And through this all too accepted practice they show that they don’t really care about you.
So whatever you decide to do, please do not accept the lie that we need deficit reduction or austerity. We don’t. Pressure any politician you support not to adopt that position because it is not the 90s anymore.
We can’t afford a balanced budget off of another private debt bubble run up off of private households (The Clinton economy everyone brags about in connection to the surplus when there is no public connection) that busted leaving everyone bust in private debt servitude because of no accountability for Wall St. Nancy Pelosi needs to start talking about real solutions to motivate the base and so do most Democrats. Simpson Bowles is unacceptable.
But you know what is acceptable? All the kossacks who read my work and voted for me in the DFA scholarship contest. I am now going to Netroots Nation. I am only able to go, because of this scholarship. This will be my first(and maybe only) Netroots Nation. That's right, because of all of you(especially my close friends here), priceman will be in Providence, Rhode Island from June 6th to the 10th!
Thank you, Daily Kos!