I’ve yet to see any of the Villagers come out in favor of the Bowles-Simpson thing. Andrew Sullivan is excited, and is cheerfully heh-indeeding various Koch whores’ positive reactions to it all (while tsk-tsking hippie opposition), but even in today’s fucked up world of political discourse, no one is interested in Sully’s economic opinions.
Krugman hates it, but what does he know?
Update. And, yeah, stick this one on our society’s gravestone:
Much of it is way over my head in terms of the specifics of government programs and the ability to cut them. But the core proposal is honest, real, and vital.
Translation: I don’t know fuck all but the numbers, but I like the sound of serious, painful, sacrifice.
But credit where credit is due, David Broder won’t admit he doesn’t understand the numbers when he flogs it tomorrow morning.
Dexter
So, that means I don’t need to freak out right now. I’ll wait and watch then.
dr. bloor
Not even the Villagers want to get excited about a document that is nothing more than Alan Simpson’s wet dream.
Sullivan? That’s another story.
Zifnab
What? You missed the news?
The Third Way loves the catfood commission report.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/10/919451/-Third-Way-lauds-fiscal-commission-chairs-proposal,-real-Dems-blast-it
PeakVT
Liasson just finished her usual concern trolling using the report. Ugh.
JGabriel
The GOP has a new meme in the War Against Energy Efficiency — Traditional Light Bulb Values:
Only a sociaIist would want a lower utility bill! Goddam commies and their liberal light fixtures!
When they sociaIized trash collection, I said nothing. When they came for our light bulbs…
.
Fwiffo
It actually seems kinda unserious to me. I mean, they take a huge hatchet to Social Security, but only tinker around the edges of Medicare, which is the much bigger problem. They suggest a target % of GDP size for government, which isn’t even something they’re supposed to be doing.
They suggest eliminating earmarks, which neither cuts spending nor raises revenue, making it a purely symbolic gesture. There’s also a whole bunch of nickel and dime stuff that seems to mostly be there to cause pain or make political hay, and doesn’t really have much deficit impact.
Edit: For the record, I thought to use the word “unserious” before clicking the Krugman link.
ruemara
Hm, the scribd online versions have been deleted.
Tim I
TPM is reporting what seems to be the death knell of the Catfood Commission.
The rest of the Commission seems to have totally freaked out over the Chairmen’s proposal. This is the result i always thought we would get. The rules Obama set up for super majority approval for any Commission proposal meant that this was gonna be a non-starter. Simpson has doubled down on the crazy.
MattR
Reposting my response to a Sully quote from the previous thread since it is more on topic here.
———————————–
So basically Sully has no idea if any of the proposals are realistic either financially or politically, yet he knows that they are “honest, real and vital”.
Just shoot me.
Dexter
@JGabriel: What does Joe Barton has against candles and oil lamps? He is limiting the people’s option. Damn RINO.
DougJ
@MattR:
Exactly.
MattR
@DougJ: OT but I mentioned this last night.
Mnemosyne
@Tim I:
Me, too. I feel kind of like Homer in the “Simpsons” episode where the meteor is going to hit Springfield.
“You know what this means? Dad was right!”
“I know, kids. I’m scared, too.”
JGabriel
@Dexter:
And have light without paying Our Patriotic Great American Electrical Utilites? You commie!
.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
I say it again, this was nothing more than the Iraq Study Group redux. The blogheads got excited over something that wasn’t going to happen.
Really, not even Ron Paul dared to call for cuts in SS benefits during the 2008 campaign.
DougJ
@MattR:
Awesome!
ruemara
@MattR:
DougJ’s a cop?
Culture of Truth
Two old white establishment guys have proposed painful choices for poor people.
David Gregory probably gave himself whiplash trying to book them on his show.
BGinCHI
Maybe Obama is hoping the House will see this play by the “Obama Commission” (their perception, not mine) and try to outdo it with even more massive cuts to programs oldsters like and can’t live without.
Then he vetoes and the House GOP eats a big shit sandwich.
Dexter
@JGabriel: Who has priority? The Great American Utilities or Great American Oil Inc?
BGinCHI
@Culture of Truth: It’s a “both sides do it” Craptacular.
freelancer
@ruemara:
And a Brit at that?
Scott de B.
It was obvious reading the summary of the proposals that Sullivan would get excited about it. Just the kind of faux-serious fiscal conservatism that give him warm fuzzies.
Culture of Truth
Old CW: Obama’s going to kill Social Security!
New CW: Obama’s Commission is a Failure!
MarkJ
I really wish Andrew would stop commenting on deficits and economics in general. I don’t really know what his area of expertise is, but it certainly isn’t economics or any policy area involving serious quantitative components. 9 out of 10 times, all he does is parrot the Reasonoid perspective, which is to say he peddles economic fiction and fiscal insanity.
suzanne
I would talk about how much I hate these people, but I’m home feeling sicker than hell today and my voice won’t last long enough. Of course, truth be told, I could be in perfect health and I wouldn’t be able to talk long or angrily enough about how much these people fucking suck.
A L
If you don’t think this is the baseline at which the Democrats will negotiate, you must not live in this country.
Say goodbye to your lives, Americans.
BR
@JGabriel:
Oh my god. That’s not an onion article?
Maude
OT, unless you like wine with your Little Friskies,
Alaska has 13 wineries.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Krugman is an old, old man like me and remembers ye olden days of the Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. Instead of wasting all this time with the Catfood Commission and its DOA recommendations they should have just passed something like this. Now would have been the perfect time, since in the wake of the recent election the Dems have little to lose.
Comrade Luke
I have yet to read anything anywhere that suggests there are recommendations to increase taxes at all. Is that true?
Here’s one way to cut costs: stop funding fucked-up commissions that take forever to produce recommendations that no one will adopt.
Dennis SGMM
@Tim I:
So it wasn’t really a commission, it was just the co-chairs jerking each other off.
MattR
@Comrade Luke:
But then how will we know which garbage company to use? You monopoly loving fascist.
Mnemosyne
@Dennis SGMM:
Pretty much. But the story all over the media is going to be breathlessly reporting the recommendations of “the commission” while delicately leaving out the part where the actual commission didn’t decide on jack shit.
ETA: Given that Atrios already has four “OMG THE SKY IS FALLING DEMOCRATS SUCK” posts, I fear it has begun.
Roger Moore
@Dexter:
Damn you and your electricity and petroleum. Spermaceti now, Spermaceti forever!
kdaug
Jesus, this is so easy. Three new tax brackets: 1) anything over $250,000/yr is taxed at 45%; 2) anything over $750,000/yr is taxed at 65%; 3) anything over $1.25m/yr is taxed at 90%.
Oh, capital gains tax goes to 50%.
Seemed to work pretty good in the 1950s.
Comrade Luke
@Mnemosyne:
And, conservatives will pound away at the things they like about the proposals, making them part of the vernacular in the Village within months, while Democrats will not bring up any of it.
“But, the commission that Obama himself commissioned recommends cutting Social Security. How can you argue otherwise?”
JGabriel
@Dexter:
Why compromise? There’s no conflict here. We MUST ensure that all of Our Great American Electrical Utilities run on oil or coal from Our Great American Fossil Fuel Conglomerates.
Hoover Dam Must Go! No more new-fangled hydro-electric, wind, solar, or geo-thermal energy.
But we must protect our Nuclear Energy Friends. They are the future of profit-generating monopolized scarce radioactive rare metal resources.
And it all depends on maintaining our Traditional Light Bulb Values against the back-stabbing fluorescent liberal hordes!
.
BR
@kdaug:
We should call it the Eisenhower-JFK budget act. Sell it on that basis: “During the time of Eisenhower and Kennedy the country was doing better than any time since. Let’s go back to that time.”
CT Voter
Hmmm. I like the Bowles-Simpson order in the post.
The BS Commission, for short.
Perry Como
It’s good to see the serious thinkers are thinking seriously about charging to get into museums. That should fix the deficit right quick.
arguingwithsignposts
So Sully is no better than the “economics editor” at the Atlantic with numbers.
JGabriel
@Dennis SGMM:
Fixed for brevity. And rhyme.
.
me
@BR: Aren’t many of the teabaggers nostalgic for the 50’s?
General Stuck
This is off topic, but I’ve been flummoxed a little lately, picking my meager brains, from being surprised to see George Bush, not only brag about torturing folks in his upcoming horror memoirs, but also in interviews making the point, on the record, that it was HE giving the specific orders to waterboard prisoners.
I know he is dumb, but not quite that dumb, has been my thinking, but why?
And then a series of what ifs?, which are only that, began began to line up, that would explain maybe why Holder and Obama have been handling the low radar investigation of torture in the Bush administration the way they have. And why Holder expanded Durham’s mandate from what he was investigating, while at the same time limiting it also, to just instances where even the illegal Bybee memo guidelines for waterboarding were grossly violated in some cases, like with the 9-11 guys in custody.
The pieces of this puzzle fit together fairly snug, if you accept the likely hood, that Holder either knew for sure, or had strong suspicions that these instances of exceeding limits on what should have never had limits, because the world and legal history clearly label it torture, and therefore never should have been considered, let along carried out by the American government – what if Holder knew, or had evidence the chain of direct command for waterboarding went straight to President Bush, and fairly suspected Bush also ordered the excesses, then his actions would make more sense.
And likewise, it makes sense that Bush is suspecting rightly, that the truth will come out that he violated his own guidelines for what was already blatant torture, and now is pre empting, by blustering his participation, to try and pre gain some public favor, when we learn the truth. And Holder doesn’t even have to claim waterboarding is torture at least under limited circumstances and use, all he has to do is nail down that Bush went over his own line, or his apologists line, found in the Bybee memo.
Conspiracy theory? maybe. but not implausible. I still do not think Bush will ever be arrested in this country, nor Cheney, let alone tried. But the Hague was created to take on cases of war criminals, when the politics of their home countries prevented them being tried there.
arguingwithsignposts
@Comrade Luke:
I think funding commissions to produce recommendations that no one will adopt is a fine job creation idea – stimulus. We should, however, give these jobs to actual unemployed people.
batgirl
@Comrade Luke: In fact, according to Krugman, there is a recommendation to lower the top income tax bracket to 23%. What the fuck all that has to do with social security, which I thought was the subject of this freakin commission, I don’t know.
It’s basically a piss on everyone who is not one of the lucky (and of course, deserving) wealthy.
I don’t think I can get anymore depressed.
BR
@me:
Exactly my thinking. I figure we sell them on the Eisenhower part and throw in JFK who nobody in the media will openly speak ill about (except maybe on Fox, but even they know that attacking JFK is not smart).
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
Is he writing posts now? Or are they all still “Open Thread” and “WEEEE!” and “Eated” and other relics of awkward running bits that weren’t particularly funny many years ago? Atrios is like the David Letterman of blogpundits.
MikeJ
@batgirl: Why on earth are you depressed? Two morons are wanking in public. This isn’t law. It’s not a bill. They can’t even get the committee to agree to it.
I simply don’t understand why anybody would think the sky was falling.
DougJ
@General Stuck:
What I find surprising is how no one is paying attention to him or his book. He was just president only two years ago! The failures of his presidency will be studied for generations.
FlipYrWhig
@batgirl:
Why are you depressed at all? Two guys on a 14-member commission came up with a fantasy proposal that _no one else on the commission_ even liked. Who cares?
Mnemosyne
@me:
Of course they are — they were kids in the 1950s, so they didn’t have to pay those tax rates. Their parents did. It was once they grew up and realized that Mommy and Daddy weren’t going to pay their way anymore that they got pissed.
Zifnab
So, if I’m to understand the deficit commission correctly, their proposal is tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, increase military spending, and gut entitlements to pay for it all.
When they called it a “Deficit Commission” was it intended to make the deficit bigger or smaller?
MattR
Interesting quote from the NY Times (via a comment at GOS)
@FlipYrWhig:
18 member commission. They need 14 votes to approve a report.
batgirl
@batgirl: my error, the commission was about “fiscal responsibility.” of course someone please tell me how lowering the top income tax bracket to 23% in fiscally responsible.
Fuck it.
BGinCHI
@DougJ: You mean besides Matt Fucking Lauer?
I guess the cameras filter out the irony.
jacy
@MarkJ:
Sully’s area of expertise is crying hysterically when his own ox gets gored and laughing hysterically when someone else’s does.
I’ve been three weeks Sully-free, and am all the better for it.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@FlipYrWhig: Atrios is disturbed.
Back on election night in 2006, instead of celebrated the 20 pt destruction of Senator Man on Dog, he was whinning that Bob Casey wasn’t a doctrinal liberal.
Pitiful.
FlipYrWhig
@batgirl:
While doing away with itemized deductions. People in that bracket don’t actually pay that rate on their money now. So that’s not purely a “tax cut.” But it’s still masturbatory!
Personally, as someone who bought a house in July 2005, I’m going to cling to that home mortgage interest deduction for dear life no matter how stupid it is as a matter of public policy.
freelancer
@FlipYrWhig:
HaHAAAAAAAAAH! [organ music]
Here’s my top 10 list Wankers of the day!
Mnemosyne
@DougJ:
His interview with Matt Lauer came in fourth that night with a 1.7 rating. The next-lowest rated show in that timeslot, “How I Met Your Mother,” got a 3.5.
Yes, they bumped “Chuck” for this.
Douglas
@General Stuck:
It was created for that.
But if you really think that US would allow for a former POTUS to be judged and sentenced there…
Hell, you would have Dems calling for war on the netherlands…
Maude
@General Stuck:
One thing Bush said was the lawyer said it was legal.
Bush thinks he can get away with anything.
We aren’t signed onto the international criminal count.
I do wonder how this will go.
Holder has been silent about this and I haven’t heard any leaks out the investigations.
BGinCHI
@batgirl: Get two rich assholes to chair a commission. Their compromise has to do with their shared interest in the rich.
Thus their proposal: Rich Assholes Win.
Suck it, everyman!
MikeJ
I just heard a Katy Perry song on the radio.
This is the end of the American experiment. I couldn’t get any more depressed.
srv
After a few minutes of self-debate, I have decided that Sully makes McMegan look like an intellectual giant.
Mnemosyne
@Zifnab:
Again, this is not the commission’s recommendation. This is Bowles and Erskine’s public temper tantrum after the rest of the commission said, “Are you fucking high? What the fuck is this thing? You call this a proposal?”
FlipYrWhig
@freelancer: WIN
General Stuck
@DougJ: Maybe people who nearly destroy modern civilization are more interesting than most. This is now a country whose politics and media wait anxiously for the latest brain fart tweeted from Sarah Palin on the state of affairs in America. In such an environment, nothing surprises me, and I can explain very little.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@batgirl: And apparently, while they recommend that janitors and construction workers work till they are 70, there is no recommendation to raise the ceiling on income taxed for social security (currently $106,800). I thought that would make it in there but it didn’t. The commissioners have definitely decided who needs to tighten their belts and it’s not the rich.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Right. This is basically a proposal so ugly, a commission specifically tasked with producing something kind of like this and hence open to the general idea that cuts would be on the table, recoiled in total horror. That’s ugly.
General Stuck
@Douglas:
Maybe not, but I need to keep the possibility open in my head.
Culture of Truth
Hey the Cardinals were in the Superbowl less than 2 years ago and I’m not paying attention to them.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@MikeJ: to paraphrase Alan Simpson, she’s got nice tits.
http://www.diamondthoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/katy-perry-sesame-street-snl-engagement-rings.jpg
jacy
@MikeJ:
I have nothing personal against Katy Perry, but for dog’s sake could she be any more ubiquitous? She’s like the E.coli of pop music.
srv
While they destroyed the torture videos (90-something tapes!), I wonder if someone kept the log on who had them checked out.
Because I’ll bet the deciderer watched some of them.
MikeJ
There is a 30% chance of precipitation tomorrow.
How can the republic survive?
Mnemosyne
@jacy:
Apparently her wedding in India was lovely, though she’s a better woman than I am to be able to stand Russell Brand for more than 2 consecutive seconds. I would have smothered him with a pillow within week 1 of dating.
FlipYrWhig
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
From TPM:
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
Heh. I just realized I got the names wrong: Bowles and Simpson. That’s what Erskine Bowles gets for having two friggin’ last names.
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
A Sarah Palin interview would probably have gotten better ratings. I don’t know what kind of meaning one could get from this comparison except it makes my heard hurt and I’m going to go watch Idiotcracy.
kdaug
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Oh yeah, that reminds me – “ceiling on income taxed for social security”.
That needs to be gone. Poof-gone. Bye-bye.
Voila. SS saved for time immemorial.
Why do people make this so complicated?
BGinCHI
@Mnemosyne: Did you hear him on Fresh Air?
I think you’d be really surprised.
freelancer
I had to take the trash out to the curb this morning. I’ve never been more depressed.
bemused
@kdaug:
Because you cannot take one cent from the wealthy who have earned everything they have through their brilliance and raw sweat, not like the rest of us sponges.
suzanne
@MikeJ:
You want to get more depressed? A couple of weeks ago, I chaperoned my six-year-old’s class on a field trip. On the bus back to school, one of her classmates started singing a Katy Perry song. Then ALL the girls in the class (except for mine) sang along. Lyrics were, shall we say, questionable for second-graders. I shot the teacher a “Is this acceptable behavior?” look.
Then, after that song, one of the girls started singing Kesha’s “Take It Off”. (I’ll leave it to you to Google the lyrics.) This time, I didn’t wait for the teacher—I shut that shit down.
jacy
@freelancer:
I’m sure you’d be less depressed if only you had more trash disposal options.
Mnemosyne
@BGinCHI:
I saw his interviews for the “Monty Python: Almost the Truth” documentary and they were positively painful. That high-pitched giggle would have driven me to murder so no other woman would ever have to endure it.
DougJ
@srv:
I think that on stuff like this, she is in fact better than he is.
Oscar Leroy
You people slay me. Obama creates a commission by executive order and fills it with people who absolutely hate Social Security, yet we’re not supposed to think he wanted to cut Social Security. And why shouldn’t people believe both of those propositions? You present them like they are mutually exclusive. They aren’t.
President-Elect Obama Says Overhauling Entitlement Programs ‘A Central Part’ Of Administration Spending Control Efforts
arguingwithsignposts
Who the hell is Russell Brand? (you kids get off my lawn)
jacy
@suzanne:
My five-year-old was singing “Take it Off” in the car the other day. I take some solace in the fact that he just finds it catchy and has no idea what he’s singing. But I now realize I may have to reconsider my nonexistant censorship policy.
MikeJ
NB: I didn’t actually hear Katy Perry on the radio. It was just the hook for a joke making fun of doomsayers.
I did once hear one of her songs. I didn’t think it *that* bad, just stupid innocuous pop. Of course I haven’t had it forced on me (what with having both an ipod and a dial thingee on my radio), and not having children I think the idea of corrupting them is adorable.
arguingwithsignposts
@DougJ:
Which is a pretty low bar, DougJ
curious
something about the word “sacrifice” seems to thrill paid typists’ souls. (the phrase “austerity measures” is starting to have the same effect.) heaven forfend anyone poor forget his station in life and start feeling “entitled.”
Oscar Leroy
Let’s not forget that Obama got Congress to agree to vote on whatever steaming pile this commission excretes out. And the vote will take place during the lame-duck session, after lots of Democrats have already seen their political careers end.
Martin
@Mnemosyne: And all the black kids were segregated in that school way over there, so they didn’t have to even face the reality of a non-aryan nation.
They grew up believing ‘Leave it to Beaver’ and ‘My 3 Sons’ were real life.
DonkeyKong
I think the Village will ultimately reject the comission’s recommendation because it doesn’t include the Soylent Green option Peter Peterson and Jack Welch feel is neccesary for growth.
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
I give you this Oscar, you are a brave firebagger without peer.
Even Corner Stone won’t venture into your level of banal wanking on the laughable Catfood Commission report. Comprising solely of, the mental masturbation of two grievous fools.
MikeJ
@Oscar Leroy: And the commission hasn’t agreed on anything. Indeed, it is central to my point that they probably *won’t* agree to anything. These dimwits wouldn’t be releasing a minority report otherwise.
Mnemosyne
@suzanne:
Just wait until they start singing the new Cee-Lo Green song for you.
(Obvs, sound is not work safe.)
Martin
@MikeJ: I hear a lot of Katy Perry (9 year old daughter) and it’s the usual pop dreck. Nothing worse than any previous generation has subjected their parents to.
Oscar Leroy
@batgirl:
You said it. Why is a deficit commission talking about cutting Social Security? But that’s how things are in Washington these days.
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: Does “overhaul” invariably and indisputably mean “cut drastically and substitute cat-food ration coupons”?
For instance, raising the ceiling (as Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people) mentioned) would be an “overhaul.” It’d be a change in the funding mechanism. Not a cut.
“We need to look into [government program] and determine if it needs to be overhauled” would not in itself an offensive statement. Unless you’re using the same logic the Republicans used about Billions! in Cuts! to Medicare! when the target was the genuinely wasteful and inefficient Medicare Advantage. Not all overhauls are created equal, nor are all “cuts.”
And that’s if anything was actually going to happen. It’s not. Calm down.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@FlipYrWhig: Thanks for that. I meant to write eliminate the ceiling. I think that would fix a lot.
Cat Lady
@MikeJ:
Katy Perry sucks ass, but in lieu of waterboarding every fucking teabagger in this bankrupt joke of a country, I’d settle for beating the inventor of Auto Tune to death with my McIntosh pre-amp. Auto Tune is the sound of empire in its death throes.
Midnight Marauder
@DougJ:
My faint praise, let me damn you with it.
Dee Loralei
Y’all are going to think I’m hopelessly naive and maybe even dumb and prolly a bit “tetched” in the head or completely stupid. But why don’t we do what the cat food commission couldn’t. Seriously, I read this blog and comments every day and y’all are some seriously smart people. Who know real info and can explain stuff to the innumerate like me. And you can link to other really smart people to help bolster your own ideas.
Let’s save Social Security for now and forever. And put it in the permanent lock box it needs to be in. Let’s decide which bases where need to be closed and why. I’m looking mostly at Germany and Japan. Why should the American taxpayer subsidize the European taxpayer, by paying for the military instead of them paying for their own? I’m not saying ignore our NATO obligations, I’m saying get out our soldiers who exceed our obligations. Most of the Japanese do not want our bases there. I realize we stay and the government there keeps us as a detterent for China and/or NKorea. Why not open a different base maybe in India, would still help with the China problem, wouldn’t it? Hell maybe even another one in the Kashmir region to keep our Pakistani allies happy.
Set up a new tax code. You know with new brackets.
Yes I know we have no standing and no one needs to listen to us, but we might be able to get someone perhaps a Russ Feingold or an ALan Grayson to support us. And really, we’d do as well as the CatFood commission and earn as much respect.
And it would be much more realistic and rationale, since we are from all parts of this country, and the world, we are all ages, all socio-economic levels, all levels of education and job experiences. In other words, we are America and we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. Let’s do something worthwhile, see if we can gain any ground with other blogs contributing.
Start a web site, have folks post their ideas and have folks vote it up or down. ( Maybe make it password protected at first) so the ideas and voting don’t get Freeped. But ya know, some sane Republican ideas should be included.) And the folks here run the entire spectrum of political flavors. Maybe then when we get enough ideas, with some real numbers behind the, ( No not the CBO, but something verifiable.) Then open it up to other blogs and people. See if we can’t get some congressmen to sign our pledge. Some new folks who will be running in 2012, maybe some primary challengers.
Seriously, the people on this site are too smart and compassionate and decent, we should utilize that power and intelligence for good. (And still get our bitch sessions in too.)
Kinda like in the movie Dave – we are all Dave’s now.
Hahahah, damn I am hopelessly naive. But I double dog dare you guys to do something like this!
curious
@curious: in other words, what digby’s been saying since forever.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
You did notice the part where this is not, in fact, the commission’s report, just the personal opinion of Bowles and Simpson, right? And that there is no commission report expected before the end of the year, if one ever materializes after this stunt?
I realize it’s only been repeated about a dozen times in the thread, so you may have missed the first 10 repetitions.
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy:
What desire would lame-duck, no-career-having Democrats have to vote to cut Social Security? The only reason to do such a thing is to earn your stripes as a “fiscal conservative.” But if it no longer matters to your reputation or your reelection chances, why would you do it?
Oscar Leroy
Okay Stuck, whatever. If President Obama sends George W Bush off to be tried for ordering torture, I’ll come back here and praise your political acumen.
President Obama: “I’m going to try and cut Social Security”
Typical Balloon Juice Poster: “Obama doesn’t want to cut Social Security and anyone who thinks otherwise is a crazy jerkface. He may suggest cutting it so Congress will make a proposal which the media will report on, which will cause financial markets to blah blah blah, then he will veto the bill and look like a hero. It’s 8903290 dimensional chess!”
MattR
@jacy: I am not a parent, but it’s been interesting to re-listen to songs I loved when I was younger and realize that there was so much more going on than I knew at the time. Of course, I think the reason I had to wait until adulthood to figure it out was that the lyrics were a bit more subtle than “take it off”
@Dee Loralei:
Get rid of the ceiling on wages that are taxed. Next problem you want me to fix?
arguingwithsignposts
@Oscar Leroy:
Citation, please?
Oscar Leroy
@Mnemosyne:
So you’re saying that just because the two people Obama picked to head the commission Obama started want to cut Social Security, doesn’t mean Obama wants to cut Social Security?
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
Not to mention getting your mug posted on the seniors bulletin board most wanted list, of every nursing home in the land/
You fuck with SS in a big way, you will never be safe again.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@Oscar Leroy: you commies have the best psychedelics.
FlipYrWhig
@Dee Loralei: The problem is, IMHO, similar to that of health care reform. Single-payer systems are always going to be the best. But how do you transition to them, and how do you get people who fear losing the scraps of coverage they currently have to trust you, and how do you get scaredy-cat politicians to put their careers on the line to cast the votes for them?
It’s the same issue in the Greenwald vs. O’Donnell to-do. Greenwald isn’t wrong that a Congress full of Democrats who stood tall for liberal principles would be a lot better than what we have, _policy-wise_. But how do you get there? Especially when some of the most vocal liberals got their asses handed to them, as O’Donnell was pointing out. Ay, there’s the rub.
Oscar Leroy
@arguingwithsignposts:
For the second time:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/us/politics/08obama.html?_r=1&em
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that overhauling Social Security and Medicare would be “a central part” of his administration’s efforts to contain federal spending, signaling for the first time that he would wade into the thorny politics of entitlement programs.
Speaking at a news conference in Washington, he provided no details of his approach to rein in Social Security and Medicare, which are projected to consume a growing share of government spending as the baby boom generation ages into retirement over the next two decades. But he said he would have more to say about the issue when he unveiled a budget next month.
Should he follow through with a serious effort to cut back the rates of growth of the two programs, he would be opening up a potentially risky battle that neither party has shown much stomach for. The programs have proved almost sacrosanct in political terms, even as they threaten to grow so large as to be unsustainable in the long run. President Bush failed in his effort to overhaul Social Security, and Medicare only grew larger during his administration with the addition of prescription drug coverage for retirees.
DougJ
@Dee Loralei:
There are plenty of ways to “fix SS”, e.g. raise the (tax) rate a little, lift the cap on how much income is taxed.
The real problems are Medicare and Medicaid.
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy:
When did he say that? Or anything like that?
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: Show me Obama using the word “cut.” Like Hollywood Henderson said of Terry Bradshaw, I’ll spot you the c and the t.
MikeJ
@DougJ: The biggest problem with Social Security is that the surpluses have been paying for tax cuts for the rich for thirty years, and the surpluses are coming to an end.
It seems like there’s an obvious way to fix any shortfall.
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
The difference between “overhauling” something, and “cutting” it, can be wide as the Sargasso Sea.
Linda Featheringill
@Douglas:
war crimes:
If Bush actually ordered the torture, that complicates things.
Yes, I know that it is still “I was just following orders”.
But if you aren’t going to lower the hammer on the person who gave the orders, what would an appropriate punishment be for the poor schmucks who carried out those orders?
And they are “poor.” They are poor fools. Anyone who engages in torture forfeits his/her soul. And what did they gain in return? It is really a fool’s bargain.
[Ever read psych reports on people who engage in torture? Seriously messed up. For life.]
arguingwithsignposts
@Oscar Leroy:
Thanks for the link, but I still missed the part where he said “I’m going to try and cut Social Security.”
I do see that he was looking at overhauling SS and Medicare. Not quite the same words, but whatevs.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@MattR:
I would remind you that ignorance and innumeracy in defense of liberty is no vice…
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@FlipYrWhig: right after he said he was a secret-republican-muslim-blue-dog
MattR
@Oscar Leroy: I am not an Obot but it’s my turn to play 11-D chess. Could Obama have picked these two men because he knew exactly the report they would create and he knew it was something that would be opposed on all sides and would therefore never pass?
The thing about these types of political discussions is that they are completely useless. Even if the result is what one of us predicted there is almost no way to know if the motivations were what we believed.
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
New tagline?
Oscar Leroy
They might actually want to, in fact, cut Social Security. There is a lot more to life than media perception. Politicians do things all the time that don’t have to do with how they will be portrayed by the press.
If a Congressman is out to lock up a high-paying lobbyist job, voting to stiff the working man to help investors would be a great start. Who’s going to pay someone millions if their votes were a crusade on behalf of the financially vulnerable?
Midnight Marauder
@Oscar Leroy:
Hold up a second. How did this:
somehow morph into this:
Because only one of them is sourced with an actual article to indicate that it is a real thing that actually happened, versus the other being hyperbolic nonsense that you just created with no supportive evidence. I just think it’s interesting that the only direct evidence you can give of President Obama’s desire to cut Social Security is an article where he states that his administration will be focused on “overhauling” Social Security and Medicare, which we have already established has a variety of meanings from just slashing their respective budgets.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
I’m afraid I don’t have your mighty psychic powers to determine what Obama really secretly wants in his heart of hearts, so if you think this is all part of Obama’s eleventy-dimensional chess plan to destroy Social Security by having the heads of the commission wreck over a year of work without even issuing a report, I guess we’ll have to go along with you on that.
But you might want to invest in better-quality tinfoil for your hat next time. I’m still wondering what “report” from this commission you picture Congress voting on since there is no report now and probably never will be after Bowles and Simpson decided to sandbag the other commission members.
Linda Featheringill
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
[chuckle] Telling your age, Honey.
Chyron HR
Typical @Oscar Leroy post:
Of course you do. Unfortunately, the committee you’ve been complaining about for a year has been a complete bust. So even assuming that the Kenyan Usurper wanted to abolish Social Security, his dreaded committee has failed to do it.
FlipYrWhig
@MikeJ: It’s also a completely hollow “problem.” The point of the 1983 SocSec overhaul was to go into surplus to save up for this moment. Worrying that the receipts are not going to cover outlays… _was already taken care of_. This is like being concerned, after a lifetime of saving for retirement, that when you retire you won’t have enough money coming in to continue to save for retirement. You already fucking planned for it!
Maybe it’s a short-term fix and other fixes need to kick in too, but this thing about how the surplus might start being spent down… well… that was the bloody point all along.
arguingwithsignposts
@Midnight Marauder:
Obot!
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
obama appointed two women to the supreme court which obviously means he’s a woman.
kdaug
@bemused:
That, or their inheritance.
Oscar Leroy
@MattR:
Really? Do you really think it’s hard to know what someone wants in regards to Social security when they empower Pete Peterson and Alan Simpson to decide its fate?
Who governs like that? “I’ll create a committee to make a proposal on Social Security and get Congress to vote on it. Then, since no one writes any current events down to read later, I can come out against the proposal and look like a hero and no one will be the wiser.”
MattR
@FlipYrWhig: Unfortunately, in the meantime we lent our retirement money to our children.
@Oscar Leroy: More like, I’ll get a committee who gets gridlocked because there propsal to cut Social Security is unrealistic. That way I can say I made a serious bi-partisan effort with little risk of anything coming from it. (This is also known as “being a politician”)
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy:
Well, you were suggesting that they were more likely to do so because of being lame ducks. I took your meaning to be that they would no longer have to worry about repercussions (a case some people have made about why some retiring R Senators might vote for DADT repeal).
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
Oh noes! I can imagine any details I want because there were none! I iz terrified!
Also, little hint, Oscar: do you think that maybe, just maybe, some of those details to overhaul Medicare ended up as part of the health insurance reform bill in the form of changes to Medicare? Maybe? Or have you already forgotten that that bill came after this terrifyingly vague article that you’re totally convinced means something?
Midnight Marauder
@Oscar Leroy:
I also like how, in your world, the vote on the Commission’s Report has already been seemingly scheduled and set, unlike in the real world, where the Commission is far from having 14 of its 18 members agree with any recommendations to send to Congress for a vote that most likely will never happen.
BGinCHI
@Linda Featheringill: How can the CinC claim he was “following orders”?
If Bush is the Decider, then it doesn’t mean jackshit that the lawyer said it was legal, does it?
Plus, if I got a lawyer drunk and he told me it was legal to shoot Cole’s windows out, could I then get off by claiming “my lawyer said it was legal”?
Doris! Get me legal!
MikeJ
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, I realise that. My point was that if the surpluses are spent down and the only thing we’ve had in return for high rates leading to surpluses was tax cuts for the rich, perhaps the thing we would have to live without would be the tax cuts for the rich.
Corner Stone
A lot of people crowing. I doubt very seriously that Simpson being an ass again is the end of this commission.
And every outlet in the world has already cemented the tagline of “Obama’s Commission”. When people recoil in horror at any of the ghastly thoughts Bowles and Simpson vomited out, they will associate them with Obama and the D’s.
There was never any reason for this commission.
MikeJ
@BGinCHI: HE already said he was the dissenting voice on invading Iraq. It follows from there that anything he did after that was just following orders.
Oscar Leroy
@General Stuck:
“Mr. Obama stepped up his effort to reassure lawmakers and the financial markets that he plans a vigorous effort to keep the government’s finances from deteriorating further”
Hmm, what would financial markets consider a plan to keep government spending from “deteriorating”: an increase in spending, or a decrease?
“Speaking at a news conference in Washington, he provided no details of his approach to rein in Social Security ”
I just arrived on Planet Earth. Does “reining something in” mean to make it do more, or make it do less?
“Should he follow through with a serious effort to cut back the rates of growth of the two programs”
The people writing that article must have put that sentence in there for no reason at all. Just like they mentioned this for no reason:
“President Bush failed in his effort to overhaul Social Security”
Did Bush want to reduce or increase Social Security? I’ve already forgotten.
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: How about “I’ll create a committee that will be extremely hawkish on the deficit, not because I myself am extremely hawkish on the deficit, but because I want to know what the extreme position looks like?” Or, when your boss asks for the worst-case scenario, do you panic that she is actually hoping the worst-case scenario comes to pass?
I don’t know if that was the idea. Maybe not. But there’s very little evidence to suggest that the whole point was to bludgeon SocSec to death. And if that _had_ been the plan, why would it take the form of a set of recommendations everyone instantly hates, including most of the people who have been tasked with drawing them up?
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder: They’ve established the baseline of where the R’s will not negotiate. So now it’s up to a few of the nominal D’s to capitulate in that direction.
There will be a report submitted.
Oscar Leroy
Like you missed the term “freedom of speech” in the first amendment, right?
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
You mean like reining in costs on Medicare, which really is out of control and busting our budget?
Nope, that couldn’t possibly be it, because when Obama says “Medicare” he clearly means “Social Security” because shut up, that’s why.
BGinCHI
@MikeJ: I don’t even know how to respond.
Jesus, it’s like trying to get a 12-year-old to admit to stealing cookies or something. Just no end to the BS.
How is it possible we live in a country with NO consequences for lying. Fuck, I don’t know why anyone tells the truth.
MikeJ
@Corner Stone: You think the R’s are going to state in public they want to get rid of the mortgage interest deduction?
MattR
@Oscar Leroy: Medicare needs to be overhauled. The system is unwieldy and out of control. However, I actually believe that it is possible to come up with a way to remake Medicare into a financially stable program without its recipients seeing a cut in benefits. Unfortunately, I am worried that any such system is a political impossibility. But that does not mean that my desire to overhaul Medicare implies a desire to cut it.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@Oscar Leroy: there is no freedom of speech. There are libel and slander laws in this country.
Midnight Marauder
@Corner Stone:
I will agree that this was most certainly the intention of Bowles and Simpson to set the game up like this. But I think they played their hand pretty badly here, and may have created a hole too deep for themselves.
I honestly don’t think they’ll be able to round up the 14 they need to agree with the recommendations of the full Commission Report to force a Congressional vote.
suzanne
@Mnemosyne: I love that song. I played it for my mom a couple of weeks ago. But yes, I made sure the kid was in the other room.
Oscar Leroy
@FlipYrWhig:
“I took your meaning to be that they would no longer have to worry about repercussions”
Obviously, that’s part of it too. Good luck getting re-elected if you vote to cut Social Security. If you have already not been re-elected, however, that threat is gone.
arguingwithsignposts
@Oscar Leroy:
Man, you are dense.
Freedom of speech is right in the FA. “try and cut” is nowhere in Obama’s statement. “overhaul” != “try and cut”
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
Oh, they had a reason, all right, but it wasn’t to inform you of Obama’s nefarious plans for Social Security.
I thought at some point you would figure out that the right-wing media was manipulating you and you would realize that every time Obama said “entitlements,” they changed it to “Social Security” when it’s more likely he was talking about Medicare. But, nope, you fall for the MSM’s bullshit every. single. time. You swallow it whole and never even think for a second, “Gee, could the New York Times be lying to me?
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: Go carp at the reporter who wrote the article, then.
Sorry, the piece doesn’t say to keep “spending” from deteriorating, it says to keep “finances” from deteriorating. It also says the goal was to “rein in” the costs of the program.
How would you fix such a thing? How about an increase in funding, for instance by eliminating the cap on the wages subject to SocSec withholding, which he talked about during the campaign? Or raising the retirement age?
Would they help? Yes. Would they be controversial? Sure! Would they represent “overhauling” the program. Yes. Would they be CUTS!@ that make MEE_MAW eat CatF00d? Um, no.
BGinCHI
@arguingwithsignposts: GOP speak for “overhaul” or “make it better” is “cut.” Period.
They don’t have any other ideas.
Corner Stone
@MikeJ: If they could get the top rate down to 23%? Yes, I think they are crazy/foolish enough to try and sell that. Or demagog that, same thing.
We haven’t seen a lot of rational evaluation by their core voters.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
This is why the Professional-Left is no better than the teabaggers, they both see Obama as the boogie-man.
One side sees him a moooslim sochulist, worst than hitler and the other sees him as a secret republican, worst than Ayn Rand.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
Psst. The exact phrase “freedom of speech” does in fact appear in the First Amendment:
Now please show us where, as you claimed, Obama used the exact phrase, “I’m going to try and cut Social Security.”
Oscar Leroy
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, that’s the only way to know what the extreme position looks like. I, for one, had no idea that some people wanted to cut Social Security until this whole brouhaha started.
Barack Obama created a commission and filled it with people who want to cut Social Security, and convinced Congress to vote on its recommendations, as a way to keep Social Security from being cut. It’s the only explanation.
But if the committee implodes and never issues any report, then we know for sure President Obama didn’t want any cuts to Social Security, because if a plan fails months after it was started that is proof that the plan was never meant to work. That, too, is the only explanation.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted):
How many Mike Kays do we have on this board?
kdaug
@Dee Loralei:
Oh, sweetheart, I want to give you a hug.
But Alan Greyson and Russ Finegold just lost. We’ll need to look for other troubadours. Maybe there’s some in the new group, but I can’t see them from here.
Oscar Leroy
@Mnemosyne:
“I thought at some point you would figure out that the right-wing media was manipulating you”
The New York Times is the right-wing media? Okay, got it.
“The exact phrase “freedom of speech” does in fact appear in the First Amendment”
Whoops, it’s “freedom of religion” that doesn’t appear in the First Amendment. Thus freedom of religion does not exist.
Mnemosyne
@suzanne:
The clean “Forget You” version is still super-catchy, so you can always substitute that one in for tender ears.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Oscar goes to the mechanic. He’s hearing a funny sound from under the hood. The mechanic says, yeah, I don’t like what I’m hearing, I think we need to overhaul the engine. Oscar says, Overhaul means cut! My car won’t work without an engine! What will I do, I’ll lose my job, I’ll have to eat cat food! Oh, damn you, meaning of the word overhaul, wherefore art thou such a cruel mistress!
Oscar Leroy
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted): @Mnemosyne:
Social Security is mentioned in the first paragraph of that article.
Oscar Leroy
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s totally absurd. That’s a terrible analogy. Try again.
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: I will even stipulate that part of the point of creating the commission could well have been to show that Obama had guts and was willing to put Everything On The Table. The centrist-loving media loves shit like that. But with the 14/18 requirement, it’s pretty carefully set up _not_ to actually generate policy _unless_ some pretty unlikely bedfellows hop in there together. If you wanted to create a commission that would endorse slashing Social Security, you could do it much more straightforwardly than this, no?
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
What spending has obama cut since being president? none.
What spending did obama vote to cut when he was a senator? none.
Yet with no history or evidence of obama cutting programs, somehow the so called reality based community is sure he’s a secret republican out to cut programs.
There’s some sorta sickness behind this paranoia.
Martin
Wait, this plan balances the budget by 2037? 17 years? Fuck, 10 years ago we had a $200B surplus. Just raise the fucking taxes back to that level and you’re more than halfway there, you fuckwits!
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: Well, it does show that the word “overhaul” does not in fact mean “eliminate” or “destroy.” And your smoking gun is the word “overhaul.” That’s kind of a problem.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
Uh, yeah. Did you miss the editorial from the NY Times editorial board saying Nancy Pelosi should retire? I guess you also missed Judy Miller touting the Iraq War in the pages of the NYT. Or, going even further back, Jeff Gerth inventing the Whitewater scandal pretty much out of whole cloth.
Yep, those are some dedicated leftists working for the NY Times, assuming that war in Iraq and impeaching presidents for blowjobs now counts as “leftist.”
And we’re supposed to believe that you’re accurately remembering things you sort of remember Obama saying … why, again? It took me two seconds to look the First Amendment up in Google.
MattR
@Mnemosyne: The Colbert Report version is not child safe but starts with special lyrics.
EDIT: For those who can’t or won’t watch the video
“I saw you drivin’ ’round town with the girl I love on Fox News/ Didn’t see one politician that wasn’t corrupt on Fox News And I got the blues/ The poor get poorer, the rich get richer. Ain’t that some sh**? (Ain’t that some sh**?) / I’m havin’ pains in my chest because I’m so stressed from Fox News.”
Oscar Leroy
Remember when President Obama sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan? I wonder if he did that because he wants escalate that war or decrease it. We’ll probably never know.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted):
Last one to feel betrayed is a rotten egg!
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
Of this I have no doubt. Nice touch attributing a quote by someone else to Obama. When did Obama actually say he wanted “to reign in SS”. Maybe he did, but you need to provide it, with link. It is silly, because SS does not need to be “reigned in”, though health care costs related to medicare do.
The only thing that concerns pols from both parties, is that in a few years, there will not be any surplus for them to raid to pay for other stuff from general revenues, and placing an iou in bonds for using said surplus.
Seriously cutting SS is simply not on the table for wingers or dems, it would be political suicide, though partial privatization remains a wet dream of the goopers and their overconfidence of paying no price for doing it, and slowly unraveling the SS contract over time, and transferring those big bucks to their buds on Wall Street to gamble with. But seniors may be slower on the uptake, but are fine tuned to folks fucking around with SS, and the wingnuts will pay a price if they ever get the opportunity to do it.
The real, or likely purpose of these little get togethers between the parties, is to feel out one another on the only combination of changes that need to be made to FICA outlays, that is raising taxes, or the fica cap, and some modest long term cuts to SS to free up more cash for medicare, that is a runaway train headed for a fiscal wreck in a few years, when the baby boomers retire in big numbers.
So Leroy, you are just out in left field with the fearmongering that Obama will gut SS, not that unlike 9-11 troofers.
Oscar Leroy
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted):
“somehow the so called reality based community is sure he’s a secret republican out to cut programs”
I know, right? Just because he created a commission and filled it with people who want to cut Social Security, some people think he may want to cut Social Security. What is this world coming to?
The clearest, simplest, most obvious explanation is that he hoped the committee would issue a report that no one liked, which he could then come out against in order to look good in the media, which is the most important thing in the world. Nothing could possibly be a better move for a Democratic president than giving a platform to people like Alan Simpson. Everyone knows that.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
That’s right, the reporter uses the words “Social Security.”
Notice a little something I just put around those words. They’re called quotation marks. They indicate that the words are a direct quotation from something or someone.
Look at that article again. Do you see a direct quotation by Obama in that article that uses the words “Social Security”? In fact, do you see more than one quote from Obama in that entire article that’s a whole sentence, or does most of the story consist of phrases plucked from inside sentences?
The NY Times punked you and you swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
burnspbesq
I stopped reading after about eight slides, when I got to “cap revenue at 21 percent of GDP.”
They have got to be kidding. Don’t they?
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: Why don’t you find an example of Obama promising to cut Social Security as directly as he promised, repeatedly, to send additional troops to Afghanistan?
Incidentally, check this out:
Obama Signs Health Care Overhaul Bill, With a Flourish
Oh noes! He overhauled health care! That means he took it away! Where are all the doctors? It’s been overhauled, dear God, the maniacs overhauled it straight to Hell!
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@FlipYrWhig: BINGO!
That’s it. Of course. They’re projecting their personal familial dysfuntional (ie “my daddy/my spouse/ head of household betrayed me” feelings) on to the president.
General Stuck
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted):
I’ve been saying for two years now. Mother of all projections.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
If the commission was “filled” with people who want to cut Social Security, then why don’t we have a report right now? Why did the two asshat heads of the commission decide to go rogue and do their own special report?
Hmm, could it be because it was not, in fact, “filled” with people who want to cut Social Security? Nah, that couldn’t be it, because that wouldn’t fulfill your paranoid fantasies. There must be some other explanation.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@FlipYrWhig:
Yup, Obama passes a $1,000,000,000,000.oo health care bill, yet the professional-left is convinced he wants to cut spending.
Oscar Leroy
@General Stuck:
That is for sure. You would have to schedule the vote on whether or not to cut it during the lame duck session, when politicians who have already been sent packing wouldn’t have to worry about career suicide anymore. But who would do such a thing?
I’m glad to see that, because no person in all of human history has ever done anything that didn’t need to be done. I remember when George W Bush proposed invading Iraq, I said “that will not–no, can not–happen because it does not need to happen.”
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy:
BTW, I googled
obama +overhaul “health care”
and got page after page after page of hits.
No one thinks “overhaul” means “cut.” Except Republicans and people with axes to grind.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
So now you’re at the point of freaking out that a vote will be scheduled to vote on a report that doesn’t actually exist?
Hey, maybe Congress will vote to ban tiger-repellent rocks in the lame duck session. It could happen! You never know!
chopper
man, even when they’re not serious the dems at least have more specifics about cutting the budget than the GOP does.
Suck It Up!
@MattR:
Obama set up the commission to call deficit “hawks” on their bullshit. so yeah, you got it.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: It would be just like Obama to pull a stunt like that, too! He’s always doing things that haven’t happened and yet make me feel as mad as if they already had!
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
there is no difference btwn the conspiracy theories of the firebaggers and the wackos who think their are extra terrestrial spacecrafts in Area 51.
Of course, the patron saint of the professional left, dennis kucinich believes in flying saucers. As seen in this hilarious clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbPgGnNsnbk&feature=related
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
Oh, I get it, you are an existential firebagger, anything can happen at any time on this mortal coil, despite the odds of common sense, so we should blog it, cause it might happen, and shut up!!, that’s why. how cool is that. carry on
FlipYrWhig
@General Stuck: We could call it the “One Percent” doctrine!
Mnemosyne
If anyone’s curious, here’s the list of commission members.
I’m sure that commission member Andy Stern from the SEIU has been chomping at the bit to cut Social Security.
ETA: In order to issue a report, 14 out of the 18 members have to agree. I can count at least 5 “hell no” votes on that list, and probably more like 6 or 7.
Moses2317
The draft proposal from the Catfood Commission Chairs is unacceptable, as it seeks to reduce the deficit by cutting spending that benefits the middle and working classes, while also cutting taxes for the rich and undermining Social Security and Medicare.
The concern is that it will serve as a baseline for a “compromise” that will do most of the damage that this proposal would do.
So, we shouldn’t just dismiss this as a “draft.” Instead, we should call the Democratic members of the Commission and let them know that they should reject the draft proposal out of hand.
Here is their contact info:
Max Baucus – (202) 224-2651
(406) 657-6790 (406) 586-6104 (406) 782-8700
(406) 365-7002 (406) 761-1574 (406) 449-5480
(406) 756-1150 (406) 329-3123
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA 31) – (202) 225-6235
(213) 483-1425
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) – (202) 224-2043
(701) 852-0703 (701) 775-9601 (701) 258-4648
(701) 232-8030
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) – (202) 224-2152 –
(312) 353-4952 (217) 492-4062 (618) 351-1122
Alice Rivlin, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institute – (202) 797-6121
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL 9) – (202) 225-2111 –
(847) 328-3409 – (773) 506-7100
Rep. John Spratt (D-SC 5) – (202) 225-5501
(803)327-1114 (803) 773-3362 (843) 393-3998
Winning Progressive
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@Moses2317: yeah, right. Baucus and Conrad are going to vote to slash social security.
In other news pigs fly.
Mnemosyne
@Moses2317:
You can’t come in here with a rational idea for nipping this in the bud just in case! Where do you think you are? ;-)
Dee Loralei
@kdaug: I know they just lost their re-election bids, THAT’s why I suggested one of them. I’m sorry I didn’t make myself clear.I suggested them because they are known liberal firebrands who might be able to drum up interest to such a thing and they might be able to use their contacts with their previous collegues to get some current member to jump on board. And I’m going to assume you didn’t mean to sound quite so condescending. And I’ll work on making myself more succinct and understandable.
And yes guys, I know that taking off the upper limit to which incomes get charged for SS would fix the damned thing forever and always. I thought everyone on this board pretty much accepted that. ( Again, I wasn’t making myself as clear as I would like.) I was saying since we had already solved that problem, why not try to tackle some of the more urgent problems. You know try to fight Bowles-Simpson with fire, with facts, with possible solutions, instead of running around gnawing on the legs of folks like change and pancake and BoB and Oscar Leroy.
We’re all frustrated with the Dems, with this past election, with the future , etc.( My inability to write well.) Let’s do something constructive and maybe helpful. Hell we may not get anything, but wouldn’t it make us feel better and more empowered? Even though we didn’t get the PO, didn’t you feel better making those phone calls to try to get it?
In other words ” Did we give up after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”
MattR
@MattR: And of course, William Shatner does it best.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
late to the party, but just wanted to note: if there was some internet game where you could land at random anywhere in the blogoverse and have to guess where you were, I would always recognize the BJ comment section. : )
FlipYrWhig
@Moses2317:
I don’t mind this characterization of the concern.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
there’s also an another factor in addition to the professional left’s dysfunctional projection, there’s also a deep need to be proven right, even when doing so would be horrific.
the professional left would rather see social security blown up, then have to admit their hysteria was unfounded.
this is the firebag version of no WMDs in iraq. They were so sure, now they’re freaking out, back filling, and in complete denial that there was no there there.
Oscar Leroy
@Mnemosyne:
There is no “if” about it.
Erskine Bowles, Commission Co-Chair: Tried to negotiate cuts in Social Security in the late 90s, says Social Security needs to be reduced right away.
Alan Simpson, Commission Co-Chair: Republican who supported Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security.
Alice Rivlin: has advocated raising the retirement age.
Paul Ryan: Republican who recently proposed cutting taxes for the wealthy and slashing Social Security benefits.
Jeb Hensarling: Republican who went on “Hardball” and said Social Security needs to be cut.
Dick Durbin: said he’d be “open” to raising the retirement age.
Dave Camp: has proposed cuts for future Social Security beneficiaries.
Judd Gregg: Republican who has advocated benefit cuts, raising the retirement age, privatization, etc.
Tom Coburn: Republican, is against raising taxes to fund Social Security, wants to privatize instead.
Mike Crapo: Republican who favored benefit cuts to younger people and privatization.
Max Baucus: Conservative Democrat who would have accepted cuts to prevent Bush’s privatization plan.
Kent Conrad: Favors spending caps, privatization.
Xavier Becerra, Jan Schakowsky: Democrats thought to be against cuts or privatization.
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
Your little listing here has FDL written all over it. amirite?
Oscar Leroy
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted):
If you think President Obama creating a commission to rule on spending and staffing it with people who want to cut Social Security means he wants to cut Social Security, then you are a conspiracy theory maven.
If you think President Obama did that so the commission would come up with a bad idea, which Congress would vote on, that Obama could veto, all so he could see what each side would enact if they had the chance, as part of a years-long plan to actually protect Social Security, then you don’t believe in conspiracy theories, you are just promoting 11-dimensional chess.
Oscar Leroy
@General Stuck:
I didn’t know “Hardball” aired on FDL. Or that Paul Ryan’s budget plan was only released there.
General Stuck
OH Noes!! not THAT. we iz doomed.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@Oscar Leroy:
clowns to the bitter end
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbPgGnNsnbk&feature=related
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
You will need EVERY SINGLE ONE of those people to vote “yes” for what Bowles and Simpson just proposed in order to get the thing passed.
Nah. gah. happen.
Jan Schakowsky: “This is not a package that I could support.”
Dick Durbin: “We’re not going to have an up-or-down vote on this … I’m not going to vote for those things.”
Please note that those are not imaginary quotes that I made up out of thin air as you are prone to do. Those are actual quotes from those actual people that they said today upon hearing the Bowles/Simpson dump.
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
Did you copy that list off FDL, or not?
Oscar Leroy
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s good, considering Im talking about Social Security.
Oscar Leroy
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted):
You’ve linked to that twice now. What is the relevance? Dennis Kucinich isn’t on the deficit commission. He didn’t create the commission. So why waste space with that? I don’t get it.
Mnemosyne
Random snicker: Bowles said that they “laid a predicate” today. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Suck It Up!
The lie that Obama wants to cut, no, GUT Social Security came about because he never said he WOULDN’T cut it. Actually the suspicion that he would gut it first came from FDL and then everything he DIDN’T say backed up the hysterics. He didn’t draw a line in the sand or he didn’t say he would veto a cut to SS so he is therefore in favor of cutting SS. I also heard that it was his secret plan all along because it would take a democrat to destroy SS.
Oscar Leroy
@Mnemosyne:
So you think the Republican CEO of Honeywell would never vote to cut Social Security? Do you think Max Baucus would never go against something Democrats want? Do you think any Republican at all can be trusted with the future of Social Security?
gwangung
@Oscar Leroy: You’re really not that bright, are you? And it’s not an act, is it?
General Stuck
This thread reminds me of one of my favorite wildlife clips of all time. Actually, several of them.
Of a mother Cheetah catching a baby Thompson’s Gazelle, for her young cubs to toy with and practice chasing around the Serengeti for a while. Of course, this thread will have a happier ending.
Oscar Leroy
@Mnemosyne:
So. . . people shouldn’t plan ahead to the near future? That’s one strategy, sure.
gwangung
@Moses2317: You seem pretty bright, there. That’s not an act, is it.
Midnight Marauder
@Oscar Leroy:
Yes, because it was a focal part of his campaign, whether you disagree with the decision or not.
This is a pretty horrid example.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
Did you notice that commission members Andy Stern, John Spratt, David Cote, and Ann Fudge are all missing from your scary, scary list with its infallible predictions of how everyone will vote no matter what the report is? Why is that?
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
Moses2317 has a plan, which he has articulated. You’re running around in circles screeching, “WE’RE DOOMED! DOOMED!! DOOOOOOOMMMMMEEEDDDD!”
Panicking is not a plan.
Oscar Leroy
@General Stuck:
Maybe George Bush is bragging about ordering torture because he knows the Hague is about to prosecute him for war crimes and he is trying to curry favor with the public. It’s possible. It’s a good hypothesis.
General Stuck
@Oscar Leroy:
This is my fantasy, all mine, I tell you.
Oscar Leroy
@Mnemosyne:
“Did you notice that commission members Andy Stern, John Spratt, David Cote, and Ann Fudge are all missing from your scary, scary list?”
http://people.forbes.com/profile/david-m-cote/41423
No way he would vote to cut Social Security. No way. Big business and entitlement spending: natural allies.
Oscar Leroy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/22/AR2009022202003.html
Odie Hugh Manatee
@kdaug:
Exactly. The reason we have an economy that sucks is because tax rates were lowered to the point that made it easy for the rich to buy more of them. They get richer and can easily buy politicians who will vote to give them more of what they want. Once politicians figured out that they could get more money by giving the rich more of it, the floodgates were opened.
People like to talk of earlier times when things were simpler and life was good. When we could afford to do things like have a strong military and build infrastructure like the interstate highway system. The reason we could do that was the fact that taxes on the rich were very high. Since then, the pols have gutted taxes and boosted spending. For some reason, bringing in money to pay for things became passe. This new economic dynamic is bringing in the bucks for those in power and they aren’t about to give it up.
Politicians are not going to raise taxes because they know that it will cost them money and power. The rich will buy and place their own politicians now that Citizens United has opened the floodgates of special interest money. We are screwed.
Oscar Leroy
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/tag/ann-fudge/
Sounds like the rebirth of Huey Long.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
That’s one. That leaves three more, plus the two commission members that your own list says would never vote against Social Security.
I count five “nays,” and you can’t have more than four for the report to pass. And that’s not counting Durbin and Schakowsky’s “hell no!” statements that came today (they were listed as possibles on your list).
So tell me, where are the 14 votes needed to pass this report supposed to come from?
Oscar Leroy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/30/andy-stern-invest-social_n_631228.html
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: Jesus Fucking Christ, man, your whole argument hinges on the meaning of the word “overhaul.”
This is what you first cited:
You then repeatedly cited this story as proof that Obama wanted to cut Social Security. Well, it doesn’t fucking say cut. As you continued to dodge this point, you likewise continued to act as though “overhaul” could only possibly mean “cut.”
My point–which others have been making as well, ever since you brought it up–is that “overhaul” does not fucking well mean “cut,” as is evident from the persistent use of the word “overhaul” to refer to health care reform, which no one ever thought could only mean an end to health care accomplished by people who hate it.
“Overhaul” means something like “reform dramatically.” “Overhaul” does not mean “cut.” And your best piece of evidence, which you whipped out multiple times, uses only the word “overhaul.” Find something else. And stop being so fucking obtuse.
Mnemosyne
Well, gosh, Oscar, clearly you’re right and the report that doesn’t actually exist will totally get 14 votes within the next couple of days, get scheduled to be voted on in the lame duck session, and pass through two houses of Congress that still have Democratic majorities because some members of the commission worked for corporations.
How could I ever have doubted you that a phantom report that doesn’t exist is absolutely guaranteed to pass before the end of the year?
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: What do you think “cut” Social Security means? Seriously, I’m asking. Because there are a lot of ways to _fuck with_ Social Security (if you want to see it in a bad light) or to _tinker with_ Social Security (if you want to see it in a good light) without, IMHO, “cutting” it.
I can’t help it; I want to nudge people into writing more clearly. I want people to complain about the right things and be lucid about what they are.
Oscar Leroy
@gwangung:
“Oscar Leroy: You’re really not that bright, are you?”
Thank you for the compliment, 11-dimensional chess style. I appreciate the kind words.
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy:
What is a “spending cap on social insurance”? Would tinkering with the funding mechanism accomplish it? Because to my mind the specter of a “cut” to Social Security, and the implicit idea of referring to the “catfood commission” in the first place, means that Social Security recipients get less money, so little that they will have to eat cans of cat food. I feel like you’re defining as a “cut” any attempt whatsoever to alter the present system of Social Security. That’s why I think the real complaint you should make is not about “cuts” to but about “fucking with” Social Security.
I’m not personally averse to fucking with it if fucking with it would shore it up, especially if the manner with which it was fucked was on the revenue side rather than the outlay side.
Oscar Leroy
“WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that overhauling Social Security and Medicare would be “a central part” of his administration’s efforts to contain federal spending”
What does “contain federal spending” mean? Maybe it means increasing spending; who knows?
“Speaking at a news conference in Washington, he provided no details of his approach to rein in Social Security”
If someone wants to “rein in” spending, they might want to increase it, right? That’s possible, isn’t it?
But I see your point: “overhaul” isn’t specific either way. If only there were more evidence–like, say, a deficit commission headed by people who really, really want to cut Social Security.
Oscar Leroy
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, look at what’s in the article:
“a “grand bargain” in which a bipartisan commission enacts spending caps on social insurance as the offset for current deficits”
The only way to offset a deficit is to cut an outlay. If you cap benefits against, say, cost of living increases, then those payments are worth less each year. In other words, people are getting less than they need, and less than they should.
When I say “cut” I mean “cut”. I don’t do 11 dimensions.
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
Hey, maybe it means cutting Medicare Advantage, which costs the government a crapload of money without actually improving Medicare!
No, that’s not possible, because it doesn’t have the magic words “Social Security” in it, so it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with reducing federal spending.
Weird, you still seem to be missing an actual quote from Obama where he actually said “Social Security” rather than “federal spending.” Good thing the only expense the federal government has is Social Security and we spend absolutely no federal money on anything else, or else your insistence that “federal spending” always means “Social Security” and nothing else would be quite bizarre. I mean, he certainly couldn’t have meant cuts to the defense budget, because the defense budget doesn’t count as “federal spending.”
Mnemosyne
@Oscar Leroy:
Psst. “Social insurance” includes Medicare. Are you going to keep pretending Medicare doesn’t exist?
FlipYrWhig
@Oscar Leroy: Seriously, you either don’t read, or you don’t listen, or you don’t understand.
I have said time after time after time that one way to “overhaul” these programs would be to increase their funding rather than to decrease their spending. Presumably that would count as an “overhaul” without being a terrible horrible destruction to the social safety net that forced grandparents to eat nothing but Meow Mix.
Remember the whole discussion during the HCR debate about “bending the cost curve,” that is, spending more money up front in order to catch up with costs and drive them down in the long term? Is that a “cut”? No. Is that an “overhaul”? Yes! Would Obama’s proposing such an “overhaul” result in a blitzkrieg of firebaggery? Who the fuck knows anymore. Some people enjoy anticipatory, speculative outrage.
Chyron HR
Well, the important thing is that if Social Security isn’t abolished in the next two months, Oscar Leroy will graciously admit that he may have been mistaken.
JBerardi
@Oscar Leroy:
Oscar, should I ask you a real question, or can you just point me to the string I need to pull that makes you repeat “11 dimensional chess!” once more? Because I think the string method could really save us some time here…
Comrade Kevin
@Oscar Leroy:
The commission can’t “enact” anything. Anything has to go through Congress, and then the President.
Tom Levenson
@DougJ: Unpossible. She is more plausible; but that makes her more dangerous than the overtly clueless Sullivan.
arguingwithsignposts
@FlipYrWhig:
Apparently, these are not mutually exclusive states of being for OL.
JGabriel
Not one LOL for “back-stabbing fluorescent liberal hordes”? Damn, you people are a tough crowd.
.
mclaren
These guys are pishers. We need to go full-on, balls-to-the-wall regressive in our tax structure.
If you make more than a million dollars a year, your tax rate should be zero. If you make between $500,000 and a million dollars a year, your tax rates should be 1%. If you make between $100,000 and $500,000 a year, your tax rate should be 2%.
But if you make between $20,000 and $100,000, your tax rate should rise to 99%, and if you make less than $20,000 a year, your tax rate should go to 99.99999999999999%.
Call it the Fiscal Responsibility and Reducing the Deficit To Make America Strong Again Act!
Midnight Marauder
@Comrade Kevin:
But specifically, for Oscar Leroy’s Doomsday Lame Duck Session fear to pass, it would have to go through Nancy Pelosi.
In a Thunderdome battle between the nefarious Catfood Commission and Nancy Smash, I am going all in on Nancy Smash every time, son.
+6
mclaren
@Oscar Leroy:
Absolutely. Zero out of 1.35 trillion dollar per year military expenditures. Tell the troops and the generals and the Pentagon military contractors they’ve got to work for a living. Problem solved. Deficit gone.
Next?
DougJ
@Midnight Marauder:
You know…I was saving this for an open thread, but I can just repeat myself (wouldn’t be the first time): is there anyway you can you use reconciliation during a lame duck session?
General Stuck
@DougJ: Sure. Lame duck is still the same session of congress. It is only termed “lame duck” because is post election a couple of months before a new congress begins. And the fact that it usually has a lot, or few folks who have lost their seats for the new congress, which adds a bit of unknown, since they can vote on stuff the way they want without considering the pol effect on them. But reconciliation can be used, but is highly unlikely, because of the volatility of the lame duck period.
Nick
Boy the firebaggers are desperate.
Must be the uptick in Obama’s approval ratings.
themann1086
@mclaren: You snark, but I actually had a conservative make this argument to me in all sincerity. I believe the exact quote was “the rich should be taxed less so the poor will work harder”.
Nick
Huh?
Triassic Sands
I’ve got to disagree with Krugman on this one:
Oh, yeah, Paul, what about the tens of millions of our most productive citizens who have had no choice but to “Go Galt?”
Clearly, today’s best and brightest are so sensitive to tax rates that should anyone even mention the possibility of not having massive future tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the whole group is pretty much guaranteed to throw in the towel and “Go Galt.” And who can blame them?
Ranjit Suresh
I have to say, it’s breathtaking to me the level of denial required to dismiss the evidence Oscar Leroy has presented here. In fact, scratch that, let’s put aside what Oscar has said or what some website is saying.
The fact is that Obama has signaled at least a willingness to consider cuts to Social Security and furthermore appointed a bipartisan commission distinctly weighted towards figures in favor of cuts to SS and Medicare. Much of what I hear in retort consists of name calling and ad hominem attacks.
Really, unless you’re open to making substantial inroads into FDR’s great legacy, a program that has prevent millions of seniors from falling into poverty, then you should be at least somewhat critical of some of Obama’s rhetoric and actions on this issue, including setting up this ill-conceived commission to begin with.
Actually, I suspect nothing will come out of the commission. But, on the other hand, even if it’s short-term effect is negligible, it could very well have long-term implications. Twenty years from now we could look back and say that the commission served as a template for “reforms” implemented by those then in power. Like it or not, it’s already provided ammunition for deeply reactionary elements in the American elite who seek to immiserate their own countrymen.