Super Congress in Session – More of the Cruel Charade

By Michael Collins

Wall Street and the big banks owe $1.5 trillion for the bailout (at least). The Super Congress needs to cut $1.5 trillion over ten years. Get the money from Wall Street and cancel the Super Congress. Problem solved.

Last month’s debt ceiling crisis was resolved when Congress and the Obama administration made a deal to cut trillions in federal spending over the next ten years. Congress identified the easy cuts, the low hanging fruit so to speak, for a total of nearly $1.0 trillion. At the same time, Congress and the White House created the “Super Congress” committee of six senators and six representatives charged with cutting another $1.5 trillion. (Image: Lucy White with permission)

The War on You

Let the word go forth from Washington! The corporate rulers occupying our nation’s capital have declared war on just about every citizen.

Have no doubt: those in the upper ranges of the top 1% of wealth in this country (aka The Money Party) want to kick you to the curb.

Revolution Is a Legitimate Option

By Timothy Gatto
The Peoples Voice

The current state of affairs in America is untenable. The government that the American people put into power has turned its back on the majority of Americans. Both major political parties are sustained by corporate dollars for their political campaigns and by out-and-out bribery. There are fundamental ills that are destroying the United States that must be addressed. These are:

Choreographed Budget Cave In – The Money Party Stabs Citizens in the Back

So this is how it is going to be:

“After putting controversial cuts to Social Security and Medicare on the table in negotiations with congressional Republicans over a plan to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, President Obama still doesn’t have a deal in the works.”  Chris Moody, Yahoo News, July 7

Who told President Obama to put “controversial cuts on Social Security and Medicare on the table”?  Hasn’t the president seen his public opinion polling numbers lately?  He is consistently at or below 50% job approval.  (Image)

Didn’t he pay attention to the special congressional election in the highly conservative, long-time Republican upstate New York district that elected a Democrat for the first time in years?

Isn’t the President Obama aware that there’s an election coming up; that many of the people he is so willingly and openly betraying rely on Social Security to live and Medicare to stay alive?

What planet does he live on?  (Unless this is what he truly desires.)

America’s Largest Newspaper Launches a Nasty Attack on Grandma and Grandpa

By Joshua Holland
AlterNet

The conservative playbook isn’t difficult to decipher. They rely heavily on the politics of resentment – point to someone in our society, claim they’re a lucky-duck using unverifiable anecdotes or cherry-picked data, and then urge people to ask, “Why does that person have it so good when I’m busting my ass to make ends meet?”

It was apparent in Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” rhetoric, and also in the ubiquitous references to “young bucks” buying T-bone steaks with their food-stamps. Now the Right’s using the exact same play for those greedy public employees supposedly living large on their fat salaries.

This week, the Wall Street Journal featured an excellent example of the genre by John Cogan, a fellow at the corporate-backed Hoover Institution. The piece, titled, “The Millionaire Retirees Next Door,” is a shining testament to the dishonesty surrounding our discourse on “entitlements.”

Decline and Fall (Maybe) Dec 20

We’re on our own. It’s official. The House of Representatives completed what the Senate began (which seems like the wrong way around). The giveaway to millionaires, also known as the Obama-Republican tax bill, is now law. The grand total is now $900 billion in tax cuts, a large sum of which comes from the Social Security Trust Fund. Shameless politicians have created an open wound in the Social Security that they say is “temporary.” They lie so consistently, there is no reason to believe that the payroll tax will ever be restored; certainly not in the next two legislative seasons with a super majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives. (Image)

There was no real debate, hence no public awareness, of the crime committed. But when the word gets out over the next few months, there should be an awful reckoning when the people wake up to this theft. Those who voted for this proposal didn’t just touch the third rail of American politics, they sat down on it.

There were some winners out of all this:

“A bonanza of new and extended tax benefits could make it as easy as ever for the rich to stay that way.” Bloomberg Businessweek

You are on your own. It’s official!

By Michael Collins

Some of us have known this for a long time. Some of us just found out and some will find out very soon. There are few, if any, elected officials who really care about our interests unless we’re one of the few thousand ultra rich who control Congress and the White House.

The Obama-Republican tax plan was just approved in the United States Senate. It will become law soon. What did we lose?

The Plot to Destroy Social Security

Michael Collins

(Washington, Dec 10) Bill Clinton showed up at the White House for an “impromptu” press conference to discuss the president’s tax compromise with the Republicans. Clinton disclosed that “I make a lot of money now” and, as a result, he would benefit from the program. Then he endorsed the compromise calling it the best deal Obama could make. Clinton was particularly high on the Social Security payroll tax reduction. “According to all economic analysis, [this is] the single most effective tax cut you can do to support economic activity. This will actually create a fair number of jobs. I expect it to lower the unemployment rate and keep us going.” (Image)

Across town, United States Senator Bernie Sanders was telling the simple truth that Obama and Clinton avoided. Reducing the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2% as a one year tax holiday presumes that the normal rates will be restored at the end of the one year period. Who would restore those rates? The very same party that passed the Bush ten year “temporary” income tax reductions. That same party, the Republicans, now claims that ending the Bush temporary tax cuts represents the greatest tax increase ever. Just as they forgot that those tax cuts were temporary, the new Republican majority will forget the payroll cuts were temporary. Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Mike Johanns (R-NE) agree that ending the tax holiday will be portrayed as a tax increase.

Tell Obama: Cut wars not Social Security

From a public release by Bold Progressives

The “bipartisan” deficit reduction commission — appointed by President Obama, and led by millionaires like right-wing former Senator Alan Simpson — just made their ideas public. And they are ridiculous.  They recommend cutting Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age to 69.

We need to respond fast to make sure this goes nowhere. House Progressive Caucus Chair Raul Grijalva has boldly organized over 100 of his colleagues to fight this proposal. We need to show they have grassroots support. Can you join over 27,000 others in being a “citizen signer” of Grijalva’s letter? Click here — then share with others.

The Revolving Villains – Obama and the Democrats Want to Eliminate Social Security Part III

By Jonathryn

That Was a Yes or No Question, Mr. President.

This is part II of a multipart series to demonstrate how everyone in Washington—and one-term President Barack Obama in particular—are telegraphing the fact that they will be gearing up for a major campaign to steal money from Senior Citizens by making drastic changes to “fix” the Social Security program. Part I can be read here. Part II can be read here. (Image)

Today at the top of Atrios’ (Duncan Black’s) website, he writes the question he asked about at a recent blogger conference with one-term President Barak Obama: 

Q: Mine is an easy question. Will you rule out raising the retirement age to 70?

Class War: Obama goes after little old ladies

Obama, Captain of the USS Titanic, Willing to Throw Older Women Out of the Lifeboats First By Raising Retirement Age

By Libby Liberal
Corrente

Raising the retirement age to a whopping 70 is more than a twinkle in the eyes of Obama and his Gucci-loafered-Austerian-Commission-sadists from both sides of the aisle. They are about to stick it once again to all of us, but particularly to struggling low-income older women in physical jobs!

Obama and the Senate Democrats Seek to Eliminate Social Security: Part I

By Jonathyn Posted by Michael Collins

Originally posted at The Agonist

Social Security Is Not a Campaign Issue?

This is part I of a multipart series to demonstrate how everyone in Washington—and one-term President Barack Obama in particular—are telegraphing the fact that they will be gearing up for a major campaign to steal money from Senior Citizens by making drastic changes to “fix” the Social Security program.

Why oh Why are the Democrats not making Social Security an Issue? Wonders Rachel Maddow (click here and search for “The Ad Democrats Need to Win” for the segment—will edit as avail). As admirable as she is for being quite possibly the most intelligent person on cable news, the incorrect rhetorical effect she seeks is to demonstrate that Democrats are really bad at politics. She points out that many prominent Republicans have plainly said that they will privatize social security or eliminate it altogether, which for obvious reasons is vastly unpopular with very large majorities of Americans.

If Democrats disagree, surely they will raise their voices.

“There Is No Economic Justification for Deficit Reduction” Galbraith to Deficit Commission

Posted by Michael Collins

Your proceedings are clouded by illegitimacy.

The conclusion to be drawn is that Social Security should in any event be off the agenda of your Commission, as it is a transfer program and not a program of public spending in the economic sense. In particular it does not use capital resources and will not drive up interest rates. This is true whether the “Social Security System” is in internal balance or not. James K. Galbraith

Warning! $467,562 Charge for Same-Sex Partnerships

By Steve W.

When we talk about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the fact that, because it prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions, lesbian and gay partners are denied over 1,100 benefits, we’re not just talking about marriage, are we? We’re really talking about health insurance, Social Security, estate tax and much more.