Tim F is right that the Social Security rule cut that the House passed last night is political poison. I can think of three ways that this thing will ripen, like any other pustule, long before the 2016 election.
Yertle is not a stupid turtle, and he will not have his quest to reach to the moon thwarted by some Teaturds in the House. My guess is that he’ll quietly have that provision stripped out in committee, and it will remain just a fond memory that Louie Gohmert uses to stroke himself to sleep at night.
If McConnell doesn’t do that, then Democrats can wage a loud filibuster to stop the bill, thus once again saving Social Security.
If that doesn’t happen, Obama can veto whatever bill this dingleberry is clinging on, and he can do so in a photo op followed by a press conference explaining how he used his superpowers to save Social Security.
If I were to bet, I’d bet on McConnell, because the end game here is to make Obama’s use of the veto look dangerous and capricious. Mitch is going to make sure whatever bills cross Obama’s desk in the early parts of the year are fairly unobjectionable. He doesn’t want people to get in the habit of seeing Obama’s use of the veto as the invisible fence that keeps the mad dogs in Congress from straying out of the yard. Around the end of the year, Congress will pass the one, true CROmnibus bill to rule them all, a few seconds before the deadline for a government shutdown, and adjourn immediately thereafter. That thing will be packed with tons of caca, some of it inserted by chickenshit Senate Democrats. Obama will have to choose whether to veto it and shut the government down, or sign it and piss off his base. If he does veto it, that will cue the DC media’s solemn remembrances of how Ronnie and Tip had a couple of stiff belts in the White House instead of Ronnie using that nasty old veto. tl;dr: Sad face for Democrats.
My guess is that Jack Lew has his bean counters working night and day on alternatives that will allow Obama to avoid signing a CROmnibus-kill-the-poors bill under a shutdown hostage threat. I also assume that Harry Reid has a few tricks up his sleeve which will block amendments declaring poors as 3/5 of a human being. Still, I’d be surprised if the really nasty stuff that the House is brewing will survive McConnell, who’s a lot craftier than that crew of imbeciles currently manning the House.
Update: As pointed out in the comments, it’s a rule not a bill, so nothing to veto. Still interesting to speculate on what’s going to happen when the House does push out a turd.
NCSteve
The rule is a ban on passing laws to keep the disability side solvent by transferring money from the retirement side. You can’t veto not passing a law or filibuster a law that didn’t pass in the Senate. And, as I understand it, the rule would forbid the House from considering a bill from the Senate that allowed such a transfer (aside from the Blue Slip problem) unless it also provided that beneficiaries–whether present or future–are to be flogged and fucked.
Valdivia
I was wondering about this when I read it last night. I hope some crazy bills do make it to Obama’s desk early on so the veto looks like what it is, saving us from these wackos, but you are probably right.
SP
@NCSteve is correct- there’s nothing to filibuster or veto here, it’s a rule, just like the dynamic scoring turd they squeezed out.
Hillary Rettig
This post may have reached Peak Metaphor.
Mystical Chick
SO f’ing tired of all the bullshit that goes on in these various dances to save face, move power pawns to a different spot on the board and trying (and failing) to make Obama look bad.
I know these tactics were around long before the Kenyan Usurper took over but they’ve gotten so much worse and it’s all just a big mess.
(I’m feeling less mystical and more cynical today – only had 1 1/2 cups of coffee. Perhaps I’ll go take a xanax and go back to bed.)
Valdivia
@NCSteve: ugh. what else can one say.
Belafon
What’s great about that rule is that Ayn Rand would have gotten hurt by it.
As for this:
The one thing we can count on is conservatives not helping McConnell. Majority Leader Cruz will be making all sorts of problems.
Baud
when Obama compromises with Republicans, he is a sellout. When he stops the Republican agenda, he is a tyrant and an obstructionist. So it is written.
debbie
@Valdivia:
And when he sits down to sign the veto in front of the cameras, Obama should call out by name the most ridiculous bits of pork and their sponsors as reasons for his action.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: Actually, if he obstructs a destructive agenda, his poll numbers may rise. The other side has made it clear that they have no intentions of compromising with this President. He has nothing to lose at this point by standing up to them.
Valdivia
@debbie: agreed! name names.
geg6
@Belafon:
This.
mai naem mobile
Offense appears to be a lot easier than defense.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
But it’s the Republican’s decision which agenda to put forward. The notion that Obama can stop everything negative is fanciful.
Iowa Old Lady
I don’t have much sense of Social Security Disability. Who typically winds up on it?
The Thin Black Duke
@Iowa Old Lady: Well, people like me, for example. I was diagnosed with stage III stomach cancer in 2009, and after they removed my stomach, my spleen, my gall bladder and part of my pancreas, I was physically unable to go back to work, so I’m on SSDI. And yeah, I’m scared to death. Motherfucking Republicans.
debbie
@Belafon:
Glenn Beck’s spitting mad, both at Boehner/McConnell and those conservatives who postured as voting against Boehner but then changing their votes at the last minute.
I’m hoping this anger can last 2 years…
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: Pretty sure Paul Ryan was able to receive the insurance after his father’s death.
It assists those who are unable to work, so no one will care. The repubs will say it’s draining money from Social Security.
Robert
@Iowa Old Lady: Folks like me…I worked all of my life in hard labor jobs. Coal mining and construction…I had a retirement account taken by an unscrupulous coal mine operator. When I finally started working for a company that offered benefits it was too late for me. My body was already worn out by the labor and by arthritis…the crash of 2008 took a big chunk of what little I had in a 401k. All that stands between me and the streets is SSDI…there is no such thing as the American Dream…
Central Planning
I don’t understand why the Dems aren’t immediately messaging that the Repubs are killing Social Security Disability. I don’t see the benefit of waiting.
Iowa Old Lady
@JPL: I thought Paul Ryan was on Survivor Benefits. Is that the same pool of money as Disability?
Barbara
@Iowa Old Lady: Another category of folks who end up on SS Disability is kids with disabilities when they reach adulthood.
I think up until then, it is assumed the parents support that individual, just as all other children are supported by their parents. But if that young adult isn’t able to fully support him/herself as a result of the disability, there’s SSDI.
My kid is still in his teens, so I don’t know a lot about SSDI yet, but I do know that we’re kinda counting on it so our kid doesn’t end up on the street when we’re gone. Maybe one of the commentators who has an adult child with a disability will be by to give us more details.
I am also under the impression that if you have Stage IV (terminal) cancer, you can automatically qualify.
I always wondered where the funding specifically for SSDI came from. Now I know but I would have just as soon continued to not know.
WereBear
@Iowa Old Lady: People like Mr WereBear: after an excellent commercial art career in DC AND getting some art shows under his belt, he was starting to get published in his speciality when — whammo, an auto-immune illness that gives him maybe 2 good hours a day.
Do any of these Republicans have ANYone they care about who… okay, figured it out.
No, there isn’t anyone they care about.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: And people like me: Chronic arthritis in both hands and shoulder, chronic bursitis both elbows and shoulders, chronic tendonitis both elbows, bone spurs on 5 of 7 cervical vertebrate, right knee almost shot, left hip almost shot,
Or a guy I know who has been suffering from severe depression for years, can’t even leave his house,
Or my little Sis who had brain cancer at the age of 28, and the surgery left her with limited short term memory and recurring dizzy spells which can last for days on end,
Or another guy I know who has epilepsy which suddenly got far worse and his seizure meds stopped working,
I know of others, but I think you get the idea. Of the above, I am the only one not on disability… Yet. But I’m thinking about it.
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
I believe survivor benefits for children runs out when they turn 21.
Elizabelle
“Someone” needs to do an online ad campaign: “We are SSDI.”
Put faces and stories out there. People like compelling stories. Don’t count on the media to get the story right.
Counter the GOP idea that SSDI recipients are moochers and scammers.
The Thin Black Duke
@WereBear: And yet (amazingly!), people will continue to vote for these sociopathic assholes time and time again.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: This is a decent explanation of the benefits. It appears that Survivor benefits stands alone so I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe a reporter will ask Paul Ryan whether the change would have been detrimental to him.
Iowa Old Lady
@Elizabelle: That’s a good idea. As I say, I had no sense at all of disability claims. Survivor benefits, yes. A neighbor of mine got that after her husband died leaving her with four children under the age of 15.
It makes a huge difference if you know or at least see the faces of people affected by these things.
gene108
@Robert:
I have friends on SSDI (and Section 8 housing) and SSDI is really what keeps people from living on the street, allows poor families to not solely shoulder a burden of supporting someone else with scarce resources (i.e. allows more than just the disabled person to live, with a roof over his/her head), and Section 8 housing helps people live in decent housing and keeps American from having true slums that Third World countries have.
But a lot of middle class folks have never dealt with people, who are on SSDI and so it is part of the problem we have with the “have nots” being “invisible” for a lot of folks.
This is really the problem we have in advocating for others in our society, because what disproportionately affects one group does not impact the majority of people much and very few people can think beyond what is good for them at the moment.
Ruckus
I pointed out on the thread last night that many here are on SS and SSDI. I have friends on both. We are not all old farts either. This will affect many, many people, most of whom just get by. The idea that there is wide spread fraud in these programs is asinine.
I don’t know how but the word has to get out and get out now that as shitty as life can be for someone one these programs, these assholes are trying to make it so much worse. This is a shot across the bow of the citizens of this country that your fellow conservative citizens are going to fuck you. Long and hard and they are going to laugh about it all the while.
This country has problems, some of them huge, but people looking towards living under a bridge for the rest of their miserable lives hits home the closest and the hardest. A roof and food beats the hell out of none and none.
Barbara
@debbie: This is my third attempt at replying to you, everything I’m writing is disappearing into the ether. Very annoying.
Survivors’ benefits *used* to last until you were 21. One of my college roommates, like Paul Ryan, lost her dad as a teen and the Survivors’ benefits made it possible for her to get through college and become a tax-paying social worker.
Then Reagan decided to “save” Social Security so it would be able to handle the big upcoming group of baby boomers. One thing that happened was a sizeable increase in the withholding amount, another thing was that the cutoff for Survivors’ benefits was moved down to 18. Of course nowadays college is very expensive and those Survivors’ benefits would be very, very helpful to a lot of young people. Just another enduring legacy from the Great Communicator.
There were a few shrill people back then that warned the efforts to “save” SS were a big ruse, but because they were shrill, they were ignored.
satby
@Iowa Old Lady: People disabled but too young to retire, like my 57 year old sister with progressive MS, who uses a walker, has leg braces, and is legally blind from optic nerve damage. She gets a whopping $900 /month BTW, as she was mostly a stay at home mom before her divorce.
MomSense
@Ruckus:
I think it is also important for people to know that it is difficult to be approved for SSDI and it is not a lot of money.
Barbara
I’ve had three comments in a row disappear — did I do something to land in moderation?
ETA: at least this one showed up!
JPL
The Republicans are trying to cause a rift between those receiving benefits. It encourages the seniors to keep voting for the party.
also, too.. Dynamic scoring made me look at my investments differently. If my investments, triple, I can afford a new Audi. In fact, if I buy it now at a low interest rate, I should be able to pay it off by the end of the year.
satby
@gene108: actually, I think a majority of people know folks on SSDI; the trouble is they don’t realize they have friends who collect it or they don’t contemplate what would happen to those people without it.
Barbara
A note about Survivor’s benefits: they USED to last until you were 21. A college roommate of mine, who like Paul Ryan lost her dad as a teen, got through college in part on those benefits. She eventually became a tax-paying social worker.
But then came Reagan, who said Social Security needed to be “saved” before the deluge of retiring baby boomers started. He upped the withholding amount and lowered the cutoff for children receiving Survivor’s benefits to 18. He might have done some other things but those are the two I know about.
There were some very smart people at the time who warned this was all a big ruse and con, but they must have been shrill.
ETA: I think the secret to getting my comments to appear is to not use the Reply button.
samiam
So, “Palin is going to run for Prez” Markymux is trying to predict the future again. Please continue.
Buddy H
I perceive a subtle propaganda campaign against SSDI and those who collect it.
For example, for a while my wife got hooked on the Judge Judy show. I don’t know why, but every day she’d want to watch Judge Judy. Lately, I noticed that almost every case, one of the people is on SSDI. Judy asks them “what do you do for a living?” A girl replied, “I’m on disability. I had surgery for a brain tumor.” Judy’s response: “So you get a thousand dollars a month from the government? What a country!” Made sort of a “pfft!” sound when she said it.
I noticed many uninteresting cases, but at least one person on disability. I told my wife they film many cases, then the producers watch them all and pick the most grotesque and entertaining ones to air. The rest are left on the cutting room floor. I found it odd that so many frankly uninteresting cases were being aired. My hypothesis was that the right-wing republican producers were airing any and all cases where someone was seen to be “cheating” on disability, whether the case was entertaining or not.
One man was collecting because of back problems, but Judy got it out of him that he was running a side business buying, towing and selling junk cars, etc. So the average viewer comes away with the opinion that SSDI is one big scam.
Barbara
I gotta leave the computer now, just want to say, from your lips/keyboarding fingers mistermix to God’s ear, I sure hope you are right and this blows up on those Tea-@#$%^’s.
April
@Ruckus: the fraud thing always gets me. Same with food stamps. Reps maintain the programs are rife with fraud but never propose to tackle that fraud but instead want to cut the programs for everyone. That way any fraudsters still get money and the deserving folks have less to survive on! If there is fraud, and I am sure there is a little, let’s hire people to winnow it out and leave the legitimate beneficiaries continue to get their full payments. Have we ever heard republicans say there is fraud in government contracting, so let’s pay all government contractors 20 percent less?
JoyfulA
My late husband had a bleeding stroke at age 30 and became hemiplegic and epileptic. He went on SSDI after his 2 years of private disability insurance ran out. I had to quit work because he could not be left alone all day (paying a minimum-wage aide would have left me making less than minimum wage; I worked the numbers)
So there we were, two college grads with a mortgage, trying to live on $600 a month. Eventually, after selling our car and cashing in on our minimal investments, I worked out ways to earn a living from my living room, but it was tough, really tough.
SenyorDave
If there is karma, GOP House members will come back in their next life as someone who is poor and disabled, having to rely on the government for their survival. These people are sociopaths, and as long as they are in charge they will intentionally do as much damage as possible. And they are all to blame, Boehner is just as guilty as Gohmert. May they rot in hell.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Iowa Old Lady:
I know you already have plenty of responses, but my co-worker’s sister is in the process of getting on SSDI. She has grand mal seizures that are poorly controlled by medication, so it’s hard for her to keep even a minimum wage job. Subway gave her the boot the first time she had a seizure at work, and she doesn’t have the skills for an office job or the intellectual ability to get a college degree since the seizures have caused a bit of brain damage. ADA is a joke when it comes to minimum wage jobs.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@April:
Even better, have you ever heard conservatives say that we should stop using government contractors and make them all government employees because of contractor fraudulent?
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
Stupid autocorrect — “fraud” not “fraudulent” at the end of that sentence.
lgerard
Agreed that this is simple posturing
States with the highest per capta SSDI recipients
West Virginia
Arkansas
Alabama
Kentucky
Mississippi
Maine
Tennessee
South Carolina
Missouri
Michigan
While the medical parameters for disability are set by the Federal Government, the approval process is handled by the states. Some states, notably Georgia and Missouri, have programs designed to move as many Medicaid and TANF recipients into the Social Security program as possible. Missouri even hired an outside firm to comb their databases for possible candidates and paid them a bonus for everyone they could qualify.
All part of Red State economics.
WereBear
I sense a scam in the making.
If people cannot live on their own, they will be warehoused in privately owned nursing homes. Much more money will be funneled to Republican backers, instead of “saving” on SSDI.
NCSteve
@Buddy H: Oh, that’s so coming. People on SSDI are central to the Randian mythology of creative geniuses being pulled down by unworthy “moochers” and “takers” that is central to the Koch/Norquist Bircher dogma that is now the mainstream ideology of the Republican Party. And, being the trained plusgood goodthinkful souls they are, all the poor white people who are on SSDI and watch Fox all day long will be rooting for savage cuts to SSDI right up until their own benefits are cut, at which point they will blame the cut on Obama/Hillary/Elizabeth Warren/Saul Alinsky/Bill Clinton’s johnson.
NCSteve
@Buddy H:Oh, that campaign is so coming this year. People on SSDI are central to the Randian mythology of creative geniuses being pulled down by unworthy “moochers” and “takers.” And that myth is central to the Koch/Norquist Bircher dogma that is now the mainstream ideology of the Republican Party. And, being the trained plusgood goodthinkful souls they are, all the poor white people who are on SSDI and watch Fox all day long will be rooting for savage cuts to SSDI right up until their own benefits are cut, at which point they will blame the cut on Obama/Hillary/Elizabeth Warren/Saul Alinsky/Bill Clinton’s tallywhacker.
WereBear
Look at this petition on Change.org:
Mother goes bankrupt, disabled person goes in a “home” which costs the taxpayers more, and the owners of the “home” rake it in.
Mission accomplished!
timb
@Iowa Old Lady: As an attorney who represents Disabled folks in SS hearings, I’ll just offer that anyone who works has insurance for about 5 years after they stop working in order to qualify for Disability. 70% of the recipients are over the age of 50, so in reality, Disability is an early retirement program for low-skilled folks whose backs and legs have given out on them after several decades of hard work.
It also, and this is what annoys Tom Reed sponsor of the rule, helps people who are mentally unable to work due to retardation, schizophrenia, Depression, or anxiety.
Now, the recent House and the evil former Senator from Oklahoma (Tom Coburn) went on a jihad against the poor and sick. We expect more of that. It’s just easy to demonize folks getting Disability as “them,” while you share $300 bottles of wine with plutocrats and talking about “us.”
timb
@Iowa Old Lady: No, that’s part of the retirement fund
Seanly
My wife qualified for SSDI when she developed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. She was already only able to work part time after surviving Hodgkin’s Lymphoma a few years ago. At her last job she did work enough hours to qualify for their long term disability which had a requirement that you apply for SSDI if it’ll be more than a couple of months (they pay for the non-attorney advocates). Since she had ALL, my wife qualified under the Compassionate Allowances which streamlined the approval process for many terminal or difficult medical conditions.
My wife would like to return to work, but we live in Idaho where most jobs are low wage. Since she had previous well paying full time jobs, her SSDI is pretty generous compared to what part time work she might be able to get in a year (if she’s physically able to work). We’d be okay with a cut, but just like the retirees who’ve put into the system all their working life, my wife has also worked all her adult life and paid into the system.
To me, a big part of these draconian cuts is the idea that some significant percentage of government spending is fraudulent or wasteful. Like the number of jobs that Keystone XL will create, the percentage of actual wasteful spending gets amplified beyond all reason. And then those outrageously inflated numbers are used as justification for harmful cuts.
mai naem mobile
I know people who are on SSDI who are borderline fraudulent but the problem for a lot of them is that even if they tried they would get non-benefitted jobs and lose their healthcare and O-care isn’t going to help much because they have expensive chronic conditions where even copays would kill them financially.
Buddy H
@NCSteve: Oh, that campaign is so coming this year. People on SSDI are central to the Randian mythology of creative geniuses being pulled down by unworthy “moochers” and “takers.
Judge Judy was so contemptuous toward the young lady who was on SSDI after a brain operation. “Pfft! What a country!”
And after watching the show a few times, I saw a pattern of people saying they’re collecting disability, and the Judge rolling her eyes at them. It never has anything to do with the lawsuit being discussed.
I know her producers aren’t exactly progressive left-wing Bernie Sanders supporters. I’m certain they made a point of airing every case where one person is on disability, just to get the viewers at home convinced it’s a shady scam.
Long after they forgot they watched a Judge Judy episode, they’ll be left with the vague opinion that “those people who collect disability” are moochers, and will vote to support any reform.
Judge Judy rolled her eyes at a poor woman collecting disability. I roll my eyes at Judge Judy, a woman who makes millions of dollars an episode for snapping like a chihuahua at low-income people. What a country!
Kelly
My niece is on SSDI. She was hit by an uninsured, penniless driver when she was 14. Bad head injuries. Now in her 30’s she has the sweet mind of young child, poor balance and occasional seizures. Her parents have held the sort of blue collar jobs a high school graduate can get these days and struggled a every economic downturn.
PhilbertDesanex
@Hillary Rettig: almost. Something about that PlayDough thing may add to the fun. .
An article going around mentions that the SSDI cuts, in addition to the above, will hit a good amount of rural white poor, who hate ‘welfare bums’, like that county in North Kentucky. And if we time it right, it will hit about a month or so before Election 2016.
Way to be, GOP
daddyoyo
@debbie: Children’s survivor benefits run out at 18 or high school graduation.