New Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) calls all the Republican talk about process a "smokescreen":
"They are going to use the debt ceiling as leverage to take American seniors hostage … This is all about forcing us to make cuts to Social Security … and Medicare." pic.twitter.com/bwKJsVpJw1
— The Recount (@therecount) January 8, 2023
#NowPlaying pic.twitter.com/6Q89DcM3tf
— KAMALA NATION (@KamalaNation) January 7, 2023
(Glad I wasn’t the only one… )
Words are my craft and my passion. Thank you @RepJeffries for making me look up "xenial." I wasn't just inspired by your speech. I was educated. :)
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) January 9, 2023
I loved how Pelosi let Jeffries give Kevin the gravel. He thought he would have a picture of him taking the gravel from her. Jeffries speech was wonderful. Her shade to Kevin was glorious.
— vcc-get motivated for 2023???? (@wheetz) January 7, 2023
I think C-SPAN should keep control of the cameras on the house floor. It makes our democracy more accessible, understandable, and exciting. Let the people see Democracy in action. #FreeCSPAN
— Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) January 8, 2023
Keep the c-span cameras https://t.co/oJ9UPrAaSk
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) January 8, 2023
House progressives got a substantive legislative agenda, including COVID relief, infrastructure investment, gun reform, same sex marriage protection and inflation reduction. All law now.
House conservatives got … rules changes that let them cripple the Speaker at any time. https://t.co/FEmtkFCdpE
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) January 8, 2023
1.) The funding has already been provided. It cannot be “repealed” nor rescinded
2.) The IRS did not “hire 87,000 new agents.” The funding enables them to hire that many agents over the course of TEN YEARS; including agents who retire or leave in that time
3.) The @GOP is useless pic.twitter.com/ACsoAssHX8— Andrew Wortman (@AmoneyResists) January 8, 2023
It is pretty funny that right-wing Brazilians looked at January 6th — nothing achieved, Trump humiliated and forced to eat crow on national television, rioters imprisoned & prosecuted, the Democrats making political hay out of it for years — and thought "let's do that!"
— The Discourse Lover (@Trillburne) January 8, 2023
On The Road – Albatrossity – Tarangire National Park – 3
Baud
The question will be whether progressives are as easy to troll as GG thinks.
Baud
Nominated for rotating tag.
Steeplejack
I had to go look to see what Chip Roy actually said about keeping the C-SPAN cameras after the ellipsis in the tweet above. Big surprise—he waffled. Here’s the video clip.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone.😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah, @Baud:
Good morning! 🙏
JAFD
Good morning !
Rusty
The Republican candidates for the US Senate and House here in New Hampshire crashed and burned at least in part on discussions of Social Security and Medicare. What were need certain wins became losses in all 3 races. The Democrats need to keep beating that drum loudly.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
@JAFD:
Good morning.
Baud
@Rusty:
And it looks like the GOP will give us the opportunity to do so!
bjacques
@Rusty: Good, and good on Rep. Clark. Hang this on the GOP right out of the gate—early and often.
And, for those of us of a certain age, Minority Leader Jeffries could simply channel Rick Astley :-)
Matt McIrvin
The old trick is to claim that “entitlements” are out of control and hope people don’t realize that “entitlements” are not some special handout to annoying people but means Social Security and Medicare. That used to actually work. I’m not sure it has worked since, oh, 2005.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: The GOP hasn’t made a concerted push to gut SS and Medicare since 2005.
The Thin Black Duke
Thankfully, I believe there’s a growing number of young voters that are beginning to understand what’s going to happen to them if Medicare and Social Security isn’t there to take care of their elderly parents.
Matt McIrvin
@The Thin Black Duke: With my generation, we were told repeatedly (by retirement fund managers and politicians) that they’d be long gone by the time we needed them, perhaps in the hope that this would make us resent paying into the funds and the prophecy would fulfill itself.
Geminid
Greenwald’s criticism that the leftmost members of the Progressive Caucus let their leverage go unused in 2020 is circulating widely in leftie circles. Predictably, Jerkobin Magazine weighed in with a similar take.
I don’t think this appraisal will age well. The radicals in the Republican caucus might have gained power for now, but they may well be setting the table for a Blue Wave in 2024. This could be the last Republican House majority this decade, and the tactics the jerks at Jerkobin are advocating (for Democrats) will help ensure that outcome..
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: At this point Greenwald is transparently pro-Republican, pro-fascist and I don’t see why any far-left progressive would listen to him unless that person is also a phony.
The Thin Black Duke
@Matt McIrvin: That corporate con game was easier to sell back in the day when the working class still had pensions.
HinTN
The Rs appear to have one agenda, which may be summarized as “Undo”. That’s all they can think of. I received a large card from my Congresscritter, the odious Scott desJarlais. He trumpeted the two, count them two, pieces of legislation he sponsored in the 117th, which were 1) Stop drugs at the border and 2) Block Biden’s forgiveness of student debt. OK, 1 wasn’t an Undo but it was unnecessary. I thought we had laws…
I hope they build their entire legislative agenda around Undoing Social Security and Medicare. What a gift that would be!
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Or is also pro-Republican and pro-fascist.
Joey Maloney
@HinTN: I’m sorry you have to suffer through Congressman Abort-The-Mistress. Dude looks like a thumb.
Baud
@Geminid: The problem with his criticism is that the House Freedom Caucus represents the average GOP voter better than the Squad represents the average Dem voter. The leverage between the two groups isn’t the same.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I think it’s already aged about as well as a dead fish in the sun.
After all, what happened? Biden listened to progressives like Senator Professor Warren, and adopted most of their agenda as his own.
And that’s why there was no desire, let alone attempt, by progressives in Congress to pull the sort of bullshit the Freedom Caucus types just did. Instead, we had the most unified Democratic Party in my lifetime probably, accomplishing far more in the way of progressive goals than any Congress since LBJ.
Greenwald is so full of shit, it comes out of every orifice. It’s a wonder he’s able to breathe.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Is this all about stopping support for Ukraine, maybe?
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
I dunno. The Dem majority was so slender that five votes (the Squad plus Cori Bush) in the House could have killed anything. And of course, any one vote in the Senate. That’s plenty of leverage if they’d wanted to throw a hissy fit, but there was no reason for them to do so. Good politicking by Biden!
Amir Khalid
It seems to me that a House majority that, as a group, doesn’t understand the nuances of legislative process or of executive-branch government operations might conceivably run into problems down the road. That a majority led by a caucus of petulant know-nothings could end up embarrassing itself a time or two. That a Speaker who is without feck will have problems wrangling this recalcitrant lot.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
There are a bunch of items on the GOP agenda. That’s one of them.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Sure, anyone can throw a hissy fit with those numbers. That’s what Manchin and Sinema often did. The point is that, had the Squad acted like the Freedom Caucus, the rest of the Dem caucus wouldn’t have rolled over the way the House GOP caucus did, because they would have had more public support for standing up to the hissy fit.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: They don’t need to listen to Greenwald and probably are not. These ideas are strong within the anti-Democrat left.
That group may becoming more marginilzed now. They thrive when the Democrats cannot produce tangible results; that’s why they resent Democratic success. The Senate runoff victories of Warnock and Ossoff ended up taking a lot of wind out of leftwing sails. Now they are reduced to sniping at Pete Buttegieg and whining about Hakeem Jeffries’ alliteration.
The war in Ukraine has also cast a harsh light on the left’s foreign policies. This may have contributed to a dropoff in Democratic Socialists of America membership. A year ago, they eer4on a path to exceed 100,000 members. Now their rolls are dropping back into the 80,000s, and the anti-Nato position taken by the DSA International Committee may have hurt them
The DSA’s biennial convention will be held this summer, and it looks to be be very contentious.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Yeah, but my point is Ukraine is the one area I can think of where the Squad and the far left were quasi-aligned with the Republicans against the majority of liberals. And it makes sense that it’d be the thing Glenn Greenwald and Jacobin suddenly think is the most important issue in America.
Baud
@Baud: The other problem with the critique is that Dems used the time between the election and the start of the session to work out their disagreements. There was no need for a public spectacle.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud: What does it matter, if the rest of the caucus doesn’t have the votes to pass legislation? If they’d wanted to be purity ponies, they could have assured that the 117th Congress would pass little if anything worthwhile.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Really? Gotta admit this is the first I’ve heard of the Squad being reluctant to help Ukraine.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I don’t understand what your asking. Anyone could have been obstructionist. No one gets credit for not being obstructionist.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: They at least made some sounds about urging the administration to negotiate a cease-fire.
Baud
I don’t know about the Squad’s position on Ukraine, but a large number of House progressives have been opposed to the size of the defense budget generally.
Princess
Glenn would love the Dems to be a bomb-throwing train wreck like the GOP already is. That’s his agenda. He hates America and wants to destroy it. He’s not a Republican. He’s not a progressive. He just wants chaos here. He’s trying to play both ends against the middle.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Then maybe he should get fecked?
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: So far the “Squad” has not broken with their caucus on critical issues regarding Ukraine. There have been a couple defections on ancillary matters.
There may be a convergence on the question of defense spending generally. There was some grumbling about the large increases in the defense budget in the last three spending bills. The Freedom caucus wants to flatten spending across the board and this is a bone of contention between them and the defense hawks in their caucus. And surprise, surprise! squad-adjacent Rho Khanna was on the Sunday shows yesterday saying that defense cuts may not be a bad idea.
I guess that they aren’t, in the abstract. But maybe not right now, and certainly not as part of an effort to cut domestic spending as or more severely.
Baud
@Geminid:
It would be a very strange outcome given how hard progressives criticized Obama for the sequester.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Maybe I misunderstood you, but you seemed to be saying they couldn’t have.
Don’t know what you’re talking about credit for. The only person I gave credit to in this thread was Joseph Robinette Biden.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I’m saying they would have lacked the leverage that the Freedom Caucus had if they had tried. Not that they couldn’t have tried.
ETA: it’s also too soon to know how well this will play out for the Freedom Caucus.
Al Z.
I thought the main argument for fixed cameras in Congress was to give an opportunity for members to launch into diatribes in front of an otherwise empty chamber while providing soundbites and audition tape for Fox News?
Geminid
@SFAW: Kevin McCarthy: “I have no more fecks to give.”
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s about anything that might take money out of their pockets and then have it actually do anything for the American public.
Rethuglican sponsors are money people that want more money and don’t give a good god damn about anyone but themselves. And most hardcore rethuglicans are not one bit better.
I live on Social Security. And I’m not close to the only person that does. Millions of us depend on it. Hell, old fart rethuglicans depend on it. I paid into if for almost 60 damn years and they want to take it away? And that’s just one of the things that they want to fuck up for the citizens of this country.
It’s after 5 am and I haven’t gone to bed, and now I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to sleep at all because of rethuglican fucksticks.
And yes I know that it is going to be difficult for them to totally fuck up every thing, but don’t forget they are fucking experts at royally fucking up every damn thing.
danielx
@Geminid:
Well played.
Ken
We may get an early indication today*, when they vote on the rules package. Will the rest of the conference accept the changes McCarthy promised the FCers? Will the FCers block passage without those changes?
I’m also expecting more than a little drama as they hand out the committee assignments.
* Or possibly all this week.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Good morning!
Geminid
@Baud: One factor regarding leverage and its uses was the Blue Wave of 2018. Some leftie pundits advocated that the Squad and the more “progressive” members of the Democratic caucus form a “Freedom Caucus of the Left.” But it was the Freedom Caucus’s obstuction of Boehner and then Ryan that contributed to the Republican wipeout in suburban districts nationwide. This may be part of why the left-most members of the Progressive caucus chose to work with the rest of Democrats instead of opposing them.
This unity has been largely unbroken, except in July, 2019 when there was a wrenching blowup over emergency border funding. That dispute was defused after a week or so of acrimonony, and I think the Democratic caucus emerged the stronger afterwards.
Speaker Pelosi and the rest of leadership deserve a lot of credit for caucus unity. So do the members themselves, who have succeeded in keeping disputes “within the family” for the most part. They have learned not to squabble over the apples of discord outsiders constantly toss in from different directions
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Maybe it doesn’t count as a concerted effort, but IIRC, the GOP did force Medicare spending cuts via the sequester when they weaponized the debt ceiling during Obama’s first term and proposed privatization and cuts for both programs when they weaponized the debt ceiling again in Obama’s second term.
Good for Rep. Clark for telling people what their plans are when the issue comes up again later this year — and for pointing out that House Repubs didn’t squawk about the debt ceiling during Trump’s term.
Geminid
@Ken: Another group that may dig in their heels on the Rules package are from the end of the caucus opposite the Freedom Caucus. Tony Gonzales of Texas already says he’s a “no,” and Nancy Mace (SC) says she is undecided. Mace is a McCarthy loyalist and is expected to fall in line.
I suspect that some members may want to hold out a vote or two as a “flex,” just to show the Freedom Caucus members that they are not the only ones who can play the obstruction game. They may also want to show McCarthy that they cannot be taken for granted.
I believe the vote on the Rules package is scheduled for this evening.
Immanentize
Are people still complaining about the so-called “Squad?” Sheesh. They are just better organized left of center legislators. They, as individuals, do things I disagree with occasionally, but only occasionally. They all are team players when needed and they do their thing when Pelosi releases them. Ayanna Pressley is not Cori Bush who is not AOC who is not Ilhan Omar. Each has proven, at one time or another, to be mature Democrats helping the whole.
What GG wants to do is to keep the Dems’ outrage focused on them instead of the Republicans. It seems he is succeeding.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t think this is correct. IIRC, the sequester affected only the discretionary budget, and I believe Medicare spending is non-discretionary. The sequester was 50% defense cuts and 50% cuts in discretionary non-defense spending. (I think Obama believed the GOP would never swallow the defense cuts for long, but he was wrong about that.)
ETA: IIRC the GOP’s attack line at the time was that Obamacare funding was in part done through Medicare savings, so it was the Dems that cut Medicare.
Immanentize
@Geminid: This. Thank you.
Baud
@Immanentize: I don’t see a lot of complaining about the Squad in this thread. GG is obviously trolling them, but most if not all of us think it won’t work.
Ken
@Geminid: Yes, that’s what I meant — opposition to the promises the Squeaker made to the FCers. I don’t think it has to be from the “opposite” end, though — almost any member might object to some of the proposed rule changes. Except the “any one of us can proposed kicking him out” rule, I think that will be popular.
Apropos of nothing, if the Republicans lose a few members and by-elections, and Jeffries becomes speaker before 2024, would they vote on a new rules package?
Geminid
@Immanentize: I don’t think talking about the “Squad” is neccessarily complaining about them. And one reason this small group of members assumed such a public profile is that they wanted to be talked about.
Soprano2
@Ruckus: What they always do when they try this is to say that SS for people like you is totally safe, they aren’t going to reduce it or take it away. What they want to do is take it away from future recipients. That way, they think their major voting bloc will still vote for them. Didn’t work last time, probably won’t work this time either.
Geminid
@Ken: By “opposite end” I am referring mostly to members in purple districts whose political interests diverge from those of the red district Freedom Caucus members.
If the Democrats win a majority through special elections they would be a able to put through a new set of rules along with a new Speaker. Unless there are five special elections in purple districts this is an unlikely prospect.
I think a more likely one would be for the Republicans to lose their majority through defections, perhaps over a debt ceiling bill late this summer. This is one reason I am interested in the Rules package. Matt Gaetz wants to be able to topple Squeaker McCarthy at any time. Will the rules enable say, Don Bacon (NE) to do the same?
Soprano2
@Ken: I think that was an easy gimme in the end, because although one person can propose it, they have to get enough votes to actually do it, and I don’t think they’ll ever be able to do that. He made them feel like they got something significant, and I don’t think they did.
Amir Khalid
@Immanentize:
Ah, but try pointing that out to schrodinger’s cat.
Ken
@Soprano2: Yes, my main reservation is that (as I understand it) the motion to dump the speaker has some sort of privilege, so the House has to vote on it before any other business. So unless there’s some restriction only allowing it to be invoked once a month, it could be abused to shut down the House.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Greenwald, what a joke. Sure dude, talking about Hunter Biden’s penis is a real bold policy move on the Freedum Caucasus part.
ETtheLibrarian
And seniors are Republicans biggest voting block!
I know many think the main beneficiaries are brow/urban so there is a large racism component to this discussion, but I am beginning to wonder if seniors want their benefits cut. They seem bound and determined to make it happen.
Elizabelle
I wish we could put Glenn Greenwald on hiatus. Really, WGAF what he says?
Putting stuff up about him drives out better content.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I don’t remember if cuts were enacted or if Dems headed them off via some budgetary sleight of hand, but I’m sure Medicare cuts were part of the discussion. Via Google, I found this 2012 National Law Review article on an Obama admin report warning about the impact of sequestration:
Not sure if it happened or not, but if I’m understanding the above correctly, the GOP did go after Medicare during both debt ceiling crises and Social Security too in the second.
Kay
@ETtheLibrarian:
They won’t cut it for seniors though. They’ll cut it for people who will be seniors 20 years from now. They raise the age where people are eligible for full benefits. That’s the cut. It’s what they did last time, so people born before 1962 are eligible for full benefits before people born after 1962.
Still, any cuts at all should be easy to demonize and Democrats should absolutely, 100% demonize any MENTION of cuts whether now or 20 years down the road, constantly and loudly.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Maybe someday the pie function can be extended to include words. That sort of worked on Twitter — you could block words to avoid tweets about topics you weren’t interested in.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for checking. Looks like I was wrong. From the report:
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/stareport.pdf
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: You have to open the box to do that.
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: I try to cut Ms. Cat some slack because she sees the Sanders movement as a major threat personally, and “the Squad” and their Justice Democrat sponsors are products of that movement.
I share much of the same animus towards Sanders and the Sandernistas. I may be more detached and less vehement, but then again, I am a white native-born male. I am not hit personally by nativism and threats to women’s rights in the way Ms. Cat and others are.
Some people seem to take criticism of Sanders and the Squad personally, and others object to it on political grounds, so they are always ready to push back.
BC in Illinois
Some of you may look at the Andrew Wortman tweet and wonder “Who is the woman in red, next to M T Greene?”
She is my stealth Congresswoman, Ann Wagner of Missouri’s 2nd Cong District (St Louis County, Jefferson and St Charles Counties, suburbs selected to have as few Dems as possible). I say “stealth” Congresswoman, because she has managed to have five terms in office, without ever having a public town hall meeting. She doesn’t need to meet the public, her career before congress was as a fund-gatherer for the Republican donor class. She is a dependable Republican vote. No further self-definition required.
But I hope to see the Wagner/MTGreene picture broadcast far and wide in the next election. I don’t think that Rep. Greene will be a popular vote-draw.
But what do I know.
Gin & Tonic
Here is the FTFNYT’s completely objective and unbiased Tweet on yesterday’s events in Brasilia:
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I want a pi filter that screens out circular arguments!
Kay
Here’s the phase-in of the cuts they did last time they cut Social Security.
They took it from eligible at 65 for full benefits to eligible at 67 for full benefits. I imagine this time they’ll try to bump it up to 70.
Anyway, since apparently no one even remembers this happened, Democrats shouldn’t get into the weeds on it, on HOW. Just scream “cuts!” over and over. Easiest “messaging” ever.
Ken
I prefer invoking Wigner’s Friend, and considering myself and the closed box as a larger quantum system whose state is indeterminate. That way I can choose the best of all possible worlds by rigidly defining the areas of doubt and uncertainty.
Tony Jay
One of the many, many, oh so very many reasons that no one should give Glenn fucking Greenwald any attention on the issue of ‘Progressive Left Wing Democratic Socialism’ is because he’s full of shit and a bad liar.
In a nutshell, the Left Wing of the Democratic Party doesn’t have to throw stroppy tantrum fits and wouldn’t benefit from it anyway, because the leadership of the Democratic Party are grown-ups who work with them; they negotiate, discuss, collaborate, explain and synthesise policies that are broadly acceptable across the entire ideological spectrum of the Democratic Party and they don’t (for want of a better phrase) go in for hippy-punching. Politicians who see the wider policy direction of ‘The Left’ as the best direction for America to go likewise see the Democratic Party as the best vehicle for achieving those aims, and don’t feel any particular need to rock the boat because they’ve got confidence that as time goes on more and more of their policies will be adopted and implemented by a Democratic Party that sees how electorally popular “doing nice things for people and making the world they live in a bit less shitty every day” can be.
That’s not what someone like Greenwald wants, and it’s certainly not something he can make bank off, so he lies about it. It’s also not something anyone could ever honestly say about the cray-for-pay creatures who make up the MAGOP Right, so there’s really no comparison to be made.
We don’t have anything like that situation over here in the UK, which is why I look across the Atlantic and think “Damn, wish we had grown ups like that leading our not-Conservative Party…” but tis not the case.
Soprano2
@Ken: But that would shut down all of their investigations, too. I think it’ll be a toy that they’ll get tired of playing with after they try it a few times and find out it’s not a motion to automatically kick McCarthy out of his seat, but instead it’s a motion to vote so they have to actually find the votes to kick him out. Never forget, these people mostly want to get on TV because evidently they think that’s the most important part of the job.
RAM
So I think we can all agree that the GOP is firmly anti-xenial, right?
Uncle Cosmo
I intended to alter Amir’s valedictory sentence to read “frequently find himself being fecked up the Erse with a rusted chainsaw” but ya beat me tuit, well played! :^D
frosty
@Elizabelle: Second that. I’ve never read Greenwald, I don’t see his name anywhere but here. Let’s just forget about him. Waste of bandwidth.
Ken
@RAM: Firmly anti-everything on the left side of Rep. Jeffries’ list. Even if they hadn’t heard of it, or taken a position, before, Cleek’s Law has now been invoked.
Soprano2
@BC in Illinois: Honestly I’m surprised my new Congressman Eric Burlison wasn’t part of the group that was trying to keep McCarthy from becoming Speaker. He’s more on the libertarian side of conservative. It wasn’t any kind of improvement over the auctioneer, that’s for sure.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: The rat-bastards! You’re right about people not giving a shit if you backload the cuts. I remember not giving a shit!
No One You Know
@Ruckus: I share this concern. My spouse is still working–at 69– to make up for a few bad years and for losses to the 401(k) thanks to the Enron debacle. I also have to work for the same reason but I’m a few years younger.
My cohort is watching their retirement earnings retreat in time and size while the ability to work gets slower and harder and the ability to get hired gets harder. People don’t want to hire people that look like their parents– and who have more experience and less new learning (from university) than their generationally younger competitors.
How does that doughnut hole get addressed?
Soprano2
@Kay: I laugh when people say “we should raise the eligibility age to 67”, because they already did and I’m in the first year where that is fully implemented. I won’t be eligible for full benefits until I’m 67!
Gin & Tonic
@Tony Jay: If not giving Glenn attention requires 300 words, I shudder to think how many would be needed to give him attention.
(Yes, I know he’d produce 10,000 himself.)
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
They raised a ruckus!
Real or pitchbot? You decide.
jonas
@Ruckus: The argument is going to be that people on it *now* will receive all their due benefits (of course). The plan is to reform SS on the backs of people like *me* who aren’t due to retire for another 15-20 years. This is basically what Bush tried in 05: convince Gen X-ers and younger boomers to take a haircut on future SS payments in return for being allowed to gamble a portion of it on the stock market today. It blew up in his face because enough people back then saw what a horrible deal it was. I guess it’s time for Republicans to try it again.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: Wait, what year were you born? (if you don’t mind my asking.)
I don’t anticipate ever being able to retire, but it would be nice to know at what point I might theoretically be able to access SS benefits.
Baud
@jonas:
No, today it’s crypto and NFTs.
jonas
Can you imagine telling some skilled trade or construction worker or anyone else who works with their hands and body that they need to keep it up until they’re *70*? Are you fucking kidding me? You think the opioid epidemic is bad now…
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Yeah, the assumption that most senior citizens and late-middle-age people hate their own children and would rather fuck them over for their self-interest seemed not to actually be true.
Soprano2
@Miss Bianca: I was born in 1961. It’s my understanding that I won’t be eligible for full SS until I’m 67.
Soprano2
@jonas: I agree it’s crazy, I work with a bunch of people who do hard labor outside. One guy is the same age as I am but looks and acts at least 10 years older.
Baud
@jonas:
Remember, the GOP is now the party of the working class because they hate woke corporations.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
Oh, this time they probably mean raising the eligibility age for ANY SS benefits from 62 to 67.
Kent
Two comments:
First, Why the fuck is anyone in this day and age quoting Greenwald, much less BJ. He’s been a total tool and douche for years and hasn’t said anything worth listening to or repeating in this decade. Ignore him. Don’t give him the bandwidth.
Second, I’m not convinced that Dems (at least certain Dems in leadership) aren’t looking forward to a debt limit fight. I don’t think this is entirely on Manchin and Sinema. I think they believe the Democrats will come out ahead in any government shutdown debt limit fight, especially one over whether to cut Social Security and Medicare and probably the ACA as well.
I don’t think they are wrong. But as a former Federal employee I always despise the total disruption that comes with that sort of stunt.
Mike in NC
Turned on the TV this morning and MSNBC was going with “Trump Allies Spread Fascism Abroad” with regard to the stuff happening in Brazil. Ya think?
Matt McIrvin
@jonas: Hell, my job is physically not strenuous (though there are dangers from sedentary work, the occasional loss of sleep and RSIs), and I still am not at all sure I’m going to be capable of doing the brain work when I’m 70. Even if I am, I may not be able to get hired.
Baud
@Kent:
I think that’s like saying doctors look forward to cancer.
Geminid
@Soprano2: Maybe the idea is to make up the shortfall in service industry workers by making these folks hobble through their last working years at places like Walmart or McDonalds. I see people who are doing this.
lowtechcyclist
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m a big fan of the artful understatement, but jeez, not when you’re in the news biz and it leaves your readers massively uninformed about how bad it actually was.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: Raising the age for Medicare to 67 would be mega-stupid. Lowering it to 62 would be smarter.
UncleEbeneezer
Buenos Dias from Valladolid, México. After a nightmare experience driving out here from Cancun Sat night, we had an incredible day yesterday doing a tour of Rio De Lagartos biosphere (seeing flamingos and crocodiles), visiting Mayan temple at Ek Balam and then swimming in a cenote). It’s humid AF and hot in the sun but otherwise absolutely amazing. People are very friendly and food is delicious. There will definitely be some OTR pics/posts to come. Also been rather nice to take a break from GOP, US politics.
Kent
It is INCREDIBLY classist.
Compare me and my brother. He is a tile and stone mason who has been working with his hands and back since age 18. By the time he reaches age 65 he will have worked and paid into social security for 47 straight years.
Myself? I went to college, traveled and joined the Peace Corps, then grad school, and finally started my first legit full-time job at age 30. Sure I had odd jobs before that but mostly stuff like teaching assistantships that didn’t pay much into social security. By the time I reach age 65 I will have been working full time and paying into social security for only 35 years or a full 12 years less than my blue collar brother.
Multiply that phenomenon across the country and you have enormous inequities between blue collar and white collar workers. Not only is blue collar work generally more wearing on the body, but most blue collar workers have many more years of work under their belt before they reach 65.
These politicians who want to keep raising the SS age instead of raising the tax limit are just plain evil.
delphinium
@Gin & Tonic: LOL
SFAW
@Tony Jay:
Maybe I’m not reading your comment correctly, but it seems like you’re lumping in Greenwald with The Left. He’s not. He’s a fascist-adjacent, Putin-loving troll. He got a lot of “is against fascist government” mileage from the whole Snowden thing (because at the time, it seemed that Snowden was unveiling worthwhile secrets that the Rethug-side of the government didn’t want people to know), but people eventually figured him out.
He hates America, he hates democracy, he hates Democrats, he loves Bolsonaro (and Putin and probably Orban). Fuck him.
Geminid
@Kent: Right now there looks to be two issues that will become acute by the end of summer: raising the debt ceiling, and funding the government in the fiscal year starting October 1.
Between now and then, Democrats will be actively “shaping the battlefield,” so to speak. I think we already occupy the higher ground.
Kent
I think there are Dems in leadership who know they are going to be fighting the GOP anyway, and would rather do it on saving social security and medicare grounds than endless bullshit investigations into COVID, Fauci, the IRS, Biden, and God knows what all. Because even though it is all bullshit, the right wing echo chamber will amplify all of it.
Kind of like the leadership fight. Let them make their own mistakes. Few Americans other than those who are already rabid right wingers really relish these shutdown charades. And frankly a whole lot of MAGA folk depend on Social Security and Medicare. MAGA and right-wing crazy are not fully overlapping circles.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I hear that too.
I feel hopeless sometimes about… voters. They’re not that smart. What’s it like when they turn 65 and go to the website and find out they have two more years? Do they wonder at all how that happened?
Like LITERALLY all horrible things Alan Greenspan was involved in it:
The tone of the articles about this just make me sick. It’s all smug, self satisified “we finally disciplined the working classes” from political media. Gross.
SFAW
@Soprano2:
I’m more than a couple of years older than you, and 67 was my age for full benefits.
Kent
It was never the “Squad” who obstructed anything in the last Congress. It was the centrist douches who tried to block Pelosi’s speakership and who fucked around and tried to disrupt Biden’s agenda in favor of increased tax deductions for wealthy northeasterners.
The two parties are not equivalent. Or maybe they are in that it is both party’s right wing that is the most disruptive.
jonas
@Kent: Pretty much my story as well. The whole point of retirement is to have some time to enjoy your golden years, grandchildren, etc. What’s the point if you’re a broken-down, arthritic wreck?
Geminid
@SFAW: Greenwald may be a fascist, but there is a whole lot of convergence between him and anti-Democrat lefties, David Sirota being a typical example of the latter. They agree on many issues, the primary one being that liberals are the enemy and must be disparaged whenever and however possible.
Edmund Dantes
Dems should be lowering the social security age. It’s actually one of those facially neutral looking pieces of data that actually has disparate outcomes on the back end in aggregate.
People of color get less out of social security than white people. Poor people also get less out of it than more middle class white people.
Plus there is no reason it should have been moved before other than we are only allowed to cut and never raise more revenue.
Soprano2
@SFAW: So I searched it, and I was wrong – if you were born in 1960 your full eligibility age is 67. They phased it in over a bunch of years though, so my husband’s was 65 and a few months.
Kent
@Kay: Having government employees pay into social security was a good thing. I was one. Because most Federal employees don’t spend their full careers as Feds anymore so it is much better to have portable retirement benefits that follow you to any job.
The rest is bullshit and Dems should repeal it all and raise the social security tax limits instead. Unfortunate that they never did that during any of the times that they held a trifecta like in 2008 and 2020.
delphinium
@Kent: Yeah, it would be nice if SS benefits could be based on type of work and/or the number of years paid in to determine when someone could get full benefits, rather than strictly by age. But not sure how this could be accomplished given the political realities right now.
In any case, expecting everyone to have to work to age 67 or 70 is unrealistic.
SFAW
@Soprano2:
I reached full benefits this past year (sometime between 66 and 67), decided to wait until this year to collect, because the payments increased by a few hundred $$$ per month at the start of 2023. [That was even before President Biden announcing that the COLA would be greater than originally planned.]
I feel old.
Kay
@jonas:
They don’t want them to collect. They want them to die before they collect.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
I absolutely agree. Hell, even 60 or 55, whatever we can find revenue sources for. (I still like Liz Warren’s wealth tax proposal.) But of course the GQP wants to basically blow up government until it’s doing nothing useful for anyone.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: WTF. So…I was born in ’63, does this mean that I might not not eligible for full benefits till I’m 70?! JFC, given my family history, I could be *dead* by 70! >:<
delphinium
@Edmund Dantes:
Many years ago, 60 Minutes had a segment on social security and amount taken in vs benefits paid out. They interviewed 3 men who had already been retired for awhile. All 3 of them were beyond certain that they paid enough into the system to cover their entire retirement and were bitching/moaning about any potential cuts. The reality however was that 2 of the 3 had already gone thru what they had put into the system and were now getting benefits based on what the next generation was putting in. All of this is to say, the system needs an overhaul and a far more equitable way to ensure that everyone is able to retire at a reasonable age.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Unless things change, it is 67.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Yeah, well, the ghouls may just get their wishes.
Really, I think the Dems should be actively campaigning to not only preserve SS and Medicare at current levels, but to lower the SS benefits age back down to 65 or hell, even 62 (for Medicare too). Let the Republicans campaign against *that*.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
I’m a ’54 kid (smack in the middle of the Baby Boom), and my birth year is the last year with full eligibility at 66. After that it starts nudging up by 2 months per birth year until it hits 67 for 1960 kids, and there it stops – at least for now.
delphinium
@Miss Bianca:
@Omnes Omnibus: And would guess if at some point the age is raised that there will be a grandfather clause such that people who are within 5-10 years of retirement would still get full retirement at the previous earlier age.
lowtechcyclist
@Miss Bianca:
Strongly agree.
Geminid
@Kent: I guess you are talking about the SALT deduction here. While this sometimes framed as a wealthy versus middle class issue, Republicans did not slash the SALT deduction for reasons of equity. They did it to undermine support for state and local spending for public education, social services etc. among middle and upper middle class people living in high tax states including California.
The Republicans’ cutting of the SALT deduction probably contributed to the six-seat pickup Democrats made in Southern California in 2018, and helped Democrats add seats in New Jersey and the Chicago suburbs as well.
And I think you are confusing the role of the SALT tax in the Democrats legislative efforts of the last Congress. The $3.5 billion BBB bill that was blocked in 2021 had a very generous SALT tax provision. Senators Sanders and Menendez promised to reduce it some but they did not get the chance because Manchin stopped the bill altogether.
The pared down version called the Inflation Reduction Act that reached the House last fall included no SALT tax relief. It’s true that the notorious Josh Gottheimer said he might not vote for the IRA without SALT relief. This molehill was made into a mountain for a few days by anti-“centrist” commentators. In the event, Gottheimer voted for the bill.
Then he and other Reps from high income, high tax districts formed the House SALT caucus to try to build support for SALT relief, and combat the gaslighting that exists around the issue.
Soprano2
@Miss Bianca: No, you’ll be eligible for full benefits when you reach age 67.
Ksmiami
@Kent: I started donating to Feera as a result of GOP stunts. We need a strong federal government… what do these people think will happen when there isn’t one? Seriously? America was barely a country before WW2.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: What would your top 5 or 10 words or phrases be?
If I never saw “all of them, Katie” again, I would not be sorry!
Ksmiami
@Baud: Keep Ruckus’ good name out of the coups! Lol
WaterGirl
@Baud: I had the same thought and double-checked to make sure it wasn’t DougJ.
Ken
@Soprano2: With the caveat “if nothing changes”.
There’s an old quote along those lines, about men working silently in the fields, and women weeping softly in the house, because the Legislature is in session. According to Google, it was apparently said by Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and Socrates.
Ksmiami
@Kay: Totally.. make the GOP lose 50 states
Tony Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
Come on now, be fair, I dispensed with GG in less than 50 words, the rest were spent on things it’s actually worthwhile talking about.
@SFAW:
God No! Quite the opposite.
GG and other attention whores of his ilk aren’t any more of ‘the Left’ than the people who fund him. He wants to stir up shit on the Left because that’s his job, not because he shares any genuine ideological or policy beliefs with us. He’s a fraud and a wrecker and no one should give him anything other than a cursory kick in the plums whenever he appears.
UncleEbeneezer
Greenwald got popular for being anti-war/domestic surveillance when those issues were huge re: Iraq. Then Obama exposed just how much GG hates Dems (and Social Justice). I assume there were guys like him during Vietnam too. Got it right opposing unpopular war but then turned out to be shitty, reactionary, contrarian assholes who thrive on actually preventing Progressive gains because they hate Dems.
Ksmiami
@Ruckus: I don’t know if this will comfort you, but please trust in Biden’s team to absolutely demolish the Republican fucksticks with this and most likely ride into another term. Really, the GOP is going to reach for the hot stove again and incinerate themselves.
Ksmiami
@Tony Jay: Glenn Greenwald who? 3 powerful words…
Kay
@delphinium:
Social Security needs to stay the same. It was never intended to be a program where each worker puts in 10,000 and takes out 10,000. It’s not a private annuity. The whole power of the thing is it’s universal and huge so the “inequities” smooth out; some people will die collecting nothing and some people will die collecting more than they “put in’. That’s just how it goes when you have 40 million people taking part in a public program. It’s a collective, not an individual account. Some people live to 61, some live to 91.
Any attempt to means test it or make it more like a private account guts the basic bargan, which is not that it is rigorously “equal” for each person depending on how much they put in or what kind of work they do but that it is secure for all.
Ksmiami
@Kay: it’s national dignity insurance that makes it less likely people will resort to torches and pitchforks.
Geminid
@Ksmiami: When someone on Twitter reported the House Republican agenda, with Social Security cuts on the list, someone else responded:
“Awful early to be leaving a suicide note.”
Tony Jay
@Ksmiami:
True, but have you ever known me to be that tightly edited?
Kay
@delphinium:
There’s lots and lots of pre-tax savings options for people who want a means-tested retirement plan in private markets to ADD to Social Security, where they’ll get out exactly what they put in. The US has bent over backwards to allow all these options under the tax code. But they’re different from Social Security and Social Security shouldn’t be changed to mimic private plans – with all the options we have now there’s even less of a reason to do that than there was in 1983.
One of the union carpenters retirement options where I live is an annuity- they can start taking a monthly payment at 60 – a recognition that the work they do breaks down their bodies- but that is in addition to Social Security not a replacement for it.
It’s just unnecessary to turn Social Security into a private plan. There are plenty of private plan options.
delphinium
@Kay: Oh I agree-it needs to be equitable as possible for everyone. Part of the segment was to point out that those folks grumbling about how they should get this full benefit because they ‘paid for it’ yet looked down on others who they felt didn’t deserve the same benefit. The 2 men on the show who had already gone thru what they paid in were actually shocked and didn’t realize that money they were receiving now was from others and that is how social security actually worked.
randy khan)
Not that I expect this in the slightest, but all the fact checkers and commentators who said in the fall that claims that the Republicans would go after Social Security and Medicare were unproven or untrue – even after several senior Republican House members said *on the record* that they planned to do it – should be apologizing right now.
delphinium
@Kay: I think this is great and highly needed. It is unfortunate that unions are not as strong as they once were so there will be folks who won’t get this same type of benefit.
Kent
Simple. Make the FULL retirement age 65 or x-number of years of full employment, whichever comes first.
Geminid
@delphinium: Construction unions may be making a comeback in commercial construction, at least in economically dynamic areas. I am hearing a lot of advertising from the Pipefitters and IBEW locals on Washigton, DC’s WTOP radio. I don’t recall hearing them until a few years ago.
The advertising content is interesting. The last Pipefitters ad I heard tried to attract new members from the construction trades by describing the good pay and material benefits their members received with the union “at your back.” Besides doing HVAC work the Pipefitters install the sprinkler systems now required in commercial and institutional buildings.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers pitched their membership to contractors. They explained how contractors could prosper with a workforce whose training and benefits are supplied by the union. The punchline:
“IBEW Local __. Where contractors come to grow.”
dnfree
@Kent: Calculation of social security benefits is based on your highest-paid 35 years of employment. You want to get in at least that many years or the missing years count as 0. If you are employed for say 40 years, the 5 lowest-paid are dropped from the calculation. (Pay is adjusted for inflation.)
My retirement age for full benefits was 66. You can still retire at 62 but your benefit is permanently reduced. If you can hold off until age 70, your benefit will be higher by 8% for every year you wait. A frequent strategy for couples who can afford it is for the lower-paid spouse to take benefits at full retirement age and the higher-paid spouse to wait until age 70. Whichever spouse survives will get the higher benefit of the two.
Set yourself up an account on the social security website and start following your status. Don’t just wait to see what happens.
ArchTeryx
@Ken: Almost certainly. New Speaker, new majority caucus, new rules. And unlike the dunces on the Right, we at least know how to count votes. Nothing would please me more than to have the fascist caucus’ rules package shoved up their arse.
Kristine
@ETtheLibrarian:
Does anyone else recall the seniors shouting and crawling over Dan Rostenkowski’s car when he was involved in determining possible changes to how the SS trust fund was managed etc?
I think most will protest. I did read of one senior who said they would accept cuts because spending debt blah blah, but I haven’t see many of those.
Kay
@delphinium:
Right, but my point is retirement savings instruments are already tax advantaged, so everyone is (sort of) paying for them, even those who can’t afford to contribute to them. They’re a subsidy for savers, if you like. They’re not “fair” in the sense of a universal program because I get a tax advantage by plowing money into them and that advantage is not available to people who don’t.
Social Security policy should be seperate from that type of analysis.
Ksmiami
@Tony Jay: in a word, no… though you are a good wordsmith
Captain C
@Baud:
I take it as more like doctors looking forward to telling off pro-cancer idiots who want to abolish hospitals in favor of their own MLM snake oil (and give the GOP a few years, and pro-cancer will be a platform plank, provided they think it owns the libs and one of them can make money off it).
Balconesfault
@Kay: I have wondered for a few years if the GOPs “let COVID run … it’s mainly going to kill off older people” stance was motivated in part by thinking “a great way to reduce projected Medicare and SS outlays and free up space for more Corporate tax cuts”.
Balconesfault
@delphinium: “The reality however was that 2 of the 3 had already gone thru what they had put into the system and were now getting benefits based on what the next generation was putting in.”
Of course, there’s the one or two they didn’t interview who weren’t getting out what they put in because … well, they were dead
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
It doesn’t work because when they screw up a program, especially like SS they always screw it up badly. Millions of us live on SS. But taking money is their thing and no one else should be able to do it.
I am likely not rational about this issue because we all pay into SS over our working lifetimes, so we will have a minimum level of retirement. I never really thought a lot about retirement until I was realizing that continuing to work was going to kill me. Not all at once but in so many little ways. And I never understood it until I got there. Work can be grand, it can be stunningly rewarding, it can be grindingly wearing and destructive on one’s health as one gets older. And I never understood that until I was still working at 72 yrs old. At some point, if you have been a working individual, you just get to a point that working is far more difficult, far more demanding, far more controlling on every part of your being. And yes some jobs are better at not doing this and some are worse, but for the vast majority of humans, every job lands there at some point. Ask yourself what is working every day all about, the money? The reward for doing well? I was very good at what I did, not perfect – no one is that, but damn good. And at some point even being damn good is not enough. At some point we deserve to relax, wake up when we wake up, go to bed when we want, and relax because we worked for decades, to help our country, to help our bank accounts, to feed ourselves and our families, to survive. And our reward for doing that, most often for most people is to starve to death, to not be able to pay for a place to live because we no longer can be productive and fucking conservatives want to have us die so we are no longer a drain on their bank accounts? Selfish motherfuckers should be ashamed that they think the almighty dollar is far more important to be in their bank accounts than feeding people who worked for decades and paid enough taxes so that we have roads and reasonable licensing for medical personal, or safety for workers who do some of the dangerous jobs that have to be done, or any of the millions of other jobs that people do for a lifetime that is part of making a country work and survive. Fucking assholes, they can’t be satisfied in making big bucks doing nothing constructive in any way, making life more difficult for those that went before them?
Fucking assholes.
Ruckus
@No One You Know:
How does that doughnut hole get addressed?
By thinking just a bit bigger and being just a little less selfish. IOW be an actual democrat. Conservatives want the world to support them to make them whole. But being human rarely allows whole. Because there are sides to everything. Take greed – PLEASE. Greed for power, greed for money, greed for position, greed for hate, or just plain greed. Rethuglicans are greedy, they want to live lives of power and control and wealth over others. They don’t want groups of people to be fed, healthy, living because reasons. They want big bank accounts because that shows them to be better humans – and that only works on planet Narnia. And we don’t live there.
Ruckus
@Kent:
Because even though it is all bullshit, the right wing echo chamber will amplify all of it.
They know it’s bullshit. At least most of those in power on the conservative side know it’s bullshit. They amplify it because it is bullshit. It is a bullshit rallying cry, misdirection. It’s yelling bullshit over their concept of controlling their side’s ability to steal power and money. They add zero to the public good, because they are trying to add to their appeal quotient by being hateful. They are playing Scrooge McDuck. They want to get rich and they have zero idea how to actually earn wealth in any respectable manner.