President Obama had it exactly right. Cutting benefits or raising the retirement age or cutting the annual cost of living adjustment is the wrong way to fix the small solvency problem the Social Security System will encounter in a few decades. Adjusting the cap on income that is taxed for Social Security is one smart and fair means of accomplishing the needed change. And it can be done for the same cost as the tax cut extension given last month to the richest 2 per cent of Americans.
But there are pressures on the President to announce in his upcoming State of the Union address that he is retreating on these promises he made during his 2008 campaign. And there's some troubling hints that he may be bending a bit on those promises.
There are the co-chairs of his own deficit commission who want to begin the process of wrecking the gem of the New Deal by reducing benefits. There are Republicans - and a few Democrats who can't even spell Roosevelt - who will seek to make permanent the temporary reduction in payroll taxes imposed as part of the deal hammered out in December. (That would, of course, do exactly what the right wing says will happen to Social Security, make it insolvent by draining it of the resources needed to provide a floor on the incomes of the elderly.) There are the bosses of Wall Street, gleefully rubbing their palms in hopes that a weakening of Social Security now will soon lead to the privatized operation that Peter G. Peterson and other self-interested parties would love to see replace the government system they despise. And there are the words of the President's own economic adviser Austin Goolsbee.
Congressional Democrats should say "no way." In the next two weeks before the State of the Union address, they could help the President resist the would-be wreckers of Social Security by taking the same stands he did three years ago. Sen. Harry Reid was a role model for this approach last weekend on "Meet the Press":
DAVID GREGORY: Social Security– how does it have to change? What they put on the agenda is raising the retirement age, maybe means testing benefits. Is it time for Social Security to fundamentally change if you’re gonna deal with the debt problem?
HARRY REID: One of the things that always troubles me is when we start talking about the debt, the first thing people do is run to Social Security. Social Security is a program that works. And it’s going to be– it’s fully funded for the next forty years. Stop picking on Social Security. There’re a lotta places–
DAVID GREGORY: Senator are you really saying –
HARRY REID: –where you can go to save money.
DAVID GREGORY:– the arithmetic on Social Security works?
HARRY REID: I’m saying the arithmetic in Social Security works. I have no doubt it does.
DAVID GREGORY: It’s not in crisis?
HARRY REID: No, it’s not in crisis. This is– this is– this is something that’s perpetuated by people who don’t like government. Social Security is fine. Are there things we can do to improve Social Security? Of course.
DAVID GREGORY: Means testing. Raising the retirement age–do you agree with either of those?
HARRY REID: –I’m not going to go to with any of those backdoor methods- you know, to whack Social Security recipients. I’m not going to do that. We have a lot of things we can do with– this debt. It’s a problem. But one of the places where I’m not going to be part of picking on is Social Security. |
Bingo! For Democrats who think they might be in a tough race next year, Reid gave a lesson for how to meet their foes head on. Stand up the way he did for Social Security. Don't go mushy. Call out the wreckers. There is no crisis. And backdoor methods to get to their real goal - privatization - should be stopped in their tracks.
Note David Gregory's incredulity at the thought that Social Security actually works and is not in crisis. Obviously, Gregory hadn't done his homework in reading the Social Security trustees' report, in getting the most basic facts about how the program is funded, and in understanding that Social Security does not contribute to the debt problem. Of course, the fact that Social Security has been regularly raided to pay for perpetual war and tax cuts to the people in David Gregory's tax bracket is a problem - but that's not the result of any inherent problem with the program itself.
Sen. Reid is an important ally in the effort to keep Social Security whole. But other prominent Democrats need to stand beside him. The best time for them to do it is now. They can get the President's back in this matter, show him that they fully support his keeping those promises he made. Not only is it the principled thing to do, it's smart politics. The demographic that's most difficult for Democrats to capture at the polls right now is over 65. As Robert Kuttner points out, "Obama has a splendid opportunity to point out that it's Republicans who want to cut Social Security." And Democrats who have been wavering have the opportunity to prove that this is true.
Written in conjunction with Joan McCarter
• • • • •
At Daily Kos on this date in 2006:
The mantra that "a President is entitled to his nominee" will be repeated many times as Senators decide how to cast their votes. The premise stems from the notion that it is he who has a vested appointment power, and that the Senate should accord the President a high degree of deference when he makes he choice.
The question is this: Does this theory of entitlement prevail when the President has abused the trust of the American people?
Here is a President who has misled our Nation into war, abrogated the laws duly enacted by Congress, and violated our constitutional and civil rights. He's drudged through scandal after scandal, but has yet to be held accountable. Where is Phase II of the pre-war intelligence investigation? Where is the outrage over the fact he nullified Congress' ban on torture? He violated his oath to protect the Constitution when he issued his royal edict to spy on us outside the law. Yet who will him responsible? A Republican Congress?
The President, exhibiting the theory of the unitary executive that Alito endorses, has snubbed the legislative and judicial branches of government and has declared himself above the law. And now, Senators will claim with straight face that he is entitled to his nominee? |
Tonight's Quote:
"I would execute [Guantánamo prisoners] and I'd execute the lawyer. How's that? I'd execute any lawyer who would do this to this country in a time like this ― I'd hang her. I'd hang her. I'd hang her for aiding and abetting terrorism. Don't tell me they're entitled to a rational defense, I'm so sick of this ― I could rip my desk and it's made of iron. I feel like Superman right now, I could take my hands and break my desk, that's how enraged I am today, I'm choked up with anger."
Michael Alan Weiner (aka Michael Savage)
The Savage Nation radio show
June 18, 2008