Hey there! Tool checking in from AOC’s district — the fightin 14th! This morning after a much needed cup of coffee and a semi-consensual petting session with my black cat — I remembered something that really got under my skin during the Presidency of Obama.
The National Commission of Fiscal Responsibility! Anyone remember that? I do and I remember it was uniformly wrong on every economic assertion the commission made.
www.motherjones.com/...
President Obama’s Deficit Commission is all smoke and mirrors. Its members are making a big show of laboring over “painful” choices and considering all options in their quest to bring down the deficit. But inside the Beltway everyone knows what’s going to happen: The commission will reduce the deficit on the backs of the old and the poor, through cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Some opponents have taken to calling it the Cat Food Commission, since that’s what its victims will be forced to eat once the commission gets done slashing away at their modest entitlements.
In fact, the true intent of the Deficit Commission was evident before it was even formed. That intent was only driven home when Obama appointed as its co-chair Alan Simpson, who is well known for voicing, in the most colorful terms, what Paul Krugman calls the “zombie lie” that old-age entitlements will soon bankrupt the country.
Why was it so wrong on the basic economic questions of the day?
Well! It was headed by two guys that were determined to cut social security, medicare, raise the retirement age of social security, make adjustments to the COLA formula (cost of living adjustment), and generally just screw people over under the guise of tough love!
I’ve read the thing — it reads like a bunch of false equivalencies and crappy justifications strung together to achieve one outcome: transfer of more wealth into the hands of the 0.1%.
www.senate.gov/… (read it if you wanna gag)
RECOMMENDATION 5.4: GRADUALLY INCREASE EARLY AND FULL RETIREMENT AGES, BASED ON INCREASES IN LIFE EXPECTANCY. After the Normal Retirement Age (NRA) reaches 67 in 2027 under current law, index both the NRA and Early Eligibility Age (EEA) to increases in life expectancy, effectively increasing the NRA to 68 by about 2050 and 69 by about 2075, and the EEA to 63 and 64 in lock step.To account for increasing life expectancy, the Commission recommends indexing the retirement age to gains in longevity. The effect of this is roughly equivalent to adjusting the retirement ages by one month every two years after the NRA reaches age 67 under current law. At this pace, the NRA would reach 68 in about 2050, and 69 in about 2075; the Early Eligibility Age (EEA) would increase to 63 and 64 in step.
Now it is important to remember that all the horrible, stupid, and glaringly tone deaf ideas that the former republicans selected by the Obama Administration (why them?) — wrote into their “findings” that recommended the same stupid conservative economic ideas that failed the last 40 years — have MOSTLY not been adopted by our party or the government.
What is one idea that never was presented by the deficit (cat-food) commission?
Raising the cap on social security contributions on income.
Starting Jan. 1, 2019, the maximum earnings that will be subject to the Social Security payroll tax will increase by $4,500 to $132,900—up from the $128,400 maximum for 2018, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced Oct. 11
After $132,900 people don’t pay any more money on income into the SS security fund. In order to make social security solvent, expand payments, and then lower the age of being able to collect benefits — the programs income cap could be moved to 1,000,000. That would solve the whole problem. Just that.
That is an idea that comes from the progressive side of the democratic party. Is it a good idea? I think so since it has the best outcomes and is the easiest change to implement. Now the debate on the left — is how much should that cap be increased. Do we raise it from $132,900 to $250,000 or $500,000 or $1,000,000 or 10,000,000 (my ideal) — making social security solvent for 200+ years, payments can be greatly expanded so seniors are not living on 9k — 12k a year and then relying on their adult children to cover their expenses.
That is a worthy debate to have and I think social security is a really important issue that can energize a lot of democrats to vote.
Now — Tool — why are you bringing up the Catfood Commission and social security?
It is pretty important to me to understand outcomes and how we arrived at those outcomes!
There were many parts of the Obama presidency that frustrated Progressive!
We have a pretty good idea of why now:
inthesetimes.com/...
Biden had an ambivalent relationship with government spending. Considered in the 1980s to be one of the Democratic Party's new “neoliberals,” Biden called then for a spending freeze on Social Security and a higher Social Security retirement age. In 1995, he cast his vote for a balanced budget constitutional amendment, despite his earlier criticisms of it. The choice was, he said, “an imperfect amendment or continued spending.” When he ran for president 12 years later, he again called for the Social Security retirement age to go up.
In journalist Bob Woodward's 2012 book The Price of Politics, he portrays Biden during Obama’s first term eager to sacrifice Social Security and Medicare for the sake of bipartisan compromise and achieving what would be, in the eyes of Washington, a political victory.
Biden first displayed his friendliness to GOP entitlement hawks when he appointed former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson to co-chair the president's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, created in February 2010 via executive order. Simpson was one of Congress's most high-profile foes of entitlements and a proponent of Social Security privatization. In Woodward's telling, Biden even had to lightly pressure a somewhat reluctant Simpson to take the role.
Sure enough, the Simpson-Bowles Commission, as it came to be known, recommended cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security
Is this the type of economic thinking we need back in charge of the White House? The guy who pushed President Obama away from a pair of nice comfy shoes and instead helped fill the administration with a record level of Goldman Sachs, Citi bank, U.S Trust, BoA, and other financial institution executives?
Biden loves making false choice arguments. It’s a big weakness of his and people who try and convince progressives that cuts to EARNED benefits (not entitlements) — are the only way to go when we have to make “hard choices” about the deficit. Somehow the rich are never asked to pay more.
Based upon the behavior of Joe Biden in during the Obama presidency — I have no reason to believe that Biden will advocate expanding social security, medicare, or medicaid in a manner that makes the programs stronger for the 99%.
Here is anther one of our candidates — making a speech on the floor about the amount of Citibank employees in the Obama administration:
occasionalplanet.org/...
Mr. President, in recent years, many Wall Street institutions have exerted extraordinary influence in Washington’s corridors of power, but Citigroup has risen above the others. Its grip over economic policymaking in the executive branch is unprecedented. Consider a few examples:
- Three of the last four Treasury Secretaries under Democratic presidents have had close Citigroup ties. The fourth was offered the CEO position at Citigroup, but turned it down.
- The Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve is a Citigroup alum.
- The Undersecretary for International Affairs at Treasury is a Citigroup alum.
- The U.S. Trade Representative and the person nominated to be his deputy – who is currently an assistant secretary at Treasury – are Citigroup alums.
- A recent chairman of the National Economic Council at the White House was a Citigroup alum.
- Another recent Chairman of the Office of Management and Budget went to Citigroup immediately after leaving the White House.
- Another recent Chairman of the Office of Management of Budget and Management is also a Citi alum — but I’m double counting here because now he’s the Secretary of the Treasury.
That’s a lot of powerful people, all from one bank. But they aren’t Citigroup’s only source of power. Over the years, the company has spent millions of dollars on lobbying Congress and funding the political campaigns of its friends in the House and the Senate.
Citigroup has also spent millions trying to influence the political process in ways that are far more subtle—and hidden from public view. Last year, I wrote Citigroup and other big banks a letter asking them to disclose the amount of shareholder money they have been diverting to think tanks to influence public policy.
Citigroup’s response to my letter? Stonewalling. A year has gone by, and Citigroup didn’t even acknowledge receiving the letter.
Citigroup has a lot of money, it spends a lot of money, and it uses that money to grow and consolidate a lot of power. And it pays off. Consider a couple facts.
Fact one: During the financial crisis, when all the support through TARP and from the FDIC and the Fed is added up, Citi received nearly half a trillion dollars in bailouts. That’s half a trillion with a “t.” That’s almost $140 billion more than the next biggest bank got.
Fact two: During Dodd-Frank, there was an amendment introduced by my colleague Senator Brown and Senator Kaufman that would have broken up Citigroup and the nation’s other largest banks. That amendment had bipartisan support, and it might have passed, but it ran into powerful opposition from an alliance between Wall Streeters on Wall Street and Wall Streeters who held powerful government jobs. They teamed up and blocked the move to break up the banks—and now Citi is bigger than ever.
The role that senior officials working in the Treasury department played in killing the amendment was not subtle: A senior Treasury official acknowledged it at the time in a background interview with New York Magazine. The official from Treasury said, and I’m quoting here, “If we’d been for it, it probably would have happened. But we weren’t, so it didn’t.” That’s power.
Mr. President, Democrats don’t like Wall Street bailouts. Republicans don’t like Wall Street bailouts. The American people are disgusted by Wall Street bailouts. And yet here we are — five years after Dodd-Frank – with Congress on the verge of ramming through a provision that would do nothing for middle class, do nothing for community banks – do nothing but raise the risk that taxpayers will have to bail out the biggest banks once again.
There’s a lot of talk lately about how the Dodd-Frank Act isn’t perfect. There’s a lot of talk coming from Citigroup about how the Dodd-Frank Act isn’t perfect.
So let me say this to anyone who is listening at Citi: I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect.
It should have broken you into pieces.
- Elizabeth Warren