You’re killin’ me, Laarrry!
The debt ceiling is sooo hot right now. It’s all anyone in Washington and Blogoslovakia can talk about.
Will Congress raise it? Yes or no! No maybe so!
Tonight, Lawrence sated our thirst for tawdry debt ceiling sexitalk, as he talked about his time working on the Hill and dealing with debt ceiling negotiations, and gave “liberals” another stern talking to:
In fact, when I was running the staff of the Senate Finance Committee, we wrote and passed debt ceiling increases with ease… This is the Reconciliation Act of 1993. [I]t is worth noting at this time that in this bill are a couple hundred billion dollars in medicare and medicaid cuts that were proposed and supported by president Bill Clinton, written into law by a democratic congress and passed with Democrat votes only. The biggest cuts ever enacted in Medicare at that time. That was the very first thing that Democratic president Bill Clinton did with Medicare — actually cut it — to no objections, none, not one word of objection from liberals at that time about cutting Medicare. Not one person who has attacked president Obama from the left for even discussing Medicare cuts objected to the Clinton Medicare cuts, which were supported by every liberal in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Now, I don’t know where the newly appointed protectors of Medicare were at the time. It was the middle of the summer; they might have all been at baseball games. But the President didn’t hear from one of them — not from one of them — what Barack Obama has heard from so many about betraying their trust by discussing Medicare cuts. You know the rest of this story. This bill passed. Medicare continued to be the best government-run health insurance program in the world. The biggest tax increase in history did not cripple the economy with this bill, and the economy soared to new heights.
Either you think Obama’s strategy is a good idea, or you think it’s a frakking1 terrible idea. But, for the love of Bieber, can we agree that neither side is evil incarnate?
No?
It was worth a shot.
1 Oh hai, I had myself a little run in with Edward James Olmos. It made my day.
So say we all.
[edited for wonky syntax][cartoon via Indystar]
[cross-posted at ABLC]
Spaghetti Lee
How many basic political facts does that cartoon get wrong? I’m counting at least 4 and I’m sure I’m missing some.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
Wow! Lt. Castillo
Yutsano
You’re name dropping again. But it’s okay.
EDIT: And Eric and The Orange One deserve each other. Wankers.
Dolbia
While I normally like Lozza O’Dozza, I’d object to his assertion that Medicare is “the best government-run health insurance program in the world.”
I’d also comment that people whose first presidential vote was for Obama could have been as young as 3 in 1993, which is an age when people are more enthused about trampoline safety nets than social ones. But then, aren’t all ages?
And yes, the debt ceiling fun and games got old about 8 seconds after they started.
belladog
That guy’s a dumbass. The criticism wasn’t about Medicare but about the threat to withhold SS checks and cutting SS payments. Everyone and I mean everyone, wants to bring some form of cost control to medicare. Above inflationary averages for 15 years straight will do that.
ABL
but what a name to drop! i don’t have many celeb run-ins. this was a good one. :)
vh
sorry, but who is edward olmos?
BillinGlendaleCA (aka 10amla)`
I’ll beat anybody else’s debt ceiling or your debt ceiling is FREEEE!!!!
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
He was the former police chief of Miami.
Donna
Edward James Olmos!!!!!!
debt ceiling…..what?
Edward James Olmos! SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ripley
And he’ll be a low-grade detective in the L.A. of the future. He’ll be known for his origami.
MikeJ
@ABL:
President Clinton once told me that I shouldn’t drop names.
hamletta
OT, but Rebekah Brooks has resigned.
stuckinred
Hey ese!
WereBear
I have never ever seen so much fussing over what a President MIGHT do, but then doesn’t. I’ve never seen a President bashed so much for actually accomplishing things. I saw Clinton fold over health care reform and agree to DADT and what he got was sympathy!
The President managed to get into this hostage situation and take the gun away without giving them so much as a pizza. I LOVE it!
stuckinred
WereBear
Clinton is a chuck, what you expect?
stuckinred
Olmos, El Pachuco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ll9Ro-hz9Y
WereBear
And a squee for Edward James Olmos. He has gravitas.
MikeJ
@hamletta:
And BBC is on strike, so we (at least in the US) can’t watch news.
Donut
I called the White House on Tuesday and very specifically told them I was mad about Social Security cuts being “on the table” when SS has fuck-all to do with the deficit. SS adds nothing to the debt. Never has, never will. It shouldn’t be in this mix.
Is it ok to be annoyed at Obama for that? Is that acceptable in our discourse here? Because I think it is completely fucking insane to include SS in debt talks.
That is all.
WereBear
Well, I agree, but that is not a criticism of the President; it is an index who just who he is dealing with.
This is the kind of thing that comes up when we have to negotiate with the batshit insane.
Liberals are supposed to have his back. Now he can say “I even offered SS adjustments that they said they want!” And the Tea Party looks like stupid liars, which they are, and clueless “moderates” give the President the win.
Would I trade something that didn’t happen for this priceless result? In a heartbeat.
alwhite
Not sure how isolated Larry was in ’93 but I know there were plenty of liberals that were unhappy with the deal Clinton cut. I know more than a few of us wrote letters (actual paper thingys with envelopes & stamps and everything) and made phone calls. The huge outcry was over his welfare ‘reform’ deal which came later but liberals were upset about this.
One of my best friends is a Republican and he still tells me that Bill CLinton was the best Republican President since Ike.
stuckinred
Mornin Joe “Cantor is on the side of angels”.
WereBear
I wasn’t happy with it; but I don’t recall roasting him in effigy, either. This President gets flak for THINGS HE DOESN’T EVEN DO. I’ve never seen people talk this way over rumors that don’t even happen!
Has the conservative propaganda train run over everyone’s frontal lobes? Is reality now so fact-free mere thoughts are just as bad as what someone might truly do on this actual plane of existence? Yes, the Bush years traumatized me too, but I’d like to see his legacy crumble, not bash the guy who is being expected to roll back some forty years of crap in one Presidential term.
Johannes
SO SAY WE ALL!!
[Great post, ABL–love the LOD clip. And congrats on meeting the Admiral himself!]
Reggie Greene / The Logistician
During the last Presidential election, CSpan2 Book TV aired a program where the author discussed the results of his or her research, which suggested that something like 5-10% of Democrats , and 5-10% of Republicans, essentially debated and defined the ideological constructs of each party. The point was that the vast, vast, vast majority of the citizens of this country have their lives dictated by the most active and vocal members of society, who also happen to be more privileged .
I strongly suspect that the same thing is occurring with the debt ceiling debate. The debate is not really about the debt ceiling per se, but rather a very deep, long-standing debate about the role and size of government. It’s never been resolved, and never will be resolved in our representative democracy. However, in the mean time, the regular folks in our society run the risk of being irreparably damaged. The elites (the upper and upper middle socio-economic classes) on each side of the fence have theirs, their corporate contributions, decent jobs and income, and will fare just fine economically. It’s the ordinary citizens (lower middle socio-economic class) who will most likely get screwed, no matter which side ultimately prevails in the short term.
drunken hausfrau
alwhite: my husband says the SAME thing — Clinton was best Republican president since Ike! And Obama is more conservative than Clinton.
Not Obama-bashing… just pointing out how far right the “middle”” has had to travel to keep appeasing the crazies who keep getting closer to the abyss.
My husband used to be a Reagan Republican — now he is a Liberal Independent. He hasn’t changed his positions on anything. The party left him…
stinkdaddy
I’m not sure I understand the point here. People didn’t raise a fuss about Clinton, therefore _________ Obama … ? Can’t criticize Obama unless you criticized Clinton?* Something about hypocrisy? Maybe ABL could spare a few words to tell me what her take on this is because I’m not quite getting it.
Tell you one thing though: it isn’t lost on me that O’D has shifted over to talking about why Obama’s nonexistant Medicare cuts won’t be that bad.
*I was 12 at the time O’D is talking about. Should I have raised a bigger fuss at the Jr. High student body thing that I wasn’t part of?
kdaug
So say we all.
WereBear
My point (since I seemed to have introduced it) was that there were plenty of disappointments over what Clinton actually did.
Yet, it doesn’t seem as overwhelming and crazy-inducing as the pre-emptive criticism that Obama gets for things that are only rumored he might do.
Criticize all you want, it’s a liberal privilege I would never remove. But it’s like Bush created this mental sensitivity, kinda like activating an allergy. Before the allergy, you could walk in the woods and not get a rash; but now, just seeing the poison ivy makes you start to itch.
But you haven’t touched it yet. And you might never.
Donut
WereBear: I understand that SS is the kind of thing that comes up at times like this, but I don’t agree that Obama had to agree to let SS be a part of debt reduction talks. Again, what does SS have to do with the debt? And don’t forget, Obama created the Simpson-Bowles commission and, lo and behold, much of what those assholes were talking about in their little circle-jerk is now on the table, including SS.
Obama invited SS into this discussion directly. He is responsible for bringing it in, not the GOP. Sorry, WereBear, but on this count, Obama wouldn’t have it on the table unless he wanted it there. At some point you have to admit that many Democrats, the president included, want to fuck around with SS.
I hate to have to qualify this with the seemingly obligatory, “I voted and donated for Obama and will again” schtick, but god damn, he is DEMOCRAT – isn’t he? Doesn’t that mean something? Some things don’t go into the mix. Again, we are talking debt reduction, and SS is funded separately from discretionary spending.
Fine, call me a purist, but to my mind, Social Security should be like tax increases are to Republicans. No cuts. Never. The program is far too important to our society’s stability to consider it. Strengthen the program. Fix the shortfall that does not arrive for another 20 years. Sure. Do that after 2012. But don’t talk cuts. Not now, not ever. I’m not putting words into WereBear’s mouth or anyone else’s, but if you reading this think it’s no big deal to make a cut like raising SS eligibility age, talk to my far-from-retirement aged brother in law, who is union HVAC guy. He has to climb up and down ladders all day in both broiling heat and bone-chilling cold; rain, sleet or snow, too. You want him running up and down a ladder when his body is worn out at 65? Let alone 67? I don’t. That’s madness, and to boot it is cruel to dangle that kind of change in front of blue collar workers.
Or how about for people who have been fucked really hard by this recession? Out of work one, two, five years now, some people. They aren’t saving for retirement. They aren’t putting in big contributions to SS, let alone a fucking 401k. You’re gonna change benefits on these people? There are tens of millions of regular Americans who are not able to save for retirement, no matter what they do right now. It is morally wrong to talk about changing the insurance plan that people are relying on.
But still, Democrats are here, talking about these supposedly “little” cuts, like they’re no big deal. Again, should even be on the table for debt reduction. And Obama is kinda chicken shit for creating the Simpson-Bowles commission rather than proposing cuts directly. It’s political cowardice on his part. How hard is that to grasp? Not everyone has a fucking cushy office job. Not everyone can adjust their lifestyle to account for SS benefit cuts.
/rant
General Stuck
So now we are back to Obama the coward talk. Gleaning signs of failure and betrayal based on mere mention of liberal sacred cows as evidence of ill intent, usually taken from unconfirmed media reports and the left wing wurlitzer, generating the same wreckless bullshit the right wing one does to bash Obama.
The relentless nature of vapid comments like this seems creepily pathological, like some kind of permanent inquisition where a verdict of failure and betrayal have already been decided, and the evidence has to be reflexively spun as a daily ration of passive aggressive concern trolling.
And every time I read one of these empty rants, the smell of freshly fucked rat wafts from the ethers, and I wonder what angle it comes from, with whatever alternate unspoken agenda it represents.
Anya
I’ve noticed ever since KO’s new show made its debut, LO’D jumped off the firebagger train and is cultivating the O’bot audience.
NinjaGoat
@Donut
Yes and No.
The problem with a two party system, in which one party has steadily grown insane, is that the moderates end up being pushed out into the other party.
The modern Democratic party now represents the entire political spectrum that is still blessed with powers of sanity; from the actual progressive left, to the “I’m not a racist, but…” right. That’s a big, wobbly coalition to keep together at the best of times, worse when it still only represents little more than half the country.
So, yes, being a Democrat does still mean something, but apart from the belief that a forthcoming Apocalypse is not an exciting opportunity to grab with both hands, the actual principles are sort of fluid.
Ben Cisco
@vh:
Former Admiral in the Colonial fleet.
__
ETA: And Johannes beat me to it.
General Stuck
I say we are in a full blown ideological war with the wingers, that they both wanted and created. And when you are in such a war, practical political necessity trumps whatever high minded purity of thought and rhetoric might be desired and desirable.
It was practically necessary for Obama to expose and defeat the wingnuts big offensive to bring down the New Deal by using the debt ceiling doomsday device as leverage. Everyone, but a few precious progressives, realizes this and that Obama and dems are not going to gut their own political sustenance that is SS and medicare. But they may use these programs to lure wingnuts into grabbing that third rail, to expose what they are really up to.
Oh well, it is pointless to keep explaining this to people with other agendas.
edit – we have heard non stop catterwalling from the left on how Obama needs to proactively fight the wingnuts. Well, this is how that is done by a person with brain.
agrippa
Donut:
That idea has merit.
I think that you are right.
Bob
Donut
How do you suppose the “shortfall” will be fixed? Likely with “cuts” in the form of raising the retirement age.
While I am not convinced Obama put them there, I agree that SS should not be on the table as a form of balancing the budget because it does not contribute to the deficit. If we want to make it more stable, then fine, but deficit reduction? No.
Lawguy
Ok, so now you are in agreement that Obama does want to cut at least Medicare and perhaps SS and Medicaid. But it isn’t a big deal.
It is interesting how your position seems to have changed from just a couple of days ago.
JPL
The President said everything should be on the table. After that statement it would be difficult not to include SS in discussions. Does that mean that SS is going to be cut..I don’t think so but we will see. When he campaigned he said the cap needed to be tweaked. Medicare is a problem that needs fixing. If the age requirement is raised, I hope that those 65 and up can buy into medicare because it’s the less expensive option.
General Stuck
And Obama has explicitly stated as much, that SS is not part of the deficit debate. And only should be considered for changes to lengthen or strengthen it. I have heard him state this very thing.
Donut
Gen. Stuck
With all due respect: fuck off. I have the right to be critical of Pres. Obama without being labelled pathological. You are so off base it’s not even funny.
I am an Obama supporter.
Do you understand that sentence? Is it clear?
Good. Now, in purely political calculations, politicians such as our presidient have choices.
They can directly support an idea, embracing it full frontal. Or they can take political cover.
Please just ask yourself, what did Pres. Obama do with respect to Simpson-Bowles?
You know the answer. He has taken the time honored DC way of hiding behind a commission.
It’s not a secret. Maybe you need to realize that Obama is first and foremost a politician. He may not always have your back, friend.
I stand by my comment. It is cowardly for a politician to take cover behind a deficit reduction committee.
For fuck’s sake, man. He appointed Alan Simpson to the damn thing. He knew what he was doing.
Svensker
Worked with Olmos a hundred years ago. A genuinely nice man.
A Mom Anon
OK,so,if there ends up being a rise in the retirement age,how does that effect unemployment numbers? It would seem to me that if there are less people retiring at 65 or 67 or even 70,that would mean younger people will have to wait longer to find gainful employment in a field beyond retail or fast food. Am I wrong about that or not?
General Stuck
It is the republicans who are the villains in this sad little power play. It is republicans that want to damage or destroy SS and Medicare. Why is all the suspicion and angst directed at Obama as the culprit, and not directed at the wingnuts, and pinning the medicare buster label on them, instead of Obama and dems, for simply stating nothing is off the table. You folks are doing the wingers work for them, and running cover for their bullshit, with this fixation on every uttering of Obama, for signs of betrayal.
What a waste of time and effort. I got better things to do, that chase around that squirrel day in and day out here.
JPL
A Mom Anon, That makes sense to me. The same thing is true with affordable care act in reverse. They expect 800,000 will no longer work because they can buy into their own health insurance plans.
kay
I think you’re right, and I also think that applies to Medicare. People are holding on to jobs w/health insurance longer than they want to because they’re waiting for Medicare. We already know they put off expensive procedures and wait until they are covered by Medicare. We know that.
The age increase is an incredibly stupid idea, because it has little or nothing to do with reality or how people actually use these programs. It’s also a dodge, because it does nothing for health care costs. All it does is delay and then shift them. There’s only so many ways they can move these pieces. Arranging them in a slightly more pleasing design doesn’t make a bit of difference in terms of health care costs.
A Mom Anon
@JPL 46
That’s the other factor I was thinking of,the people who stay in jobs they hate or stay just for the insurance. So,how do you find out the actual numbers of jobs that could be freed up by keeping retirement age as is(or even scaling it back a year)?
Lolis
@Donut:
At the press conference Obama did admit to discussions about Social Security. However, he did say that any money saved would have to go back in the Trust Fund. He told that to Sam Stein and they have the whole video at HuffPo because they shamelessly promote their reporters. So while it was being discussed, Republicans would never have agreed to it because it would not be a way for them to raid the program.
NamelessGenXer
@General Stuck
This. Because a) thumbsucking on election day or b) jumping on the Ron Paul Bandwagon with Jane are the most brilliantest strategeries evah for advancing the Progressive agenda.
Wild guess on the unspoken agenda: Hillary-2008 because the treasonous goop would have played nice with her.
General Stuck
That does not give protection for having your nonsense challenged on this blog. You have a right to say what you want, and I have the same right. And people running around spouting the “cowardice” word toward Obama is going to get a response from me, most of the time. Deal with it.
He didn’t do anything with it. It died dead as Franco without even producing an official report.
Oh please, come down off your high horse. It may have been a mistake forming it, but “cowardly”. Obama has been square in our faces dealing with the republican bullshit on the debt ceiling and deficit mania, damn near every day, while expressly declaring that benny cuts to SS and Medicare will not happen on his watch. You are pulling all sorts of nonsense out of your ass to raise a scare that he is maybe deceiving us. With no real evidence to show, and plenty of evidence from his own mouth knocking down yours and others infernal concern trolling on the “Obama gonna gut SS and medicare’ horseshit.
Lawnguylander
@Donut
The deficit commission was created to get agreement from conservative Democrats in congress in order to pass the stimulus act so I say it was well worth it. Obama hasn’t proposed making cuts to Social Security benefits because he’s not interested in doing so. But are you saying you’d rather he did so than agree to the creation of a toothless commission that was doomed to never even reach an agreement? That’s stupid.
El Cid
__
Well, clearly the implication is that if one opposes cuts proposed to Medicare based on a fake debt ceiling fight at this time, it’s because of some special animus against Obama. It must be.
After all, under Clinton there was the same desperate fear of economic devastation, right? And people were imminently expecting the same slashing and hacking of all sane government programs by a Republican triumvirate, right?
Therefore it’s all anti-Obama hyperactivism. Elected Democrats need to do whatever they think might be correct with regard to Medicare on the excuse of a debt ceiling fight, because who the fuck needs all these months or years of public debate on Medicare policies? All you need is a few weeks to come to ‘a deal’ on debt ceiling matters and there you go.
Liberals need to shut up and let the pros get on with it.
It may be the case that when I think about policy matters, I’m maybe thinking policy, but it really must be about my feelings toward Obama.
Although it should be borne in mind that I’m one of those people O’Donnell probably despised who opposed Clintonian policies which I thought were bad policies too, including some which Clinton has since apologized for (most recently forcing Haitians to replace their locally adapted pigs with big fat expensive hogs from the US), but since at the time I wasn’t backed by that many elected Democrats, I must simply have been a premature firebagger.
kay
I don’t think they know about that, I really don’t. There was a poll that came out about 3 months ago, on Medicaid. The poll directly contradicted the media-politician theme on Medicaid, that it’s a program “for the poor”, and had no middle class support. It was supposedly this BIG SHOCKER.
There’s majority public support for Medicaid, unsurprisingly, because a hell of a lot of people rely on it. Medicaid hasn’t been a program exclusively for “the poor” in years, it props up what we now call the lower middle class. People know that because they use it, or they know someone who uses it. Medicaid props up Medicare, and vice versa.
General Stuck
If members of the so called left, don’t have the evidence to back up their charges or suspicions concerning Obama and his intentions relative to cutting SS and medicare benefits, then they most certainly should shut up, until they have some. That is just a suggestion on my part, but should be a common sense notion for claimers of being Obama supporters.
El Cid
Are these the 1993 cuts under Clinton to which O’Donnell refers?
Is this what liberals are screaming about now that were not, um, screamed about in 1993?
Reducing payments to providers?
Lifting the cap on wages subject to the relevant payroll tax?
Really? Because in regard to policy disagreement (and there are in fact real worlds which exist outside the topic of who loves or hates Obama), it appeared to me to center on direct cuts to those people dependent on Medicare/aid. (Yes, Medicaid, due to states receiving federal funding.)
Because O’Donnell makes both an empirical claim, and an ideological claim.
So is the empirical claim correct? Is this what “liberals” today are screaming about, presumably unfairly to Obama and not having been done so under Clinton?
Bob Natas
General
No; all the players all villains to someone. I saw someone compare this little imbroglio to a worked wrestling match. We had better hope so; if the GOP doesn’t know this, then something bad might happen. I think they are beating Obama to the podium this morning. This might be a good, or a bad, sign. We’ll soon see.
There is no “progressive” agenda, because there is no effective and mobilized leftist movement in the States. One might lament this, or celebrate it, depending on one’s point of view. The idea that a handful of disaffected Obama supporters staying at home are going to cost him the election is about as reasonable as the idea that these same leftists caused the fiasco in Iraq.
El Cid
Note: I don’t even have any strong opinions on what Obama would do regarding Medicare — O’Donnell is making a huge and broadly ideological argument (really a simple blurted angry insult) about why people might or might not hold opinions regarding real or potential cuts to Medicare.
I don’t actually think that Obama will be proposing significant cuts to Medicare to recipients. Yet O’Donnell’s claims are still strongly smelling of bullshit.
General Stuck
Head on desk
Hep me cope FSM. It’s the “both sides do it” cookie monster, raising its empty head.
patrick II
Democrats are going to make noise about MEDICARE cuts because they just lost sixty seats in the house in part because Republicans (and FOX and Rush and the usual suspects) harangued them for MEDICARE cuts. They don’t want that to happen again and are going to make noise about it. They want to separate themselves from this — and other cuts — but letting the republicans make those types of deficit reductions while adding only “revenue enhancements”. As much as they can get away with, they want to let the republicans take the fall for program cuts while they take responsibility for closing loopholes on the rich which poll pretty well right now.
O’Donnell should catch up.
wsx
General Stuck:
I have to admit that this kind of cult-of-personality, denial-of-reality shtick is pretty creepy. But — while obviously the Obama administration has been saying over and over and over again that they want to cut Medicare and Social Security — that’s not a particular criticism about Obama himself. He’s just a standard Robert Rubin-DLC-Wall Street Democrat, and they’ve been trying every way they can to cut both programs for twenty years or more.
Bruce S
Stuck – “And Obama has explicitly stated as much, that SS is not part of the deficit debate. And only should be considered for changes to lengthen or strengthen it. I have heard him state this very thing.”
That’s not “this very thing” – it’s two different things. And they’re contradictory. A – it’s not part of the talks. B – it’s only part of the talks if we “strengthen” it.
And of course, the President’s (sane) defenders here have been explaining why the COI index changes are “strengthening” rather than the “entitlement cuts” that Jay Carney has referenced as PART OF THE NEGOTIATIONS.
Two words on the President and the principle that “only ratfuckers worry about this White House regarding SS” for the sweet little fella – Stuck (on stupid) – who is overcome with the smell of “freshly fucked rat” when asked any serious questions that he clearly doesn’t have answers for.
Simpson
Bowles
Not that the President has actually adopted their scheme, but he appointed ALAN FUCKING SIMPSON to be “balanced” by ERSKINE BOWLES as the face of his deficit reduction commission. Not one conservative and one liberal. But a guy who hates social security and makes the most outrageous and false assertions about the program serially in tandem with an utterly bankrupt (politically – he’s a multi-millionaire) corporate “Dem.” But hey, the President has our back ever and always on social security, so sit down and shut up, ratfuckers! Not to worry. Because apparently the Prez sees merit in the team of Simpson and Bowles for “ideological balance”!
Ezra Klein, Paul Krugman, Josh Marshall, Steve Benen, et al who have reported that the SS COI index has been brought into the debt ceiling negotiations – as also indicated by the White House press secretary – aren’t nearly as reliable as General Stuck! Anyone who thinks otherwise – or even fears otherwise – FUCKS RATS! I guess that includes the good, mostly reasonable folks engaged in long explanations in the last “Lawrence O’Donnell Said Something!” thread of why bringing COI indexing into the debt ceiling negotiations was okay because the new index was better and it was progressive deficit reduction, not conservative batshit.
So I’m treated to a double whammy. It never happened RATFUCKER! And it’s okay because it’s a better indexing of cost of living and doesn’t actually slash – or even “cut” – any benefits.
Love these ABL threads. It’s like reading comments at Free Republic. Cult-think. Cognitive dissonance. Incoherence. Denial.
Also, my guess is that ABL doesn’t know the first little thing about the who or what of a Democratic House and Senate passing a Clinton budget as regards the actual details of Medicare changes 18 years ago except…Lawrence O’Donnell Said Something! (In fact, legislation in 1993 REMOVED THE CAP ON COMPENSATION TAXED FOR MEDICARE. But Lawrence O’Donnell said something, so the whiners and cranks concerned at the suggestion that Medicare eligibility be shrunk need to shut up because…something happened in 1993 and this Firebagger Nancy Pelosi was a young congresswoman then and voted for changes that included Medicare tax increases, so why doesn’t everybody just shut up?)
Life is too short to engage the venomous bullshit that takes over on these ABL threads. So I’m sticking to one comment in order to preserve my sanity. Very disappointing to see this level of hysterics and dishonesty.
kay
I don’t think he will either, and his “cuts to providers” are different than Clinton’s “cuts to providers”. Obama’s are in the context of the PPACA, which makes some of the reimbursement to providers redundant (uncompensated care, for example, will be less necessary when 17 million additional are on Medicaid).
Cutting payment rates to providers doesn’t work. We tried that, in 1997. Congress makes up the difference to providers with the infamous “doc fix”. They never once followed through with the cuts. Which is why we needed an independent board, in the PPACA. Provider lobbyists are too powerful. Congress won’t do it. They’ve never once done it.
jayjaybear
Just a point…one of the reasons Clinton didn’t get half the tsuris over rumors and half-truths that Obama gets is the internet. In 1993, it was still a fairly sparse place, and HTML and the WWW didn’t exist yet for the vast majority of the country. Now, we get facts, rumors, and lies at the speed of electrons right to our computer monitors. Then, we didn’t even have half as many TELEVISION channels as we have now. The speed and volume of “information” has increased a hundredfold (at least)…that’s the accurate and good along with the false and bad.
Bruce S
Okay – one more thing.
Steve Israel FUCKS RATS!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/debt-ceiling-medicare-democrats-steve-israel-dccc_n_893464.html
General Stuck
Your OCD nonsense restated in this comment, was dealt with last night, by me and others. Take a chill pill, or find a new argument that isn’t recycled drivel from The Catfood Commission, or mind reading the POTUS press secretary. And get some fresh fucking insults, johnny walker, the ones you bring are too stale squared.
Donut
Gen. Stuck:
I offered a single issue critique of Obama. You reacted to that by calling me pathological. I don’t think I’m the one who needs to come off the high horse, dude.
I did not critique of the man’s entire presidency, nor of the Left.
I said Obama is being cowardly in dealing with SS by hiding behind a commission.
You can piss and moan all you want that we don’t know if Obama will agree to cuts in SS. Fine.
But if he doesn’t manage to say aloud what he wants vis a vis SS, then I’m going to make it clear to him what my preferred policy is.
To date, the president has not said what he wants. Until he does, he leaves people like me, supporters, to fill in the blanks on our own.
Sorry, I don’t trust any politician to always do the right thing. Not a one of them. Ever.
It’s hardly nonsense to state my preference and the White House know it. I’m just expressing my thoughts on the matter.
Again, I invite you to simply fuck off if that is beyond the pale for you.
Lawnguylander
I don’t remember these Medicare cuts in ’93 but based on El Cid’s comment up there it’s not something I would’ve been upset about at the time so it sounds like O’Donnell has made a crap historical argument. Except that I don’t expect that House and Senate Dems and Obama would agree to anything but the types of reforms that were passed in ’93 so I’m not prepared to freak out now either.
As for on-the-tableism, just when I was past being sick of hearing about things being under the bus. Now we’ve got a new meaningless phrase that will be included in every third comment on blogs I frequent.
Bob Natas
Stuck
Look: I don’t give a good goddamn who “wins” in this situation, as long as the debt ceiling is raised. This is because I think our politics is a fraud. On the other hand, a lot of people (like you, say) think this is real. I get that you love Obama, but you’re kidding yourself if you think that OBAMA WINS! is how everyone is going to see this.
dave
News Report: Medicare cuts were discussed during the debt ceiling negotiations
Firebaggers: We are against medicare cuts. Obama is selling us out!
Left-liberals: We oppose medicare cuts, Obama better not be selling us out. I hope he knows where we stand on this issue.
Obamabots: Trust Obama. We think medicare cuts are bad, but if they happen it can only be because Obama got the best deal he could get and/or because those cuts are actually a good thing we support. Why do firebaggers and left liberals hate Obama?
Obama: I want to strengthen medicare.
Firebaggers: This is ambiguous. Obama must be selling us out!
Left-Liberals: This is ambiguous. Obama has delivered on some promises and explicitly repudiated other promises he has made to us (Gitmo/Civil Liberties/Libya/etc.). I hope Obama know that we are against medicare cuts under any circumstances and that he cannot agree to cuts without losing our votes.
Obamabots: Trust President Obama. He only wants to strengthen medicare. This means no cuts but even if it does mean cuts that is because it is the best deal Obama can get and/or because cuts are a good thing that we support. Lets shut up and wait until a deal is reached and evaluate it then. Why do firebaggers and left-liberals hate Obama?
Stuck on Stupid
Donut – “I’m going to make it clear to him what my preferred policy is.”
But Donut – I know exactly what your “preferred policy” is! It is F**king Rats! I can smell it!
General Stuck
Ha! invitation declined.
It’s not a matter of you trusting any politician. It is a matter of you and others making accusations you can’t back up with real evidence. And ignoring the actual evidence suggesting you are full of shit.
Strandedvandal
Some people are just looking for ways to be pissed off. They see nefarious plans, shady deals and personal attacks everywhere. I cannot imagine how miserable an existence that must be. If you don’t want people calling you on poorly thought out rants, than you should consider letting those thought bubbles burst in your head instead of writing them down.
Tuttle
Wait a minute, I certainly did.
* headsmack *
General Stuck
All I request, is for people who don’t like Obama, don’t trust Obama, or whatever. IS TO BACK UP WHAT THEY ASSERT without resorting to whinging about how you “get that I love Obama”. Not about that. It’s about democrats pissing in their own beds for no good reason and doing the wingnuts work for them, pushing half baked suspicions of Obama selling this or that out. I will continue to point out how very stupid and unproductive that is, when I want to.
Strandedvandal
This a thousand times.
Marc
Amen Stuck. Look, there are a lot of ways to, say, reduce spending on Medicare. Some of them are good ideas, some of them are bad ones. The Obama-hating left seems to have decided that, since they despise him, any changes that he might make are automatically bad.
This leads to surreal foolishness of the kind that we regularly see on display here. The details matter, enormously, on the subject of these budget changes. Screaming “DON”T CHANGE MEDICARE!” is worse than mindless, for example. We waste a lot of money in this country on medical care, and until recently people on the left were willing to actually look at ways to make the government work better.
Instead we seem to see a lot of people on the left certain that Obama will sell them out and willing to attack him on rumors. If you’re actually a liberal it may be worth stepping back and trying to engage in a dialog about what supporters of Obama are actually saying. If you’re not interested in a dialog….well, the locals will adjust and deal with you accordingly.
Donut
Stuck:
I’m sorry. I must have missed the post you made where you offered evidence that we can be certain Pres Obama is not putting SS cuts in play in these negotiations.
SS is most certainly under discussion. In debt talks. And SS contributes nothing to the debt.
Are you saying that not correct?
Because that’s all I’ve ever been talking about here.
I think I’ll call the White house again today and tell them again that I support the Pres, but not SS cuts. In your honor.
Have w great day.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Donut:
FWIW I think that is a great idea. Even if Stuck is right (and I tend to think he is on this one), it does not hurt, and is likely to help, to have the notion that social security benefit cuts should not be on the table reinforced in the minds of politicians.
N.B. Whether COLA recalculations are cuts is a matter of debate…
Bob Natas
Yes, it is, and it’s OK. I am fanatical about UT football and I rant and pace around a lot on Saturdays. Our politics is not as real as an NCAA football game, but really, I do understand. We humans do this for some reason, and without us games (and elections) would be a lot less funny.
The progressive “movement” is a necessary evil right now for the Dems; you need a group of reliable foot soldiers to get out the vote, make calls, volunteer to put lives on hold to follow, groupie like, the campaign around. I do have to give the Dems credit, though: the lack of control that the GOP has over their extremists has made the last few days … interesting. No way would Obama let a group of true believers approach this level of insubordination. Look at how the Affordable Health Care for America Act was handled!
Surly Duff
Sorry, but O’Donnell’s argument is plain stupid. Much of the complaints and grief regarding the current debt talks are fueled by blogs and the millions of internet discussions. In 1993, the majority of people received news from TV, papers and radio. In 1993, according to World Bank statistic, 2.3% of Americans had regular access to the internet. Now, that number is almost 80%.
Basically, in 1993, people had less opportunity to bitch about the President and such actions than they do now. Also, dial-up modems probably gave people more time to think before they hit the submit buttons after typing something extremely stupid.
General Stuck
Same to ya, and don’t take no wooden nickells.
General Stuck
Whatever, read my heart if you must. But my ass belongs to baby Jaysus.
Back up what you assert. Write it on a rock.
Trurl
Wow, I didn’t know ABL was foxy.
Why are the pretty ones always insane?
General Stuck
Yer just saying that cause I’m rich and pretty.
Omnes Omnibus
@ General Stuck:
Obviously.
manual
So many things I could say about this post. But it’s clear, ABL, in her ideological vacuousness, is now admitting that the president is looking to cut the social safety net and that it is ok.
Previously, she was telling us Obama was never gonna do such things and it was all strategy – any one who thought otherwise was an idiot or out to savage the president. But no worries, Bill Clinton did, so its ok.
This is pathetic. You have no ideological core. It’s all about the President and the Party, not the politics, for you. Well, personally, I dont give a shit about the democratic party per se. I care about what they do.
And as for larry: Yeah, he worked on the Hill (so did I). What he did was help run arguably the most corrupt committee in congress – senate finance – which focused on showering rich people. During larry’s time, he helped usher through nafta and welfare “reform” among other things. But who gives a shit, right. Democrats are just supposed to support what there leaders want, not have real convictions of there own.
Bob Natas
Back up what you assert. Write it on a rock.
Dr. Squid
Simpson
Bow
SLAP!
Nothing.
Happened.
You.
Dumbfuck.
P.s. BREATHE!
General Stuck
It was a general point of my commentary on this thread, and not necessarily directed at you. I should have been clearer on that.
Bruce S
Omnes Omnibus: N.B. Whether COLA recalculations are cuts is a matter of debate…
Actually, that isn’t a matter of debate. Not at all. The COLA recalculation being argued for by folks here is a cut to real money that would be paid out if there was no “recalculation.” It reduces the size of a senior’s check over time if it’s enacted. Put simply, if it’s not enacted, the checks would be bigger – since apparently this is a hard concept for some folks to grasp. To say it’s not a cut of scheduled payments is spin – nothing more and nothing less. If it’s a justifiable cut, justify it. Don’t deny it.
What is a matter of debate – and it IS a debate contrary to some here who appear desperate to characterize spending cuts as “progressive” – is whether COLA recalculations are based on more accurate indexing of real increases in cost of living and whether they are prudent or possibly even necessary down the road.
To argue that they aren’t cuts is Orwellian. It’s what we always hear from Republicans when they cut programs and claim they’re not cuts because they’re only cutting back on potential growth – often mandated increases solely because of growth in population eligible for a program. By the same logic, Paul Ryan could honestly claim that he wasn’t cutting the Medicare budget over time – just “recalculating” it with a “COLA.”
Argue for the rationality or prudence of a COLA cut on it’s merits, but don’t claim that as “recalculations” the lower payments that result aren’t cuts.
It’s this kind of double-speak that destroys the credibility of even the more reasoned folks who have attempted to take me and others to task here for sharing the position of Dems like Steve Israel and Nancy Pelosi or Indy Bernie S. who have been vocal about taking Medicare and SS “off the table.” (Never mind the one-note ravings of hysterical loons like “Stupid.”)
Of course, this is all a moot point because no one who speaks for the White House has even mentioned “cuts” to entitlements as part of these negotiations. Right?
Bruce S
General – I hate to inform you of this, but breathing isn’t enough. The oxygen actually has to get to your brain. Good luck with that…
FlipYrWhig
@ El Cid:
Well, that’s pretty much the whole issue. If you’re concerned about the prospect of “Medicare cuts,” you should make a distinction between reducing payments and various technocratic fixes — which would, in fact, reduce the amount of money going into Medicare and could hence be called a cut — and benefit cuts, i.e., what you call “direct cuts to those people dependent on Medicare/aid.”
It seems to me that a lot of people are assuming direct cuts to benefits, with very little basis. O’Donnell is bringing up how there are such things as “Medicare cuts” liberals could embrace, and there have been, as recently as the Clinton administration.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Bruce S: What is the purpose of a COLA? Cost of living adjustment, right? It is to ensure that the someone’s SS payments have the same purchasing power in the future that they have today. In order to to do that properly, the COLA should keep pace with inflation. If, and I say “if” because I do not know which is the more accurate calculation, the current calculation outpaces inflation, it is not doing what is supposed to do. COLAs are not designed to provide an automatic raise. If reconfiguring the COLA results in a more accurate method of keeping pace with inflation, it is doing what is supposed to do.
In addition, a change to the the calculation method cannot be a cut; we do not know what inflation will be in the future, so we cannot say whether there will be any COLA increases or how large they will be.
gocart mozart
This is how it should have gone down:
Erick: No, no, I just want you to know… I just want you to know how sorry we are that things got so fucked up with us and the debt negotiations. We got into this thing with the best intentions and I never…
Barack: [shoots the man on the couch] I’m sorry, did I break your concentration? I didn’t mean to do that. Please, continue, you were saying something about best intentions. What’s the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort. What does a government default look like?
Erick: What?
Barack: What country are you from?
Erick: What? What? Wh – ?
Barack: “What” ain’t no country I’ve ever heard of. They speak English in What?
Erick: What?
Barack: English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
Erick: Yes! Yes!
Barack: Then you know what I’m sayin’!
Erick: Yes!
Barack: Describe what a government default looks like!
Erick: What?
Barack: Say ‘what’ again. Say ‘what’ again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say what one more Goddamn time!
Bruce S
Omnes – that’s pretty lame. Just because you don’t know the precise rate of inflation doesn’t mean that the payments at a given rate won’t be less under the kind of COLA “recalculations” that have been discussed and advocated here. If the payments are less, that’s a cut in what would have been paid if the more generous calculation had been kept in place. If you think the calculation was wrong or too generous for whatever reason, make that case. But don’t act like “smaller” is “the same.” You’re engaged in making a semantic case that if a check is smaller than it would have been without a given action it’s “not really a cut”, and not even doing a very good job of that.
You’ve pretty much lost any credibility on this with that last comment. I’m increasingly thinking that there’s not much capacity for honesty in these discussions.
Also, I’m not sure why folks are defending these changes if nothing related to SS is even on the table for discussion in the debt ceiling talks, as the more fevered brains here claim.
Have a great day.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Yawn…
another morning reading the whiny little manic progressive Chicken Littles on the left crying that the sky is falling because of Obama.
Yet again. Good thing many of them claim that they are Obama supporters, eh?
Omnes Omnibus
@ Bruce S:
Yeah, I have to say that I regret posting that response to you. I should have known, after watching your antics over the past several days that you weren’t interested in a good faith discussion of the issue.
FWIW I do not know which COLA calculation method is the more accurate one. I do know that that purpose of a COLA is to keep up with inflation, and, if the SS COLA does that, the promise made wrt SS is being kept.
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus:
If you know that changing the calculation method will lead to smaller increases then of course it is a cut to benefits. The actual number on the beneficiaries check does not go down, but in the future that number will be smaller with the calculation change than without it.
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t disagree with this, but that is a different issue than whethere benefits will be reduced as a result of the change.
El Cid
__
But it’s also the case that — whether one thinks they’re realistic fears or not — people both inside and outside Congress have been fearing those direct cuts to beneficiaries.
You can, as many people do, argue that there is no reason or has been no reason to be convinced that this would be done, given reporting about and statements by Obama, and of course by the small number of selected Democrats who are leading the ‘negotiations’.
But you cannot argue that people haven’t been fearful that those types of cuts would happen and would happen despite whatever forward announcements were made.
That is a difference — notwithstanding that it’s very, very, very difficult if not impossible to know (as the terrible phrasing goes) what is or is not “on the table”.
That’s one of the consequences of this type of shit. It isn’t real legislating, it isn’t any sort of public debate, it isn’t the process you’d think would be followed to make major changes in the core social policies of the US government ever.
It’s primarily ‘backroom’ negotiations and dealings and echoes and readings of tea leaves and guessing at who’s going to do what.
I see no problem with people getting out and screaming against Medicare cuts to individuals as part of this ginned-up fiscal emergency legislative runaround even if such never happens.
O’Donnell acts as though there’s no difference, say, in having a proposal to increase Medicare revenues by removing the cap on taxes and as yet unspecified savings. (Sure, statements and guesses at plans, but nothing clear.)
MBunge
“O’Donnell’s argument is plain stupid. Much of the complaints and grief regarding the current debt talks are fueled by blogs and the millions of internet discussions. In 1993, the majority of people received news from TV, papers and radio. In 1993, according to World Bank statistic, 2.3% of Americans had regular access to the internet. Now, that number is almost 80%.”
Here’s a wild idea. Maybe the fact that the media/information environment has changed means that how people talk/rant about politics has changed. As Stan Lee put it, with great power comes great responsibility. As the internet has increased the power of individuals to influence the public discourse, perhaps those individuals should exercise a little more responsibility.
For example, if you claim to be a liberal/progressive, maybe you should realize that constantly and reflexively shitting on everything that’s done by the most liberal/progressive President of your lifetime isn’t a terrible productive or helpful thing.
Mike
Omnes Omnibus
@ MattR: Future benefits won’t decrease; they will increase at a slower rate. Fundamentally, my concern is whether SS does what it is is supposed to do. I think that the COLA should be based on the most accurate calculation available.
ETA: As I stated above, I do not know which is actually the more accurate measurement, so I am not advocating for one or the other.
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is exactly what I said
If the current system gives you $10,000, $11,000 and $12,000 over the next three years and the new one gives you $10,000, $10,500 and $11,000 instead, then your benefits have been reduced over time when compared to the status quo even though they have also been increasing in real terms.
EDIT: To put it another way, if you worked for a company that gave 10% raises every year and they changed their policy to start giving 5% raises instead, your salary would still go up every year but you would also be making less money in the long term (and you would probably not be thrilled with the change even if that 5% raise is better than what other companies are offering)
IMO, this is completely irrelevant to whether or not it is a cut/reduction in benefits
Omnes Omnibus
@ MattR: I think we have hit a semantic disagreement here. I understand what you are saying and I think you get my point; we just disagree as to the precise meaning of the word “cut” in this context. Fair enough.
Bruce S
Omnes – obviously, based on that last comment, you’re just a more polite version of General Stuck.
I’m am interested in a “good faith” discussion. Nothing more and nothing less. That’s what I’m holding you to. Claiming that actual decreases in payments – which is what happens with the “recalculation” – isn’t a cut is dishonest. Don’t lecture me about “good faith” when you’re engaged in nothing but sleight of hand because you don’t like the sound of a word…
ABL
i’m so glad someone got it.
that is all.
::cough::
Bruce S
“The precise meaning of the word ‘cut'” is “To reduce the size, extent, or duration of; curtail or shorten: cut a payroll; cut a budget.” In this context, the recalculation results in a smaller check. The benefit that’s being sought is that the SS budget itself, over time is “cut” – as in “smaller than it would have otherwise been.” This is achieved by enacting a formula that actually “reduces the size” of actual checks paid out to real retirees in real dollars.
Get it?
Of course I’m sorry I’m pissing in the soup…
Bob
@El Cid (#56) makes the right point (and what I thought as soon as I saw O’Donnell self-righteously venting about it, but was too lazy to bring up the right reference): O’Donnell is conflating cuts to providers with benefit cuts to consumers and is giving us a big “shut up you over-reacting hypocrites”. Does he understand the difference himself? He should – that is exactly the reason the left didn’t complain about the “cuts” to Medicare as part of the health care act – they were cost controls, not benefit cuts. But the Republicans just screamed “Medicare cuts!”, confusing the issue for political advantage.
The debate here is growing degenerate – we’re just trying to paint each other as idiots, and going “hah hah!”, we’re either dupes of Obama or dupes of Jane Hamsher. If you take out the extreme positions, both viewpoints of the deficit deal debate (on the Democratic/left side) have reasonable points and concerns.
Admiral_Komack
But, according to THE RATFUCKER, Lawrence O’Donnell is just a dumb motherfucker.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Bruce S: I am sorry that you feel this way. As to your interest in a good faith discussion, I guess opinions differ. In my view, a slower rate of increase is not a cut as long as it actually keeps pace with inflation. Social Security recipients have been promised and should receive benefits that equal a certain sum in today’s dollars. If they get that, their benefits have not been cut vis a vis what they were promised. If your employer discovers that he has been overpaying you for two years and decreases your pay to the contractual level, have you actually taken a pay cut? You will receive less money, sure. But is it a cut or is a correction?
Again, I am not advocating changing the COLA calculation mechanism.
El Cid
I IZ WITH HOLDIN’S MAH PRODUCKTIVITAY
As I was perusing the Googlebackwebz to revisit the budget / deficit / Medicare legislative debates of 1993, I found this.
Here’s an example of a Galtian hero sacrificing himself and his own valuable prahducktivitay given that Clinton was going to rob him blind. Via the New York Times in August 1993:
And make no mistake — the peevish over-reactions of our dot com millionaires will indeed harm the economy:
Yet still will Evans soldier on to suffer in silence and teach America a lesson on patriotism and valor.
But, And, Also, This:
I like the part about his return to his hardscrabble roots repairing that quintessential vehicle of the poor American working classes, Saab.
El Cid
Please John Cole, note this the next time we have to mention our heroes Going Galt.
Omnes Omnibus
@ El Cid:
Back off the Saab bashing there, bub.
Bruce S
“If your employer discovers that he has been overpaying you for two years and decreases your pay to the contractual level”
The current “contractual level” – i.e. legislated formula – of SS checks is the existing COLA arrangement. There has been no “overpayment.” The math adds up according to the statutes. Nobody has been sending out overpayments. If your employer wants to change your existing contract and use his own “new and improved” COLA that results in smaller checks, he is welcome to justify his desire to cut his future payments to you. He might even have a point. But your analogy is false. There hasn’t been an error in calculations.
I don’t get what keeps you buzzing with this BS…
Danny
We already went through all this once in ABLs latest Jane Hamsher thread. I dont want to put in the time once more so I’ll just state this:
In that thread I think Martin, myself and others made a strong case that the “cuts” that O. offered as part of his 3:1 grand bargain are mostly progressive policy goals branded as “cuts” to appeal to independents, win the public and get leverage. E.g. cuts to defence, negotiating lower medicare provider reimbursement rates etc.
In addition, here’s some circumstancial evidence that sane republicans know they’ve been outsmarted:
(via Steve Benen)
(Via Taegan Goddard)
Bitch got told.
(Taegan Goddard again)
Danny
Once again on Chained CPI:
If done right, the consequence is benefits staying the same relative to real cost of living (for the typical benificiary).
Claiming that that is a “cut” is flat out fraudulent.
Bruce S., at least, knows this full well from the last discussion we had… I don’t know about the other guys w-nkering on, though. Read e.g. Martin:s posts from the ABL thread for a good rundown.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Danny: “Some people can’t be told, you know; they have to learn the hard way.” Elvis Costello.
Bob
A couple of days ago, O’Donnell told us nervous nellies working in the 8th dimension that Obama had totally outbluffed the Republicans with his 4 trillion dollar proposal that he knew would never be accepted, and that the defeated Republicans now had no choice but to give him his debt ceiling increase. McConnell then duitifully played into the scenario with his whackadoodle veto nonoverride procedure. But, sorry Lawrence, that turns out to be, at best, ninth dimensional thinking. There is at least one more dimension: Obama was serious.
Danny
@Omnibus
Tru dat. Applies to firebaggers and the House majority leader equally.
Danny
@Bob
Sure. It would be stupid to offer a deal that you couldn’t stomach yourself. Just as stupid as holding the debt limit hostage for leverage. And the answer is of course that the “grand bargain” offered by O. isn’t really cryptonite to progressives at all, it’s just made up to look like it.
El Cid
__
Not bashing Saabs. I love Saabs.
But I don’t think any Saab lover would attempt to suggest that the car is the best to connote an image of poor white rural working class Americans surviving by getting by as a struggling mechanic.
Omnes Omnibus
@ El Cid:
Perhaps in parts of Vermont.
MattR
@Danny:
Would the change result in recipients receiving less money over their lifetime? Since the answer is yes, this can fairly be defined as cutting their total benefits.
The Tragically Flip
I don’t remember 1993 very well either, but I think there should be more discussion over how relevant the 1993 omnibus is to this discussion. Looking at this what I gather is the “cuts” to SS were in the form of increased taxation on wealthy recipients:
So even as a cut, it was a cut that did not hurt the poorest recipients, and remember that $25,000/yr was not too shabby in 1993 dollars.
The package also greatly increased the EITC, taxed the rich about a half dozen new and improved ways and increased taxes on corporations.
All that may have a lot more to do with why liberals accepted the package than them having no worries over SS or Medicare cuts.
FlipYrWhig
@ Bob / 108:
Almost all of the blogosphere backlash has originated from that same conflation. You can see it here every day: various people railing about the prospect of “Medicare cuts” or “Social Security cuts” but really meaning cuts to _benefits_. IMHO he’s just showing that the tripwire shouldn’t be the word “cuts,” because there are such things as good cuts that line up nicely with liberal priorities. It’s just that those cuts aren’t _benefit cuts_.
I think disquiet about the effects of raising the eligibility age, or fiddling with indexing of benefits, are legitimate. But phrasing those protests in terms of “Medicare cuts” or “Social Security cuts” is actually harmful to the idea of cutting waste and flab or using other tools to reduce–to wit, to CUT–health spending. If we snarl and bark about everything that _could_ be characterized as a “cut,” we’re never going to be able to cut where cuts are needed, and we’ll play into the hands of the “death panel” mongers, who also spin all cuts as benefit cuts and/or “rationing.”
FlipYrWhig
@ Tragically Flip / 124:
But O’Donnell’s point, as I see it, is that this year’s package could well be similar to that one. The “left” critics are raising a hue and cry at any mention of “cuts” without first ascertaining whether the supposed cuts are like these 1993-vintage ones. Instead, everyone is leaping to the conclusion that the proposal is giving beneficiaries smaller checks.
DonkeyKong
“We do not support cuts in benefits for Social Security and Medicare. Any discussion of Medicare or Social Security should be on its own table. I have said that before. You want to take a look at Social Security? Then look at it on its own table. But do not consider Social Security a piggy bank for giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country.
We are not going to balance the budget on the backs of America’s seniors, women and people with disabilities.”
Nancy “FireBagger” Pelosi July 8th 2011
I think Nancy is closer to this clusterfuck than any of us so her opinion is “legal tender” as far as I concerned.
Could General Stuck, ABL and all the other Obots kindly print this out, fold it six way, light it on fire and shove it up the seat of your wisdom.
The Tragically Flip
Flipyrwig:
The left edge of this proposal is, according to Silver’s analysis, to the right of the median Republican voter. So I don’t see how this can possibly be so.
I would like to be pleasantly surprised on that point, but when we’re just hoping the package will have any new revenues at all, I doubt it could come anywhere close to Clinton’s deal.
liberal
MattR wrote,
My God, you have amazing patience in dealing with these hacks.
The Tragically Flip
One other thought is to challenge the premise of O’Donnell’s position, which is that if liberals were fine with Clinton doing X, we should be fine with Obama doing X.
It’s not 1993 anymore. We have an extra 18 years of experience to suggest that Clinton’s grand strategy didn’t work. Liberals lost more ground than they gained through Clinton’s various deals. It’s hard to point to any great Clinton legacy either – the surplus could have been, but Bush just gave that away to rich people.
So Clintonism redux is not going to cut it. Things liberals may have accepted out of political expediency and keeping-power-dry back in the 90s just don’t ring true anymore for many of us.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Donkey Kong:Do you think there is any possibility that Obama and Pelosi have coordinated their strategies? That Obama is saying that everything is on the table as a negotiating strategy while Pelosi makes it clear that some things just aren’t going to happen? Obama as the front man appears to be bending over backwards to come to a deal with the GOP, but, in the end, everyone knows that Pelosi controls what is going to get through the House?
Danny
@MattR
The contract of SS is that benefits stay the same relative to the cost of living, unless new legislation is passed. Because of inaccuracies in the models to estimate cost of living, benefits have been rising at a slightly faster rate than cost of living.
But this was never by design. It’s not a feature of the system. Beneficiaries havent been promised that benefits will slowly rise relative to cost of living.
Furthermore – if you know your math – if benefit costs are e.g. rising faster than GDP (or revenues rather), then the program will eventually start running a deficit, given enough time. This is exactly the problem we’re having now with Medicare. The costs of paying for benefits are rising much faster than revenues.
Those situations provide attack vectors for enemies of the programs. They’re job get’s a little easier in arguing that Medicare and SS are “ponzi schemes” and will collapse.
The answer to that is to strengthen the programs with progressive reforms that wont cut benefits.
Chained CPI – if done right – is such a reform. If the money saved isn’t used to plug some other hole, then the effects of implementing chained CPI are:
– Benefits relative to cost of living stay the same. It would be fraudulent calling this a “cut”. It would be more fair to call it a “cancellation of a scheduled benefit hike”. But no one has been calling it that so you guys are still trading in outright falsehoods. Including you, Matt.
– The program itself is strengthened and less vulnerable to republican attacks.
patrick
how about eliminating the cap on wages subject to SS and FICA, while maintaining current caps and COLA’s on benefits? no cuts in SS needed then, would have to bend the cost curve of medical expense growth, but it kicks the medicare insolvency can way down the road. for medicare, how about allowing citzens under the age of 65 to BUY IN to medicare? you get a double whammy: more revenue, and enlarging the risk pool with younger (and hopefully healthier) people.
my dad is a 61 year old transit bus mechanic, and he’s planning on retiring in august, it’s too hard on his back. other than the back issues, and him needing to be on blood pressure medication, both he and my mom, who turns 60 on his official retirement date, are in good health. He has a pretty generous pension through the Teamsters, but no health insurance. the best deal he can find on health insurance is through the Teamsters, basically buying into his current insurance, but at a cost of almost 40% of his GROSS monthly pension income, and is $200 more a month than my house payment.
Danny
@DonkeyKong
Thats funny; the exact turn of phrase that Team Obama launched in his april deficit reduction speech, and Pelosi keeping up on the messaging front.
What firebaggers fail to notice is that all the framings of progressive policies that firebaggers use themselves to illustrate what they stand for and Obama doesnt – he popularized them all with the public: “trickle down”, “tax breaks for billionaires and millionaires and corporate jets”, 1:3 “revenue”/”cut” breakdown as extremely modest from progressives, “not gonna balance the budget on the backs of [insert]”…
No, Pelosi is not Nancy “firebagger” Pelosi; illustrated by the fact that you’ll rarely if ever find her on the record unloading on the prez, which as we know is the favorite past time of a firebagger.
Jane Hamsher knows this, which is probably why she felt the urge to gossip to that Teabagger queen and tell her all about Pelosi’s “union thuggery” and “arm twisting” to get PPACA through the house (See ABL:s latest Jane post).
It’s cute that you want firebaggers and Pelosi to be BFFs, it’s highly doubtful however that Pelosi is on the same page I’d wager…
MattR
@Danny: Your entire comment is non-responsive to my point. It does not matter what was promised or what the government is contractually obligated to do. It does not matter if the new measure is a more accurate reflection of cost of living. Similarly, the political (and other future) effects of making the change are irrelevant to my point. Making a minor cut now to avoid a deeper cut later is often a great idea. But that does not change the fact that you are making a minor cut now.
Benefits relative to the status quo will decrease. It would be fraudulent not to call this a “cut”.
Omnes Omnibus
@ MattR:
Or you could also say that benefits relative to the status quo will remain constant. That a SS check today will by a certain amount of goods and that the SS check in 20 years will buy the same amount of goods. It comes down to what one sees the promise made by SS to be. Is it this particular formula or is it a certain amount of purchasing power?
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus:
But this is not the status quo. If the current COLA calculation is too generous, then the status quo of using the current COLA calulation means that a SS check in 20 years will buy more goods, not the same amount.
Omnes Omnibus
@ MattR: The rest of my comment deals with that. Ceasing an overpayment is not a cut.
ETA: And with this comment, I am done with this argument. Cheers.
fasteddie9318
Benefits relative to the cost of living for a population that spends around 20% of its income on health care are already declining under the current COLA model, and here we are talking about how to adjust COLAs downward.
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus:
The promise made to SS is irrelevant to what constitutes the status quo system for determining COLA. That promise is relevant to whether changes to that system are fair.
Personally I prefer the phrase “reduction in benefits” because it more accurately reflects the change, but if pressed I would have to call it a cut. As you said above, this is a semantic disagreement.
Danny
You seem confused. And you smearing of chained CPI as “cuts” is trading in fraud. It’s not much different than calling Independent Advisory Board “Death Panels”. There’s a grain of truth, but in the aggregate deeply dishonest.
Allow me to illustrate:
Senior X can today buy 4 potatos and a gallon of milk a day with his SS check. The promise of Social Security is that he will be able to buy exactly those same things in 20 years time with his Social Security check.
But because of a flaw in the modelling used to calculate what the potatos and gallon of milk will cost, Senior X is today able to buy 5 potatos and a gallon of milk a day while he was able to buy only 4 potatos and a gallon of milk 45 years ago, in 1975.
Chained CPI – if done right – means that from now on Senior X will continue to be able to buy those same 5 potatos (not 4) and a gallon of milk. Today, tomorrow, in 30 years, the rest of his life.
That’s not a “cut”.
MattR
@Danny: Let me modify your example. Senior X starts off at age 65 being able to buy 5 potatos and a gallon of milk a day with his check today. Under the current “flawed” model by 2036, that 90 year old Senior X will be able to buy 6 potatos and a gallon of milk a day. If we switch to a chained CPI model, in 2036 90 year old Senior X will continue to be able to buy the same 5 potatos and a gallon of milk a day that he can afford today
If the change in models made, Senior X will no longer be able to buy a 6th potato in 2036. That is a cut to Senior X’s total benefits. He will receive less in the future after the change than he would have if the change is not made (5 potatos vs 6)
(EDIT: I want to reiterate that just because you continue to meet a promise or legal obligation does not mean that you have not cut benefits. Similarly, a company that stops giving an optional X-Mas bonus has still reduced the total compensation they are paying to their employees)
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@40 JPL
That’s a real problem – if you think about it for even a moment. Everything should NOT be on the table. It is morally reprehensible to put everything on the table. It is stupid to put everything on the table. It is unacceptable to put everything on the table. Putting everything on the table now enables future asswipes to put everything on the table and justify it using President Obama as a model. It normalizes his spineless and weak-minded depravity.
.
.
Danny
@MattR
It’s not a cut relative to todays benefits, it’s a cancellation of future improved benefits.
You could (tenuously) argue that it is a “cut” in comparison to 2036:s estimated benefits, and that’s pretty much what you’re doing. But it’s specious, as I think most serious observers will notice.
A “cut” of benefits implies that present benefits are actually being, you know, cut. That aint happening here.
Neither is it a cancellation of something SS was ever supposed to offer, or something that seniors were ever promised. SS was always meant to work in the way Chained CPI done right works (5 potatos staying 5 potatos).
5 potatos slowly becoming 6 is a bug, not a feature.
And allowing the program to continue functioning that way will hurt Social Security, not strengthen it, because the aggregate cost of the program will rise faster and in a way that was never intended.
El Cid
__
Don’t make me have to bring up the Subaru wagon, 4 wheel drive only, please.
Omnes Omnibus
@ El Cid:
You win, sir. I yield.
MattR
@Danny:
It is a cut because it is a change that results in the total lifetime benefits being paid out to an individual recipient decreasing.
How is this remotely relevant? The argument is whether or not this is a cut, not whether it will strengthen social security.
les
@MattR:
This is only true if you have an ideological investment in negatively framing the Prez’s proposal. To the rest of us, it’s tweaking to see that SS delivers on its actual promise, while strengthening the cash flows. You are obviously invested in your tantrum, and faced with a challenge for evidence you’ll sink or swim with the only thing you can get–at least you acknowledge that you’re unconcerned with whether the proposal weakens or strengthens SS, as long as you can use “cutcutcut” to keep the tears flowing.
“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
Will Rogers
Danny
@MattR
There was no such concept of “total lifetime benefits” before you made it up, just now.
And if we run with it for a while, just for the sake of the argument, chained CPI will freeze “total lifetime benefits” while the system we have now will (very slowly) increase “total lifetime benefits”. E.g. the real purchasing power of someone who is a senior now will be lower than that of a senior living a hundred years from now. That wasnt intended, and it’s a problem not a good thing.
So it is a cut of future costs – yes! – by freezing ppp benefits, not cutting them. You making up your own new concept of “total lifetime benefits” is neither here nor there.
It doesnt make it a benefit cut. A benefit cut implies that you had something but the cut makes you have less. That – once again – isnt happening here.
Granted, it’s not relevant to the semantic discussion of whether the term “cut” is appropriate.
It’s relevant to the question of whether chained CPI is good policy and if progressives should support it and that is why I brought it up. Because that is the larger context of our discussion, isn’t it?
Another Bob
It’s important to define the terms of debate carefully. While a “cut” is a reduction in government funding of the program, we need to know whether this represents a reduction in benefits to recipients versus other kinds of cost containment (increasing efficiency, etc). The “cut” that O’Donnell refers to in the Clinton administration appears to have been a reduction in payments to health care providers rather than a reduction in services to recipients:
What most liberals don’t want to see is a reduction in services or increase in costs to seniors of modest means who are already cash-strapped. Increasing efficiencies would be fine — such as reducing the payment rate to the for-profit Medicare Advantage plans. But it’s a different thing altogether if — as reports indicated — Obama has been seeking an increase in the eligibility age from 65 to 67. That’s a cut that could really hurt people, and is different in character from what O’Donnell seems to be describing.
gwangung
Another Bob: In other words, details matter.
Danny
@Another Bob
IFF.
Was he seeking it?
Was he offering it in exchange for something? Was the “something” he wanted in exchange something republicans could reasonably concede?
Were the republicans seeking it, and Obama not immediately drawing a line in the sand but keeping it on the table?
Who was that specific anonymous source telling a reporter something and what incentives did they have?
Is it in Obamas best interest to have anonymous reports claiming that he offered all but the moon to the republicans before they walked away?
So many questions…
Groucho48
It would be nice if being able to buy the same 5 potatoes in 20 years was possible, but, many costs that apply mainly to seniors are growing at a much greater rate than inflation. Even the current COLA increases don’t manage to keep up with the average senior’s cost of living. Trimming the COLA down will hurt more.
Energy prices have almost doubled in the last couple years. Food prices are up significantly, as well. Yet, the current COLA formula said there should be no increase in each of the last two years and Obama had to propose $500 one time checks to SS recipients just to get them back close to even.
Your premise that the COLA now is too high and the proposed COLA would be just right, is flawed. if granny can afford 5 potatoes now, current COLA would leave her with 4 in 20 years and the proposed method would leave her with 3.5.
You can discuss with granny if that’s a cut or not, but, I’m warning you, granny is a tough old bird.
Another Bob
@Danny
Indeed, and I don’t claim to know the answers. The game’s not over, so I’m not gonna let my guard down just yet.
Danny
@Groucho48
Your objection – that Chained CPI is a worse measure of real cost of living than what we have today – is a more reasonable one than Matts tortured attempts to deconstruct language in order to call Chained CPI a “cut”.
My best answer is that I’m not qualified to judge myself. Here’s Kevin Drum on the subject; he’s usually pretty good with economic wonkery.
My laymans summary is that his position is that Chained CPI is a good reform that will work in the general way I described (5 potatos staying 5), but only if it is done right. The devil is in the details and it’s easy to do it wrong thereby indeed hurting groups of seniors. E.g. staying vigilant is imperative.
Danny
@Another Bob
I’m all for keeping the guard up. Your run of the mill nutroot however is all about prejudging based on rumors. That’s dysfunctional and counterproductive.
MattR
@Danny:
I don’t even know how to resond to such ignorance. There is no defined number for it but of course the concept exists. Generally put, it is the present value of the sum of all future payments for a given recipient.
I guess that is one way of looking at it, but the flip side is that chained CPI will result in lower total lifetime benefits for a given recipient when compared with the current system.
Of course you have it here. You currently have an overly generous COLA. The cut is changing it to a smaller, more accurate COLA.
I disagree. IMO, the context is that words matter and have a consistent meaning. A cut is a cut even when it is a necessary cut. And it is still a cut even when Obama has previously said that he would not make cuts. That is the real context of this discussion – that many Obama supporters are desperate not to have this portrayed as a cut because that contradicts his earlier position.
les
@MattR: @Groucho48:
A whole different question, and well worth asking. Can you back up your numbers? Cost of living (like “unemployment”) is fuzzy; is it even the same for seniors v. the standard measures? But it’s hard to even have the discussion, if any change proposal brings screamers intent on finding betrayal everywhere.
les
@MattR:
fixst
MattR
@les:
You do realize that the bit I quoted was a paraphrase of Danny’s argument. It was meant to be hyperbolic to show how stupid his original comment was.
Shall we count the assumptions here? More importantly, do you refute the basic fact that under the current system Senior X will receive $A total dollars over the next 20 years while changing to a chained COLA system will result in Senior X receiving $B over those same 20 years and that $B is less than $A?
@les: While a rare occurrence, it is unfortunate for you that facts actually support the firebaggers this time around.
Groucho48
@les
Looks like the lack of COLA adjustments for 2011 isn’t definite, yet. There were definitely no COLA increase in 2009 and 2010 and bills was passed in both years, I think, to give SS recipients $500, instead.
I am not an expert on COLA stuff, but, many of the things seniors need tend to rise faster than the general inflation rate. I have read that SS now pays about 39% of pre-retirement wages but that is expected to fall to 31% over the next 20 years because of increased Medicare payments.
Here’s a listing of COLA from 1990 to 2010…
5.4
3.7
3.0
2.6
2.8
2.6
2.9
2.1
1.3
2.5**
3.5
2.6
1.4
2.1
2.7
4.1
3.3
2.3
5.8
None
None
Maybe someone who knows this stuff could say if that approximates the rise in expenses that SS recipients have faced.
les
@MattR:
Of course not; it’s a measure of your desperation that you ignore the uniform agreement on your (absolutely hypothetical) arithmetic, and similarly refuse to notice that a change to your (newly invented hypothetical) lifetime aggregate benefit is not a “benefit cut” in any real sense, nor in the sense of the benefits promised and intended by the program. It’s only a benefit cut if your primary objective is to portray Obama as a lying betrayer.
MattR
@Groucho48: I don’t have links handy, but there is an expiremental COLA-E that is supposed to better measure the cost of living for the elderly. I believe Dean Baker has written about it recently.
MattR
@les: How pray tell is my arithmetic absolutely hypothetical? The underlying premise of this entire discussion is that we will save money by switching to chained CPI. That is only possible if $B is less than $A. If somehow the change were such that $B is greater that $A, I would be happy to call that an increase in benefits. However given that you are arguing that a change to your lifetime aggregate benfits (a common actuarial and economic concept – though perhaps not the exact term used)is not a “benefit cut” it can’t be a “benefit increase” either, so I guess you would strenously object to me calling it that.
MattR
re – total lifetime benefit.
If I offer you the option of (a) receiving $5000 a month every month for the rest of your life or (b) $100 this month, $150 next month, $200 the next month, with a $50 increase every month for the rest of your life how would you decide which one to choose?
Groucho48
I googled and found this from Dean Baker…
“It is also worth noting that there is no basis for the claim that the C-CPI-U would provide a more accurate COLA for Social Security beneficiaries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Experimental Price Index for the Elderly has consistently shown a somewhat higher rate of inflation for the elderly population.
If the concern is accuracy, then the route should be to have the BLS construct a full elderly index that could take account of actual purchase substitution patterns among elderly consumers. Simply switching to the C-CPI-U without undertaking this research is consistent with a desire to cut Social Security, not to make the COLA more accurate.”
les
@MattR:
FFS. It’s hypothetical because for any given beneficiary, you don’t know what will happen. And I don’t care if you would be happy to call it a benefit increase if they changed the COLA function and, for some set of circumstances, some check two years later was more than it would have been.
When any particular recipient joins the SS program, their benefit is set based on age, contributions to the program, and application of common actuarial and economic concepts, codified in the law. If I wanted to be as ridiculous as you, I’d argue that that number is the benefit, period, and no proposal has suggested cutting the benefit; nor has any proposal suggested changing the way the benefit is determined. The SS program also intends that the benefit, once established, change over time to maintain purchasing power. No matter how important it is to you, nor how happy it makes you to term it so, adjustment of the mechanism for maintaining purchasing power is not, to sane observers of the process, a benefit cut.
les
@Groucho48:
Good info; it seems to me we should be doing that research, there’s certainly enough seniors for a sample. That said, this:
seems like the kind of conclusion you can’t really reach, until the research is done.
bourbaki
A salient point (which I got from Dean Baker) about this whole chained CPI versus CPI-W is that if CPI-W overstates inflation then historical real wage growth has been much much greater than thought. This means that future real wage growth should be more than predicted in the various shortfall scenarios for social security. In other words, if inflation has been understated than past trends indicate we will be much richer in the future than anticipated.
MattR
@les:
I am not sure what you mean by this. For any given beneficiary you know that using chained COLA will lead to smaller increases than the current system.
Their initial benefit is set by these things. Their future benefits however are not set in stone and can be changed by modifications to that law such as the one we are discussing right now. Those changes can result in a person’s future benefits being expected to increase, being expected to decrease or the effect is unknown. Given the specifics of this change, it is pretty safe to say that the expectation is that those future benefits will decrease.
Groucho48
@les
Well, it seems definite that switching would mean lower future benefits. If you switch without knowing whether the new method more accurately reflects recipient’s actual inflation rates, then, it seems to me, that, yes, the savings to the government are the reason for doing it.
I mean, if you switch from, say, a name brand soup to a store brand soup and you know the store brand soup is cheaper but you don’t know how it tastes, it’s hard to argue that you are doing it for the taste and not for the cost savings.
MattR
@Groucho48: It seems like there is some interesting potential research in looking at the substitution patterns of the elderly compared with the rest of the population. Are they more set in their ways or have their life experiences made them more prepared to flexibly deal with a tight budget? Are there medical (or other conditions) that restrict their ability to make certain substitutions?
les
@Groucho48:
I agree the proposed switch results in lowering COLA increases. I don’t know how a senior-specific number would compare to either the current version or the chained version–so Dean’s statement that the change is solely to save costs, not to be more accurate, is unfounded as far as I can tell from the quote. I just don’t know what’s in the various baskets; and there doesn’t appear to even be discussion (at least publicly of what should be in the baskets. For example, to the extent medical costs are (if they are included) a significant driver to make senior’s inflation higher than what we’re using, what about addressing that problem through Medicare/ACA changes? If we can’t solve medical cost and cost inflation, the whole discussion probably doesn’t matter.
Danny
@157, Matt
Let me rephrase: a focus on how much the individual benificiary “gets back” during his lifetime from a social insurance program like Social Security is a disingenious way to look at such programs.
The main benefit of having a program like Social Security is not “how much will I, as an individual get back?” That’s the libertarian framing. Then you find that some individuals will get more, because they’ll live longer. They are the “winners”. Some citizens get hit by a car and die at 58. They are the “losers”, because they paid into the program but recieved no benefits at all.
The libertarian pitch then is this: Maybe you turn out to be a “loser”? Maybe you pay your whole life and get killed at 58? Why should the tyranny of “Statism” take your money your whole life to pay for someone who get to live until 105?
That’s the libertarian world view.
But from a progressive point of view, the main benefit of a social insurance program like Social Security is security and predictability. Hence the name.
Whether you live until you’re 50 or until you’re 105, social security is there for you as a predictable program that allows you to live your life from the point where you retire, for as long as you’re blessed with fair health, without sliding into poverty because you can no longer provide for yourself.
Delivering that security requires that seniors recieve a set level of benefits, and that those benefits are adjusted to increases in cost of living so that they can still purchase the same set of goods that they require to live a dignified life.
So those are the benefits that Social Security is meant to deliver on.
Looking at how much aggregate $ seniors “get” from Social Security during their lifetimes – calling it “total lifetime benefits” or something else – in order to get to call Chained CPI a “cut” is disingenious. Total lifetime benefits are irrelevant to Social Security. A given amount of purchasing power each month – security – for as long as you live is what Social Security is about. Chained CPI – or any other indexing scheme – is meant to keep on delivering that, and the amount is the same one as seniors receive today.
So there, that’s why looking at aggregated lifetime benefits (by any name) is pointless. Whether anyone ever used your particular angle I don’t really know. I’ll grant you that. Someone may have. But looking at aggregated lifetime payouts is disingenious because Social Security is not there to give you aggregated lifetime payouts as a “benifit”. If you look at it that way you might as well buy the libertarian pitch and accept that you could be a Social Security loser and should have the right to opt out and just spend your money.
Social Security is there to deliver security in the form of a monthly payout for as long as you live. If that payout stays the same, but adjusted to the cost of living, then the payout isn’t “cut”. That objection is unreasonable. Groucho48:s point about whether Chained CPI really will keep up with cost of living is a fair one though.
Well that’s a cost cut for the program. By freezing benefits. If real purchasing power never decreases then it aint a “cut”.
I pretty sure you’re consistently conflating “cuts” with “benefit cuts” here, and I’m not even so sure that Obama really has committed on the record to no benefit cuts under any circumstances, in any program, as part of a deal. (But then again he certainly hasnt committed to making benefit cuts)
Anyhow I fail to see how your response really relates to what preceded it. I said that Chained CPI has the potential to strengthen Social Security. You said “perhaps, but that’s unrelated to whether it’s a benefit cut” (paraphrasing). And I responded: “Sure, I’m just pointing out that strengthening Social Security is a progressive policy goal as an aside because it is relevant to the bigger issue of whether Chained CPI is progressive policy”.
If your whole point about the semantics of what constitutes a “cut” or a “benefit cut” is some narrow gotcha on Obama (tortured, without properly separating “cuts” and “benefit cuts” and acknowledging that a benefit freeze is not a benefit cut), then by all means knock yourself out.
I thought you were at least marginally interested in whether you and me as progressives could and should support certain options potentially up for discussion in the debt negotiations. That’s where I’m coming from.
les
@MattR:
fucking duh. Agreed to ages ago. And you insist that this future decrease in the increase in benefit amount is a “benefit cut,” for the sole apparent purpose of PROVING!1!11! that the president is a liar and a traitor to liberals and blah blah blah. Adding nothing of value to the discussion.
Bruce S
Danny “Claiming that that is a “cut” is flat out fraudulent.
Bruce S., at least, knows this full well from the last discussion we had… ”
I can’t believe this bullshit is still stirring.
Danny – you’re the last person in the world to claim what I “know full well”. What I know full well is that you refuse to acknowledge the English language. You’re spinning this shit to death – any respect I might have had regarding an argument over the appropriateness of “chained CPI” has been ground away under the inability to recognize that this is a cut from the currently scheduled benefits. You ran up an utterly false, insanely incompetent analogy, and haven’t even acknowledged how full of shit you were with that one.
You guys are truly high on something. And, you Danny, in particular, are an arrogant prick. “Bruce S knows this full well…” Why? Because you tried to fly some bullshit about a boss who mistakenly overpaid wages? Take this spin and shove it.
What a fucking waste of time.
MattR
@Danny:
Nope. I was being lazy, but I meant benefit cuts every place I said cuts. I consider it to be a benefit cut when you decrease the rate of increase and I consider it to be a benefit raise if you increase the rate of increase. Also, Obama specifically said no COLA cut during the campaign when McCain proposed that as a way to save Social Security (along with increasing the retirement age).
Sorry, but I am really not interested in that conversation (though my short answer is that there is absolutely no reason that Social Security is being discussed in any way as part of debt negotiations since it has nothing to do with our short to medium term deficit problems.)
Bruce S
“les” – you’re an embarrassment to folks who support the President – actually have done and will do the work around his election – but don’t happen to be brain-dead.
Please don’t walk around the planet with an “Obama 2012” button this coming year because a flaming, foul little asshole such as yourself can only do damage.
MattR
@les:
Actually you have that exactly backwards. I don’t think the President is a liar or traitor. That is completely in your head. I think he is a politician and I don’t really care about the fact that he is offering a minor, useful cut after saying he would not make any cuts (and specifically this exact cut). Beyond the fact that that is what politicians do, I have no idea if it was even a genuine offer. But I am disappointed to see Obama supporters twist the facts to pretend that changing the formula to produce smaller increases is not a cut to benefits. (This is a general comment and does not necessarily relate to any specific person I argued with on several threads about this)
@Danny: To add to my previous comment, it seems that you only think of “monthly benefit check” when describing benefits whereas I think of the series of checks that make up the total benefit I receive. IMO, changing either one of those can fairly be described as cutting or raising benefits.
Danny
@Bruce
Well maybe I smacked you around a bit in that last thread so I can sure imagine you’d be a bit sour.
The reason for that was you consistently using weasel words, and when I called you out to at least see if you would commit to a position – you know transparently state what you believe, what you knew for certain, and what you simply didn’t know – you p-ssied out and went hiding. Then you turned up here, inserting yourself into the issue yet again.
I don’t like discussing stuff with people that won’t play by the rules, own up to their opinions and put a bit of effort into getting the facts as straight as possible. Bad character, I lose respect. It wastes my time.
You’re free to go back to that thread and respond on the merits there, which you consistently failed to do at the time. I can’t be bothered to link or relitigate how you slowly managed to lose my respect and cordiality one post at a time – unless you’re gonna persist in making a big stink about it and cry and moan bcuz of all teh butthurt.
Bruce S
I have to say that my experience on these ABL threads has reminded me of nothing so much as go-rounds I’ve had on another site that shall remain namelss with crank Lefties of the Chomsky-Nader stripe. Their anti-Obama venom was impenetrable. Some of the alleged “pro-Obama” loudmouths and cult-think types here are the spitting image of that style of argument and that one-dimensional, all-or-nothing “thinking.” No ability to hold two somewhat conflicted thoughts in their head at the same time. Devoid of nuance. Leaping to accusations about motive. Painting with a broad brush and defining “enemies” rather than engaging in anything that even approximates reasoned discussion. I’ve had the same thing with Hillary Haters, when I’ve given a semi-defense of Hillary as “not the Devil,” although I didn’t support here, and I’ve had this experience with Hillary-lovers (all African-American women, ironically) back in ’07 when I was working the precinct for Obama. The knives come out almost immediately, lines get drawn and the atmosphere resembles the Moscow Trials.
Mindless ideologues and worshipers of personalities of all stripes have much more in common with each other than the do with normal people…
Bruce S
“you consistently using weasel words”
I used the dictionary-fuckng-definition of “cuts” – which you didn’t even respond to. Either give an example of my “weasel words” or shut-the-fuck-up.
I have no experience of being “smacked around” by you, except that you are a fuzzy thinker who clings to the same rant, even when your supposed “logic” has been taken apart. What was up with that idiotic “boss-wages” analogy. As far as I’m concerned, you weren’t left with a leg to stand on. If we engaged in some other discussion elsewhere about something or other that has nothing to do with the definition of “cuts” and your desperation to deny it is an applicable term – when it clearly is, whether you like the implication or agree with it – I don’t remember what it is. I actually have a life so this stuff becomes ephemeral almost instantly.
I’m sick of this. It’s insane.
Bruce S
I’m also mystified as to why ABL would decorate this post with what is obviously an idiotic anti-Obama cartoon. If it’s supposed to be ironic on her part, it’s not even close to clear.
Danny
@MattR
Taking your definition at face value then Social Security benefits are “cut” and “raised” all the time – without reform – since the index used now doesn’t keep the “rate of increase” constant in any way whatsoever. New try?
Assuming your summary is fair, then Obama signing a Chained CPI he could plausibly be accused of breaking a campaign promise.
For me, as a progressive, I’m personally not all that invested in if that was the case or not. I’m more interested in whether a given reform is good, progressive policy or not. But YMMV.
But a “COLA cut [or “reform”?]” is not the same thing as a “benefit cut”. The former would plausible denote a move to Chained CPI, but the latter would not, for all the reasons pointed out by me and others. I continue to find your theatrics to be able to claim “benefit cut” outright fraudulent.
I made a pretty thourough case up thread for why that is the proper way to look at it. If you can’t be bothered to address all that at all, I certainly cant be bothered to do all that typing one more time. @174 if you change your mind.
Until you make the effort I’ll consider your argument to boil down to “I’ll define ‘benefit cut’ in any damn way I choose if it allows me to hang it around the neck of the president” and leave it at that..
FlipYrWhig
I think it’s plausible to say that a change in formulas or indexing that resulted in lower benefits over time would be _labeled_ a cut, and that voters could be persuaded it was a cut, even if it’s good policy or genuinely helps shore up the program or doesn’t actually affect anyone’s material well-being. But “we shouldn’t do it because anything that can be called a cut is going to make Democrats politically vulnerable” is a different objection than “we shouldn’t do it because anything close enough to a cut that it can be called one will make people’s lives perceptibly worse.”
FlipYrWhig
Incidentally, re: the cartoon at the top, isn’t one of the chief ways parents handle overages from texting almost exactly the equivalent of raising the debt ceiling? You call and plead that you didn’t expect your usage to be so high, and they retroactively put you on a plan with more minutes and more messages, right?
(That’s without taking into account the misrepresentation that Obama is the one who ran up all the charges heedlessly.)
Danny
Bruce @ 182
Let’s do this in the old thread rather than more thread-shitting in this one. I’d rather not bore the innocent with a long laundry list of “in that post you said…”. I’ll be with you in a moment.
Bruce S
FlipYrWhig – which means what, exactly? That the cartoon makes any sense in the context of a deadly serious battle between Obama and the GOPers? It’s an ugly little piece of crap. Am I the only one who noticed?
I have a lot of questions – which I have posed and maintain I have an inalienable right to pose as someone who has been allied with the President since Day-Fucking-One – about the Prez’ strategy in these talks. But I’m on his side when the real lines are drawn. That cartoon is some seriously negative shit that is insulting not just to the President, but to anyone with even a grain of awareness about this issue. But hey, so far as the “pro-Obama” geniuses here are concerned, I’m a ratfucker, a firebagger, a weasel and a bunch of other bullshit…so what the hell do I know?
Bruce S
“I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Please…save your energy and time. And mine. I truly don’t give a shit at this point.
General Stuck
Whether or not it’s a good idea politically for dems and the social programs is one question. But like means testing, the way I understand the CPI thing, they are both fundamentally progressive in their direct application on socioecon classes in this country. So are near all of these ideas being floated around by the WH and others.
MattR
@Danny: Geez. Perhaps I didn’t pick the perfect way of phrasing it, but you know exactly what I mean. If the current system leads to a rate of increase defined by the function X and you propose changing to a new system that has a rate of increase defined by a diffrent function Y. If the function X is greater that the function Y at any point in time (or most of the time – technically I guess it would be a comparison of the areas under the curve) then switching to function Y is a benefit cut even if no individual monthly benefit checks see a decrease in dollar value when compared to the previous month. Similarly, if the new function is always greater than the old one it is a benefit raise.
To use very simple examples. Changing from a constant increase of 10% every year to an increase of 5% every year is a cut. Changing from a constant increase of 10% every year to an increase of 15% every year is a benefit raise.
My stance is very clear and simple. A change that decrease the total benefits paid to a recipient when compared with the status quo is a cut. I understand that you don’t like that standard, but I have been completely consistent about it this entire thread. I find pretty much your entire comment @174 to be nonsense. You are focused on what Social Security represents and what its purpose is and not the raw effects of the proposed change on an individual recipient.
FlipYrWhig
@ Bruce: I’m just reading the cartoon as a work of propaganda in its own right and, like you, considering how badly it’s conceived. It’s a cartoon that fucks up its entire premise, repeatedly. Real Obama didn’t do what the Obama-child character is doing, and then, on top of that, the Obama-child character has a pretty good point: Angry Dad With Big Bill really _should_ do the raising-the-debt-ceiling thing. He’s certainly not going to refuse to pay the bill, destroy his credit rating, and get saddled with worse terms for his credit cards and mortgage just because he wants to send Obama-child a message about responsibility.
We’re saying the same thing, I think, I’m just going into more detail about what a bad cartoon it is.
Bruce S
Okay…
The Populist
Question: Where was everybody when the right was handed the house in the mid terms? Answer me this before you fry Obama for having to deal with the criminally insane.We all know how fucked these idiots are in the head yet somehow we expect Obama to just tell them off? I will wait before forming an opinion on what he is doing. Until then why did we allow crazy people to win elections?
FlipYrWhig
@ MattR:
But I’m not sure we treat similar situations this way. For instance, I haven’t gotten a raise in two years. By not getting a raise in these two years, my total lifetime earnings will be lower, and any future raises will be lower, because it compounds over time. But was my salary “cut”? I don’t think I’d say that. There’s some meaningful difference between “make less total money” and “cut.” Of course both can breed frustration and resentment…
MattR
@FlipYrWhig: Did you have any expectation to have a raise? Is there any consistency to that process? There was no COLA the past two years either but I don’t consider that a benefit cut because that was the proper result of the current formula. To use a workplace analogy, let’s say you had a performance review every year and you were given a score between 0 and 10 and that became the percent increase you received that year. After 10 years of working there, the company decides that they will divide the score by 2 and use that for the percent increase. Did the company just cut your salary? No. Did they cut your total benefits? Yes. Would it be fair to call that a decision a cut to the compensation package? I think so. Five years later, how would you feel about your salary knowing what it could have been under the old system?
A different way of looking at it that may help is that I consider the total benefit package to consist of two pieces – the current salary/benefit and the way that number will change over time (whether it be raises or COLA). Changing either of those two pieces changes the entire package.
@The Populist: To be honest, I have no idea who I voted for in the 2010 election. All I know is that it was the Democrat who ran against (and got killed by) Rodney Frelinghuysen. I am not sure if I live in the reddest district in New Jersey, but it is close.
Danny
Perhaps. Or perhaps you picked a definition you were fine with because it applied to Chained CPI, but once the absurdity of that definition of “benefit cut” was pointed out you pivoted to another one? Assuming bad faith is poor form so lets stick with your interpretation.
Yes, I think you wanna go with “most of the time” there, or the areas under the curve. Which is the same thing as your aggregated lifetime benefit, whichever is smaller is “cut” in comparison to the other. But I laid out a long argument why looking at lifetime benefits is wholly inappropriate for SS, and you never addressed it.
Do you then think that your Social Security benefits are being “cut” by you dying at 75 in comparison to a guy who lives until 85?
If you wont put up the effort to show why it is nonsense all that gets us is me calling everything you wrote nonsense as well and you an idiot to boot. Laziness is a copout.
What I wrote was that the benefit social security delivers is the security of a certain amount of purchasing power each month for as long as you live, not getting this much or that much over your aggregated lifetime. If the latter was the objective, then Social Security might very well be a very bad deal for you, the individual, which libertarians never fail to mention.
That’s not me bloviating that is the f-cking whole point of Social Security. That’s what it’s designed to do. You failed to notice?
That security is not in jeopardy if Chained CPI works as advertised.
The Raw effect on the benificiary is that what he got today, he’ll get tomorrow as well, adjusted for cost of living increases. That’s a frozen benefit, nothing happens to it.
If you have a different viewpoint I’d like to hear your reasons for supporting the Social Security system at all, as there’s no guarantee whatsoever that the benefit, understood as aggregated payouts, for you the individual wont be negative in comparison to what you paid into the system during your lifetime.
Danny
@189
Ok, I will.
FlipYrWhig
@ MattR: Actually, we do use a lot of arcane merit/performance formulas that have been tinkered with repeatedly. Those adjustments have probably cost some people a fair amount of money over time. I don’t think it would have occurred to any of us to think of those adjustments as “cuts,” but, honestly, we’re not the savviest bunch when it comes to quantitative analysis.
bcw
The Obama worship is sickening. Social Security is critical to the huge masses of unemployed nearing 65 who will probably never be able to get jobs again. Those of us sitting here comfortably might remember that it is not the republicans that wanted to cause more privation for those people by bringing Social Security and Medicare into the debate but Obama himself in order to have some grand Reagan-like presidential posturing. We are about to commit to hurting low income people as some kind of political game.
Can anyone even show that the Social Security deficit 30 years from now is real? It is based on the poor pay today’s workers are receiving and was not predicted before the recession/depression began. Even if the shortfall so far in the future is real, it could be avoided by increasing the high income Social Security tax cutoff. Instead we aim for policies worse than those proposed by Richard Nixon. The success of a country depends on some level of income parity, instead we are rapidly becoming a banana republic. What’s so odd to me is that I was once considered a moderate fiscal conservative Democrat; now I am labeled a leftist because I want to preserve the things that kept America a great country for some 70 or more years after FDR.
MattR
@FlipYrWhig: There’s also a whole lot less electioneering at the office from the people issuing the raise. I am guessing that you have some opinion about those adjustments and how they affected you. It is really not that important whether you thought of them as cuts specifically or were just annoyed/angered by the changes that resulted in you getting a smaller raise.
@Danny:
It’s the exact same argument made more gracefully.
That is the promise that Social Security makes but it is not the same as the benefit. To answer your last question, I support Social Security because I believe in that promise. But that does not diminish my ability to differentiate that from the actual dollar benefit that actual recipients receive and how those figures might change as the result of proposed policies.
I assume that you believe that this becomes a cut as soon as the COLA adjustment formula is changed so that it is lower than the actual change to the cost of living. IMO, that is the point that the promise starts being broken but that is different from when it becomes a cut to benefits.
Danny
@bcw
Well, what specific changes to Social Security are you worried about: Chained CPI or something else?
Danny
Matt, @201
So would you describe me dying at a younger age as a “cut” to my Social Security benefits?
Would you describe my Social Security benefits as negative if I died before getting back what I paid into the system?
MattR
@Danny:
I guess. Why not? It’s not really a meaningful distinction at that point. (EDIT: I would say that being diagnosed with a terminal disease does cut your total Social Security benefit. But again, unlike a politician, that distinction is not really one that somebody in that condition would be concerned with)
No, I don’t see this as a cost/benefit analysis. If anything I would consider your total benefit to be zero if you died before collecting a penny. Otherwise it would be the sum of the actual benefits that you did receive.
Danny
@MattR
Wouldn’t it be reasonable for me to expect the rest of my full benefit upfront before I die if I was diagnosed with a terminal disease? Put another way: Why should I be punished with having my Social Security benefit cut when I just got served a death sentence?
MattR
@Danny:
No
Why should you be punished with a death sentence?
Danny
@Matt
But my benefit was 100K$ at first and as a consequence of my cancer diagnose it’s suddenly cut to 15K$. That ain’t fair, I want the 85K$ that’s coming to me and I want it now. Taking my money and giving it to some healthy guy seems like a kick in the face, especially in my condition.
MattR
@Danny:
Your benefit never had that specific a value. You had an initial benefit of X dollars a month with a rule about how that figure would change over time for as long as you live (and we agreed that the adjustment over time is based on the promise that social security will always provide a certain minimum purchasing power). You are no more guaranteed $100K than you are guaranteed to live to 100.
Danny
@Matt
Gotcha?
But then how can my benefit ever be “cut” – by a cancer diagnose, a move to Chained CPI or anything at all – if it never had a specific value?
How would you go about calculating how much my benefit was “cut” by a move to Chained CPI if it never had a specific value either before or after the move?
I’m not up to speed on addition and subtraction with un-specific values but I’m sure you can straighten me out…
MattR
@Danny:
A cancer diagnosis decreases the total number of payments you will receive over the course of your lifetime. That decreases your total benefit when compared to not having cancer.
Why do I have to calculate the exact difference to know that one is greater than the other?
Danny
How can you know for sure which one is greater if you cant know what the difference is?
If we wanted to “fix” Chained CPI for a certain group of people to deliver 1000$ more in benefit, how do we go about it?
MattR
@Danny:
Humans knew that light travelled faster than sound long before they could measure either the speed of light or the speed of sound. You can also know for sure if you know how each of them is calculated.
Danny
I give up.
You want to redefine the commonly accepted meaning of the word “benefit” wrt Social Security (usually understood as what you’re payed each month), and that opens up a whole can of worms about how we usually talk about, think about, and make policy about benefits. Being diagnosed with cancer is suddenly also having your SS benefits “cut”.
That makes the term lose it’s meaning and become unworkable for anything other than your narrow present objective: being able to claim that Chained CPI “cuts” benefits rather than “freezes” them.
To me, that’s a prima facie case of sophistry, but YMMV. I’m not spending more time on this.
MattR
@Danny:
I want to “redefine” the word to take into account your future payments when describing the total benefit that you will receive. If there is a program that provides $1000 a month every month, another that starts with $1000 the first month and increases by chained COLA every month thereafter and a third that starts at $1000 the first month with annual increases based on the CPI-U, according to you those three programs provide the exact same benefit to potential recipients because they all start with the same monthly benfit of $1000.
As opposed to the BS series of questions you’ve thrown out the past couple hours.
Danny
No, I said that Chained CPI provide the same benefits as today adjusted for cost of living (if working as advertised), while the present system will provide slightly higher benefits than today.
Hence Chained CPI being a freeze or a cancellation of a scheduled benefit hike.
The commonly agreed to definition (up until now) works splendidly to describe what actually happens. It’s perfectly clear that a senior in the future would have slightly more purchasing power with the present system, in comparison to Chained CPI.
So, it’s not the usefullness of the old definition you have a problem with, it’s the connotations of the words “benefit cut” that you want to apply to Chained CPI.
The point of the questions were to explore how we would start talking about Social Security “benefits” if we start using your new definition. “Cuts” become the difference between two areas under a graph instead of a simple number. We cant even quantify the size of a “cut” with a number anymore. Getting diagnosed with cancer means my Social Security gets “cut”, in contrast to the common usage where we would say that benefits stay the same, until the day I die whether I have cancer or not.
That’s not sophistry, that’s the direct outcome of using the term in the way you propose.
chris murphy
O’ Donnell is taking the position that if one cut to Medicare was acceptable then all future cuts must also be acceptable and that if you didn’t object to one cut to Medicare you can’t argue against any further cuts. Maybe the cut under Clinton did not negatively affect the quality and accessibility of care while the proposed Obama cuts will negatively affect both. Not a very sound or convincing argument on O’Donnell’s part.