If you measure a the priorities of a Congress by what they take on first, Boehner’s caucus has its eyes on bigger windmills than I thought.
The incoming GOP majority approved late Tuesday a new rule that experts say could provoke an unprecedented crisis that conservatives could use as leverage in upcoming debates over entitlement reform.
The largely overlooked change puts a new restriction on the routine transfer of tax revenues between the traditional Social Security retirement trust fund and the Social Security disability program.
[…] The House GOP’s rule change would still allow for a reallocation from the retirement fund to shore up the disability fund — but only if an accompanying proposal “improves the overall financial health of the combined Social Security Trust Funds,” per the rule, expected to be passed on Tuesday. While that language is vague, experts say it would likely mean any reallocation would have to be balanced by new revenues or benefit cuts. […] The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees estimated last year that the disability insurance program would run short of money to pay all benefits some time in late 2016. Without a new reallocation, disability insurance beneficiaries could face up to 20 percent cuts in their Social Security payments in late 2016 — a chit that would be of use to Republicans pushing for conservative entitlement reforms.
That seems clever. Republicans quietly set a time bomb that is practically guaranteed to cut social security in a few years. How can we possibly beat this diabolical plan? Well, let’s walk through the optics for a minute. 2016 will be an election year, one that already looks unusually favorable for Democrats. Democratic voters always show up in Presidential years, but aside from that a huge number of close-call Republican Senators will be defending their seats. Like always happens in a Presidential election without an incumbent both parties will be trying desperately to define themselves. Democrats traditionally struggle with that, not least Bill Clinton and his mushed-up New Democrat triangulating, and Hillary strikes me if anything as worse than her husband about politicking without clear core identity.
But toss Social Security into the ring, that changes things. Republicans have taken swings at the program before and every single time they have sorely regretted it. Immiserating the old and poor is not something you just do like farting in church or kicking a dog, it takes some art. You rig the rules and cut lines on the safety net a bit at a time. You get them fighting each other and put on a show that you are mostly hurting the ones you don’t need to win. What you never, ever do is yank dinner out from under the nose of people you need to show up and vote.
Hell, the Bush plan to privatize Social Security was a Machiavellian masterpiece compared to this. Remember that the stock market was riding high* and the instantaneous yields on privatizing people’s SS money might have been fairly positive, at least until 2008. The debate concerned how comfortable people felt with risk more than cutting anyone’s benefits tomorrow. As it turned out most seniors lived long enough to remember the stock market going up and down, and the risk did not appeal to them at all. By contrast in 2016 Republicans just hope to cut everyone’s benefits by about a fifth. Psychologically that is about a million times more draconian than the sideways shift that helped Democrats take Congress back in 2016 and I expect it to go over proportionately well.
The GOP can dress it up in opaque mechanisms but somehow people who have benefits will get around twenty percent less of them right before a major election. Say they cut the wealthiest twenty percent off of Social Security; in fact I think that is probably Boehner’s plan. Republicans have flirted with “means testing” plenty of times. Each time they only flirt long enough to take a cold and sobering look at the polls. The main difference is this time they cut off their own escape route. The rule change is the political equivalent of fighting with your army’s back against a cliff in the theory that men will fight harder if the alternative is surrender or death. Sometimes that works, but people only pull that kind of desperation move when the odds are not on their side. You don’t go looking for opportunities to do it.
To sum up, in a Presidential election year Republicans will have to either change the rule back (the smartest move but a pretty stark loss of face), raise revenues (= taxes, ha) or eat the blame for a huge haircut to the single benefit program most important to their core voting demographic. On top of that Democrats can just change the rule back in 2017 if the take Congress, which they may well do if the overriding issue of 2016 is who wants to defend your Social Security benefits and who wants to slash them for no damned reason at all.
This truly strikes me as one of the single dumbest political gambits that I have ever seen. Political malpractice does not begin to describe it. Imagine an own goal injures the goalie and then gets you red carded for celebrating. Then again, maybe I just missed the genius. Thoughts?
(*) Yes, Wall Street was riding on a mountain of turd mortgages, but few people knew that at the time.
Arthur
Oh, please republicans, fuck with Social Security.
Scott
I think this is aimed at SS Disability payments, not old age disabilitiy. In other words, Mitch McConnell’s Eastern Kentucky contituents, red staters, and other freeloaders. So this may not get far.
Peale
The cuts probably have to happen before people will believe them. That’s my worry.
BGinCHI
Once the Genius GOP gets rid of the senior citizens in their ranks they are only going to have 27% of the electorate.
WereBear
Mr WereBear is on SS Disability. This will mess us up but good.
oldster
Is this legislation?
Does it go into effect without the President’s signature?
Will Obama sign it?
Baud
@oldster:
No.
Yes.
N/A
Howard Beale IV
Tim f.: Methinks you means the Dems taking control back in 2006 and not 2016.
JPL
The problem is that they don’t care about those on SSDI. They assume in 2016. they will just tell the older folks, they are saving the funds for them. Maybe they’ll call it Saving Social Security for the Olds..
JPL
Paul Ryan received SS after his father died and he is among the group that says I got mine so…………………………….
JoyfulA
This attack on SSDI isn’t new. In 1981, Ronald Reagan had all SSDI recipients reexamined.
My late husband was one of them, and I can still hear the examining MD muttering about “the biggest waste of tax money I’ve seen in a long time.”
The GOP really does hate poor people and those down on their luck.
Lurking Canadian
The only problem is that in 2016, they’ll run on “Under Obama you lost 20% of your Social Security benefit!”, Politifact will say Clinton’s pants are on fire when she tries to point out that Obama had nothing to do with it, and anyway when you’re explaining you’re losing, and…oh I don’t like this at all.
jonas
A lot of older, long-term unemployed white guys have gone on disability in the past 5 years. Does the GOP really want to screw with this demographic, or do they figure that, hell, just some poor dudes. What are they going to do? Threaten to withhold their massive PAC donations if we kick them off SSDI?
RSA
Evil fuckers. The GAO finds that SSA disability benefits are vulnerable to fraud. Everyone knows what it takes to combat fraud: additional resources. More training of front-line workers, auditing, specialized IT, and so forth. Would that be forthcoming from a GOP-controlled Congress? Hardly. But they’re attacking the disabled, and I don’t think disability rights organizations are nearly as well organized or funded as other interest groups.
ETA: If I remember correctly, having talked to a lawyer about SSA disability, the first application is usually denied, and it typically takes on the order of one to two years for a case to go through the system. For some people, maybe a lot of people, that’s a real hardship. But the GOP would rather see a thousand innocent people suffer than one undeserving person receive benefits.
PhoenixRising
@JPL: We have a winner!
Tim, I don’t know what you had for dinner but cut back to half a lid during cocktail hour, maybe? This is a policy disaster in the making, one which will starve real poor sick folks, that is intended to be played for political gain by our national asylum for sociopaths, I mean Republicans in Congress.
And it will work. They are going to feed 11 year olds with CP to their hungry cannibal base of angry white 60somethings, and the base will buy a very nice bottle of wine to wash it down with.
billthelurker
As previous comments indicated, the threatened 20 percent cuts in 2016 are for Social Security disability, not regular Social Security. So the question becomes a matter of framing and messaging….can the Disability recipients be dismissed as fraudulent whiny moochers? do senior citizens care as long as their payments stay the same?
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
In this case, yes, because there is a pre-existing problem that requires legislative action to fix. The House can create a problem by doing nothing, and this new rule makes it harder to do anything.
ETA: I responded incorrectly. The House can’t change the rules, but the problem comes about if we do nothing. The House just took a hostage it can bargain with in the inevitable negotiations on how to fix the problem.
fuckwit
I think a modest proposal would be for the Republicans to just line up us all useless undesirables against the wall and shoot us.
Oh, but bullets cost money. That’s no good. Then maybe they can just gas us then?
Yes, I went full Godwin. Or rather, they did, and do, and will continue to do. This is eugenics, pure and simple: starving the poor and ill and disabled to death.
Kay
I think they play it exactly like they played the health care law. They told Medicare recipients Obama was taking their Medicare funds and giving other people health care. That was what they ran on in 2010.
They’ll tell retired Social Security recipients there isn’t enough to go around for both retirees and the disabled, and disabled people are taking the retiree share.
They really rely on pitting one group against the other. The shame of it is, those two groups will be fighting and Congress will be busy making off with the money.
The Thin Black Duke
Why do you say that?
When has the GOP ever paid a price for their hateful lunacy?
And these motherfuckers are going to get away with it.
Again.
chopper
wait, I thought it was obummer who was totes gonna gut social security.
Linnaeus
@The Thin Black Duke:
Yep. If the last 4 years have proven anything, it’s exactly that.
Ripley
Plague/Famine ’16!
Ruckus
@Scott:
It the original post is correct this effects both. Because they won’t do anything other than make cuts. They won’t raise taxes nor raise the cap. So either SSD gets slashed or a fund transfer from SS. Or both. Any one of these is tantamount to cutting off their own dicks with a rusty saw and no pain killers on live TV with all their kids in attendance.
Kay
The part that continues to amaze me is how they won’t stop threatening people who are already financially insecure. It started 6 months after the financial crash and it hasn’t let up. You know what they could do to “restore confidence”? STFU on Social Security. Just give people a teeny tiny breather and say “we’re not planning on taking anything you’re relying on away”.
Stop scaring people. No more of that. It shouldn’t be this hard to figure that out.
Ruckus
@Kay:
It isn’t hard to figure out. They did that. They figured out they could screw a bunch of poor people with little backlash and claim to be protecting SS at the same time.
They are evil assholes, whose only idea is to screw everyone but them and their paymasters, which is what they consider good governing. They think that if they do it hard enough, long enough things will get better. That they have no logical, ethical ideals should be obvious. But many have bought into the same positions so they have support of people who, if they had a modicum of reasoning ability, could see through this with their eyes closed.
Kay
@Ruckus:
A candidate should run on “I won’t take anything the bottom 80% has now away”.
That person would win :)
It’d be kind of fun. “I won’t reform entitlements. Nope. Not doing that to you”.
Scott
@Kay: And why not make it personal. Go after Paul Ryan. “Rich boy took entitlements and now wants to deny to deserving, hardworking Americans.” Say it over and over again til it sticks.
And go after Mitch McConnel since those poor whites in Eastern Kentucky voted for him.
Kay
@Ruckus:
Oh, God, they’ve been gunning for Social Security forever. I genuinely believe they do not know how many older middle aged people are working and have absolutely no retirement or savings or assets. Those people are terrified. They should be. Psychopaths have control of their one and only lifeline.
I don’t get why they don’t understand that it isn’t wise to threaten people who are recovering from a long financial crisis by adding risk. One would not want to make them feel less secure. The idea would be more secure. It baffles me.
dubo
In the unlikely chance that the Dems don’t completely fumble the issue on their own in 2016, Glenn Kessler and Politifact will light up the pinnochiometers pretending the Republicans really just want to responsibly keep SS healthy, bless their hearts, while those mean Dems are so UNCIVIL. I don’t see that the GOP has anything to fear.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: Oh, God, they’ve been gunning for Social Security forever. I genuinely believe they do not know how many older middle aged people are working and have absolutely no retirement or savings or assets.
Not just Republicans, of course. How many times have you heard a Russert type chucklingly toss out “we all have money in the stock market nowadays…” Yup. Everyone you know, Ms Kael.
Linnaeus
@Kay:
I think enough of those folks think that, somehow, it won’t apply to them. It’s also important not to overlook how powerful the ideology of “the deserving” is among a lot of voters, especially when you add race to the mix.
Kay
@Scott:
Well, we’ll have to see if there’s a big media push to “reform entitlements!” like there was last time- fake “grass roots groups”, millionaires scolding people, telling young people there wouldn’t be any money left- see if they roll out that bullshit again.
It didn’t work last time. Republicans gained seats and power but they did not actually succeed in cutting entitlements. I’m not clear that it was ever popular. It was popular with pundits and the hacks who were paid to push it but I don’t think normal people were ever excited about it.
Joseph Nobles
By my reading, I don’t think cuts in Social Security will be the goal. Any transfer from general to disability funds will have to be “offset” by an equal cut from somewhere else in the entire budget. The ACA funding, for example…
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There’s a large group of later middle aged working class people here who won’t recover. They don’t have time to make it back. They didn’t have that much to begin with and a 6 year downturn just tanked them.
I can’t imagine deciding to casually threaten Social Security. It is literally the one and only thing they have to depend on.
I have really grown to loathe the word “reform”.
catclub
@JoyfulA: I wonder if Charlie pierce has thrown up his long post on this topic?
I’ll go check.
catclub
@Joseph Nobles:
Not sure this is right. I think it is transfer from Old age funds to disability funds – both within Social Security.
JMV Pyro
Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t their somewhat of an overlap between people who are disabled and older people? Or do SSDI and regular social security explicitly target different groups?
satby
@Kay: you’re talking about me. People who worked for years but got laid off, went back to work after a long spell of nothing available, lived off what was left in the 401k after the recession had it’s way with it, and will be living pretty much only on SS. I’m 60, think I can save that retirement million they recommend in 7 years at $12/hour?
Nah, me neither.
Citizen Alan
@JMV Pyro:
I believe you are thinking of Medicare and Medicaid, which do have an overlap. Social Security is for retirees while SDDI is for disabled people too young to retire.
Joseph Nobles
@catclub: That’s what I meant. I should have said general SSI to disability fund. I was trying to be compact since I was typing on a tablet and screwed it up. Thanks!
Timb
The post you should be changed to reflect that Republicans are going after the disabled, not the retired
Ruckus
@Kay:
I’m one of those people. Lost my business and all my savings to the big gambling house that is our financial system when they shit the bed and being in my early 60s and during the major recession, I had to go on SS several yrs earlier than I wanted. Food and all that. So now of course 50 yrs of working and I get just enough to have an actual life, you know, food, a room. I did find a decent job but can’t imagine working many more yrs, so SS is basically it. And of course I’m not close to alone, even on this blog there are a number of us on SS or SSDI, who would be devastated to lose any of it.
Don’t understand why you are baffled by this. It’s who these assholes are. It’s who they have always been. Some of them may have been nicer about it at one time but this is who/what conservatives are. They don’t think things through to conclusion. They live for slogans because anything more is work. They are followers who follow simple slogans because they are simple. People thought that W. Buckley was smart because he used big words and sounded pompous, because he was. So they have followed his horrible words and work. And of course he wasn’t the first conservative, just the most heard one around during the lives of most of the old farts that make up the rethug base.
Ruckus
@Timb:
This is a first shot. Do not think only the disabled are at risk. Never ever give a conservative the benefit of the doubt. They will fuck you each and every time you give them 1/10 of a chance. And even if this is only about the disabled, what will you do if tomorrow you become one of them?
First I didn’t say anything when they came for the disabled.
Then I didn’t say anything when they came for the retired blue collar/office worker who depends on SS.
And of course I ignored when they came for the ACA/Medicare/Medicaid as I used to get mine from work till that last recession that rich people got bailed out of.
So now that I live under a bridge, sucking on barbequed sparrow once a week, my raging diabetes having cost me a foot(for which I had to promise to pay $40,000 to have cut off), but that’s OK, my glaucoma cost me my eyesight so I can’t see how fucked up my world is.
eric
I’m missing something. Fuck with the disabled while assuring the old that they’ve reduced the chances that “free loaders” will hone in on pensioners’ goodles hurts the GOP with cranky old people how…?
Skippy-san
I’m not as optomistic as Tim F. Since the overall electorate has gotten dumber in the last 10 years , in part because of the corrosive effect of mouth breather outlets like FOX-people are not paying attention to this. And that is what these assholes want. They want to sneak it in and hope nobody notices. Then they will stage some grand stand event like a budget showdown or impeachment hearings and try to sneak in more bullshit under the radar.
Patricia Kayden
@Ruckus: Everything you say is so true and scary. They’re going for the disabled now, but who is next?
Barry
@Peale: “The cuts probably have to happen before people will believe them. That’s my worry.”
Both morally and politically, the SSA should send out advance notice letters in 2016, letting people know about the upcoming cuts :)
Barry
@jonas: “A lot of older, long-term unemployed white guys have gone on disability in the past 5 years. Does the GOP really want to screw with this demographic, or do they figure that, hell, just some poor dudes. What are they going to do? Threaten to withhold their massive PAC donations if we kick them off SSDI?”
They probably figure that they’ll just amp up Fox and the AM talk shows, and persuade them that Obama did it.
They probably figure that suckers will be suckers.
I believe (and hope) that they are wrong, since the one thing that these ‘suckers’ will object to is Them losing government money.
Seanly
@WereBear:
Same for my household – my wife is on SSDI. She’d like to return to work in a year or so, but is currently undergoing rehab.
This just confirms that Republican congresscritters are assholes.
How do these rules work? Can the House just make these changes or is this a law?
HW3
Just a quibble…
I think you mean back in 2006.