Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Bark louder, little dog.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Consistently wrong since 2002

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

We still have time to mess this up!

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Monday Evening Open Thread: Socially Secure!

Monday Evening Open Thread: Socially Secure!

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Monday Evening Open Thread: <em>Socially Secure!</em> 1

(John Deering via GoComics.com)

… Democrats seized on the issue in the 2022 midterms with some success, and now it moves to an even bigger stage.

“It’s a smart play for the near term in the debt limit fight, and it’s even a smarter play when we head to the 2024 re-elect,” said Scott Mulhauser, a former top Biden aide who has worked on campaigns and in government. “It moves voters, it moves seniors, it moves allegiances and alliances, and it resonates.”…

Biden’s remarks indicate that Democrats have ruled out compromises that they pursued during President Barack Obama’s first term to trim long-term benefits as a way to reduce the national debt. Those negotiations drew objections from the left and never materialized into an agreement. Since then, Democrats have turned away from potential cuts and rallied around raising revenues to expand retirement benefits.

It represents a growing divide with Republicans, who continue to rule out new taxes to finance the benefits and instead believe spending must be curtailed in the long run.

Biden has endorsed raising the payroll tax cap on upper earners to expand Social Security payments. He sought to expand Medicare benefits for dental, vision and hearing services, but that effort was blocked by a few centrists, mainly Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va…

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in an email that protecting those programs “is core to President Biden’s top priority” and made it clear he won’t stop calling out plans to scale them back.

“A wide range of Republican lawmakers have endorsed severe cuts to Medicare and Social security benefits in the name of ‘fiscal responsibility,’” Bates said. “Complaining that the President is accurately shining a light on plans they don’t want their constituents to know about is very much not the defense they think.”…


Monday Evening Open Thread: <em>Socially Secure!</em>

(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

180Comments

  1. 1.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I think it was Rounds who was also calling for privatization/turning Social Security into individual investment accounts

  3. 3.

    misterpuff

    The GOP won’t let us sunset tax cuts but want to put Social Security to a vote every year.

    They really think Uncle Joe and Dems are The Dims.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    Biden’s remarks indicate that Democrats have ruled out compromises that they pursued during President Barack Obama’s first term to trim long-term benefits as a way to reduce the national debt. Those negotiations drew objections from the left and never materialized into an agreement. Since then, Democrats have turned away from potential cuts and rallied around raising revenues to expand retirement benefits.

    It represents a growing divide with Republicans, who continue to rule out new taxes to finance the benefits and instead believe spending must be curtailed in the long run.

    Dems rule out compromise. Republicans rule out new taxes. Both sides!

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    One of Truman’s supporters called out, “give ‘em hell Harry!” Truman replied, “I don’t give them hell. I just tell the truth about them, and they think it’s hell.”

    “I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them” – Adlai Stevenson

    The GOP has been going after Social Security for a long long time. And whining about it every time someone calls them out.

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    “We want to strengthen Social Security by ending a lot of those government checks to people staying at home rather than going to work,” Scalise said, endorsing work requirements for benefits.

    Did anybody think to ask Scalise how “work requirements” work vis a vis a retirement plan? Is the idea to empty out the nursing homes and require all those layabouts to take jobs at Walmart?

  14. 14.

    Ryan

    “Biden’s remarks indicate that Democrats have ruled out compromises that they pursued during President Barack Obama’s first term to trim long-term benefits as a way to reduce the national debt. Those negotiations drew objections from the left and never materialized into an agreement. ”

     

    Let’s also not forget that John Boehner couldn’t bring a majority of his caucus to pro during those negotiations, because of a rule named after a child molester (Dennis Hastert).

  15. 15.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Frank Wilhoit: Forget the notion of “cuts” and focus on privatization, which will sneak in under some deceptive description.

    Bazinga! The mortarforkers will “pivot” to that as a “fallback position” after the electorate laughs at their halfarsed attempt to sundown the social programs. What their Oligarch Overlords really want is to get their filthy paws on the trust funds and let the gummint worry about how to support people in need once those bastard bazillionaires have stolen nearly every cent.

  16. 16.

    Dan B

    @dmsilev:  And the disabled would have to work?  An acquaintance was here yesterday.  His partner has schizophrenia.  He’s 74.  How is he supposed to find a job?

  21. 21.

    stinger

    So tired of Manchin being called a centrist. He’s an outlier and an extremist.

    Unrelated, a poptart is like a miniature pie. Done.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    @Frank Wilhoit: ​
     

    Forget the notion of “cuts” and focus on privatization, which will sneak in under some deceptive description.

    I don’t see why we should forget about “cuts”. Privatization is an easier sell for the Republicans in a lot of ways. They can argue that the stock market on average gets better returns, so letting people invest their money themselves is better than putting it into Social Security. It’s BS, but it’s a harder BS to fight. In contrast, cuts are just obviously bad in a way everyone can easily see.

  24. 24.

    Dan B

    @Uncle Cosmo:  They may try a “voluntary” individual investment plan to further hobble Social Security’s funding.  It would also make Wall Street very happy.

  26. 26.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Uncle Cosmo: 

    What their Oligarch Overlords really want is to get their filthy paws on the trust funds

    Instead of an underpaid bureaucrat moving bits in a computer from one account to another, they want $10 million dollar salaries, plus bonuses, plus perks, all to manage my money.

  27. 27.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Funny how Biden is using the exact same messaging that I’ve been assured only shows how Dems don’t understand messaging!!1!

  29. 29.

    Amir Khalid

    @Roger Moore:

    Privatisation came into vogue in the 1980s; the idea was that it would make public agencies more efficient. All it really did was turn them into business corporations, which are not necessarily more efficient, and certainly more interested in profits than in serving the public.

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    Maybe if you don’t want to be accused of wiping out social security, you should stop doubling down on your plan to wipe out social security?

    I don’t understand why the GOP thinks that they can make Social Security cuts a winning issue? But I am glad to see them trying. It gives the Democrats a stick to beat them over the head with.

  32. 32.

    japa21

    There is a lot more truth to what Biden and the Dems are saying than there ever was in what the GOP said about Dems. GOP will grab onto one line said by a low level Dem (like dog catcher) and use it as a bludgeon. Such as Defund the Police, or CRT, etc. They have no receipts. Biden has plenty.

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Roger Moore:

    Privatization is an easier sell for the Republicans in a lot of ways. They can argue that the stock market on average gets better returns, so letting people invest their money themselves is better than putting it into Social Security. It’s BS, but it’s a harder BS to fight.

    Wasn’t that precisely what Bush II, the forgotten disaster, tried to do with his political capital in ’05? He got his ass handed to him.

  34. 34.

    Ohio Mom

    @dmsilev: Scalise might have been thinking about disabled people on SSI or SSDI. Not that that makes his comment any more coherent.

    Some disabled people on SSI or SSDI do in fact work. To oversimply (because these programs are complicated), you are allowed to work part-time and still collect benefits, and you will still be poor.

    It doesn’t take too much of a paycheck to no longer qualify for benefits which sounds fine but if your job doesn’t come with health coverage, well, Medicaid (and possibly Medicare) are part of the benefits you just lost. And being disabled, there is a good chance you have ongoing medical needs and can’t be without coverage.

    Many others on either SSI or SSDI are not employed because they are too disabled to work (duh)  or the workplace won’t accommodate them.

    The more you know about these things (and I know a little as the mother of a disabled and sporadically employed young adult who receives Social Security benefits), the more uninformed, ignorant and mean-spirited you see Scalise is.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    In connection with the President’s State of the Union address on February 2, 2005, the White House released some specifics of the president’s plan for privatization accounts:

    Bush Would Create Private Accounts. Starting in 2011, all workers could divert a third of their payroll tax, or 4 percent of their earnings, up to $1,000 per year, into a privatization account.
    “Clawback” Would Eat Into Any Gains In Accounts. Upon retirement, workers would be subject to a “clawback” and would have to repay the money diverted into private accounts, plus interest, plus inflation, through automatic reductions of their guaranteed benefits. The total interest rate would be 3 percent above inflation annually. Unless the amount in their accounts grew by more than 3 percent plus inflation, the “clawback” would take away all (or more than all) of the value of the account.
    Private Accounts Would Force Trillions in New Borrowing. Under Bush’s plan, money that was earmarked to pay current beneficiaries would no longer be available, requiring the government to borrow trillions of dollars to allow Social Security to pay for promised benefits. Without this borrowing, benefit cuts to current retirees would have to be made.
    Bush’s Plan Would Worsen Social Security’s Financial Outlook. Accounts could be passed on in the event of a worker’s death or split in the case of divorce. In those cases, Social Security benefits would not be automatically reduced to recoup the money diverted away from Social Security, presenting a net loss.
    Investment Choices Would Be Limited. Workers could invest in five index funds, but it is unclear who would decide upon these choices or how the options would be determined. At higher ages, investments would be allocated to lifecycle funds that reduce the share of stocks with age, unless workers opt out of those funds. Upon retirement, workers would be forced to convert enough of their accounts into lifetime annuities to have a benefit equal to at least the poverty line.

  36. 36.

    Anotherlurker

    Sometimes my mind wanders to from the real to the ideal.

    Today’s fantasy is, in addition to the lifting of the cap on income subject to Social Security contributions, I would like to see the tax on social security benefits shitcanned.  Lets get rid of one of Regan’s most egregious attacks on the middle class in favor of the tax cuts for fucking rich.

    I know, I want a Unicorn too!

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    I don’t see why we should forget about “cuts”. Privatization is an easier sell for the Republicans in a lot of ways. They can argue that the stock market on average gets better returns, so letting people invest their money themselves is better than putting it into Social Security.

    But people CAN invest their money into IRAs, 401K plans and other retirement plans. It is not either/or. It’s both/and.

    Social Security was not meant to provide all of a person’s retirement income, but to be a guarantee and a supplement.

    And some of the recently passed legislation recognizes that some people live in  different world.

    In one world, people worry about having enough to live on when they retire.

    In another world, people have so much money, they want to delay having to take the required minimum  distribution of retirement income until after they reach age 72, for now, and age 75 in the future.

    And they have so much retirement income that they want to be able to give up to $100,000 to charity and take a deduction.

    Others have so much retirement income to go along with their other wealth, that they just want to leave it all to their children, since they can’t take it with them.

    The only reason the GOP want to go after Social Security is naked greed. They want everything and will leave people with nothing.

  38. 38.

    kindness

    It’s both funny and sad that Republicans keep insisting Biden & Democrats stop pointing out what Republicans repeatedly say they want which is to cut Social Security & Medicare.

  39. 39.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Roger Moore:

    They can argue that the stock market on average gets better returns, so letting people invest their money themselves is better than putting it into Social Security.

    They also argued that 401K’s would be better than pensions. Better for whom? Employers and fund managers.

    Everything they propose puts the onus on workers. Despite gobs of evidence that most of current inflation was a result of supply chain issues and rent seeking, it’s employment and wages that must be curbed.

  40. 40.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator: ​
     

    I don’t understand why the GOP thinks that they can make Social Security cuts a winning issue?

    I think this is more about how it plays with their oligarch masters than it is with how it will play with the average voter. If they can give the oligarchs a big enough win, that’s what really matters to them.

  41. 41.

    Scout211

    @Brachiator: I don’t understand why the GOP thinks that they can make Social Security cuts a winning issue?

    It does seem counter-intuitive since their political advisors have probably polled likely voters and know that it is a losing issue with voters . But with big donors, it’s popular, so they try to walk the line between promising the monied class there will be cuts and telling the voters that the GOP will not cut Social Security and Medicare.

    Same old song and dance. But the big difference is that Biden is using his bully pulpit like the pro that he is.  And he is believable, because, well, he’s Joe Biden.

  43. 43.

    cmorenc

    @Ohio Mom:

    Some disabled people on SSI or SSDI do in fact work. To oversimply (because these programs are complicated), you are allowed to work part-time and still collect benefits, and you will still be poor.

    My brother, who has a severe case of bipolar disorder, is a good example of this: he can function just barely well enough to supplement his $1,200/mo SSDI with two 6-hour shifts per week bagging groceries at a supermarket.  But without SSDI, he’d quickly become one of the many mentally ill people who are living on the street, homeless and derelict.  Without the two 6-hr gigs bagging groceries, he wouldn’t have enough $ on top of SSDI to eat without going hungry the last two weeks of every month.  His mental illness is the reason he couldn’t hold down a full-time job without unraveling.

  47. 47.

    Roger Moore

    @Sure Lurkalot: ​

    They also argued that 401K’s would be better than pensions. Better for whom? Employers and fund managers.

    Personal retirement accounts have some real advantages over traditional pensions, the biggest of which is that they’re portable. Traditional pensions typically required people to work for the same employer for something like 20 years to get benefits, which just doesn’t describe many modern careers. Letting people put money into an account they can take with them when they change jobs is a real advantage.

    Personal retirement accounts are also protected against various kinds of corporate malfeasance. Two classic causes of pensions failing are companies underfunding the pension because they made unrealistic assumptions about the pension fund’s future returns and corporate raiders looting the pension fund if it’s adequately funded. Personal retirement accounts are protected against both of those because the funds are given immediately and become the property of the employee and thus out of the reach of people trying to steal the whole fund.​

    ETA: That doesn’t mean retirements accounts are the perfect solution. We should have done more to prevent the kinds of corporate malfeasance I mentioned. It’s just that in the world we actually live in, where pension funds actually are underfunded or stripped for assets, not depending on the continued health of your former employer is probably a good strategy.

  49. 49.

    Cameron

    All you woke lefties with your Critical Age Theory – you just want to take your “Social Security” and RAM IT DOWN OUR THROATS!!!!!

  50. 50.

    Jeffro

    @misterpuff:The GOP won’t let us sunset tax cuts but want to put Social Security to a vote every year.

    THIS

    “So…why, exactly, would y’all want something as fundamental as Social Security put to a vote every year, Rep/Sen/GOP presidential candidate?”

    They know this will kill them with one of their last reliable blocs of voters and after that…the abyss.

  51. 51.

    gene108

    He sought to expand Medicare benefits for dental, vision and hearing services, but that effort was blocked by a few centrists, mainly Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va…

    And the entirety of Republicans in Congress.

  55. 55.

    Brachiator

    A little bit more.

    The proportion of people age 65 and older is going to increase. Higher taxes, and more younger immigrants, will be necessary to take care of everybody.

    In 2020, about 16.9 percent of the American population was 65 years old or over; a figure which is expected to reach 22 percent by 2050. This is a significant increase from 1950, when only eight percent of the population was 65 or over.

    Also, people are living longer, but the increase is not yet as great as just the sheer number of people making it to age 65.

  56. 56.

    Mike in NC

    Getting rid of Medicare and Social Security has been on Page 1 of the Republican playbook since about 1950. For them to change their tune now is unpossible!

    About Rick Scott: has any other state besides Floriduh taken a really shitty governor and then sent him straight to the US Senate, where he could continue to do shitty things?

  58. 58.

    Kent

    @Roger Moore:Personal retirement accounts have some real advantages over traditional pensions, the biggest of which is that they’re portable. Traditional pensions typically required people to work for the same employer for something like 20 years to get benefits, which just doesn’t describe many modern careers. Letting people put money into an account they can take with them when they change jobs is a real advantage.

    Personal retirement accounts are arguably better than PRIVATE pensions and EMPLOYER-BASED pensions in this day and age when people move from job to job.  But they are not better that Social Security which is 100% portable.

    Myself, for example, I worked for 11 years for the Federal government from ages 30-41 and then 9 years as a teacher in Texas from ages 42-51.  Both jobs earned me small pensions which will be way too fucking small because they will be based on my 3 highest earning years which will be 1999-2002 for the Federal job and 2012-2015 for the Texas teaching job.  So I am locked into small pensions based on the wages and cost of living of 20 years ago when I finally retire.  Whereas had they put say $10K into a 401K for me each year all those years ago I would have come out way ahead.  As it is, I did a TSP and 401k on the side because I knew what was coming.  But that was entirely my own money.

    But social security works for all my jobs and so it is fine and 100% portable except for the Texas teaching job because Texas is too cheap to pay into social security for its teachers so I get screwed there.

    The problem is that pension programs like the teacher’s pension in Texas have a legacy problem in that they need current teacher’s contributions to pay for all the current retirees.  So it would take a massive cash infusion to switch to anything else.

  59. 59.

    FastEdD

    What seems like a long time ago here in CA, we had Prop. 13 which froze property taxes to when you bought the property. It was sold as “Don’t kick Granny out of her house with these huge tax increases.” Even though I was a substitute teacher struggling to pay the rent and those taxes were the source of my pay, I had to admit there was a grain of truth in it. (The truly unfair part is that it froze property taxes on commercial property too.) Nobody wanted to see granny thrown out on the street. Where I’m going with this is, can you imagine the hew and cry when you take away Social Security from millions of seniors at the same time? Also, too, I know that was a long time ago and the parties have changed, but I’ve never heard anybody mention that Democrats CREATED Medicare and SS. I’d take credit for that!

  61. 61.

    Kent

    @Mike in NC:About Rick Scott: has any other state besides Floriduh taken a really shitty governor and then sent him straight to the US Senate, where he could continue to do shitty things?

    Joe Manchin was governor of West Virginia before he became Senator.  Doe he count?  Also Evan Bayh if you want to go back further.

  63. 63.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    So if government programs sunset every year, how are people meant to plan for, well, anything?

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    How many years will it be before everyone is over 65?

    Ha! Probably won’t happen. But Japan is an interesting case.

    Japan has by far the highest senior population ratio in the world, with 29.1% of its people over 65 years old. Population estimates compiled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications indicate that as of September 15, 2022, the total population of Japan fell by 820,000 over the previous year.

    And Japan refuses to increase immigration by any significant number.

  65. 65.

    Kent

    @Brachiator:I don’t understand why the GOP thinks that they can make Social Security cuts a winning issue? But I am glad to see them trying. It gives the Democrats a stick to beat them over the head with.

    Because they live in a bubble where they only actually speak to rich people and business lobbyists at fundraisers and don’t do town halls or talk to their constituents.

  66. 66.

    rikyrah

    With my entire chest…

    The Democrats need to just hand out the printing contract. At every meeting with the public, the Democrats need to physically hand out Scott’s plan. And, expand it to also have the quotes of numerous Republicans who are already on the record about the American Social Safety Net.

    At every meeting… For Every Democrat… On any political level…Not just the President

  68. 68.

    cckids

    @Ohio Mom:

    The more you know about these things (and I know a little as the mother of a disabled and sporadically employed young adult who receives Social Security benefits), the more uninformed, ignorant and mean-spirited you see Scalise is.

    Yes, indeed. My son was also on SSI, and was never going to be employable. And if you’ve ever gone through the process of getting onto Soc. Sec. disability, it is laughable that there are large numbers of people who “don’t deserve it” drawing checks. It is a long, meticulously detailed process requiring LOTS of proof that the person cannot work at ANY job. Many, many people who SHOULD qualify have been turned down repeatedly.

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    One more thing.

    Republicans try to conflate Social Security with other social programs and create the Big Lie of Democrats giving “free money” to people who don’t want to work.

    Republicans opposed the stimulus payments because this was “free money.” Republicans opposed enhanced unemployment because it made people lazy and they didn’t have to take jobs offered.

    Remember. Republicans oppose free money because it makes people lazy.

    The Alaska Fund Dividend from oil revenues for 2022 was $3284 for Alaska residents.

    Free money.

  73. 73.

    Ohio Mom

    @cmorenc: Ohio Son only recently made the transition from SSI to SSDI. I am still getting my sea legs as far as learning the rules of SSDI but I know enough at this stage to understand that your brother’s situation is (sadly) a great illustration of what I was trying to convey.

    Is you brother eligible for an ABLE account? That might give him some leeway — if family members are able to give him money, the ABLE account would shelter the money without jeopardizing his SSDI eligibility. The cut off age is currently 26 but if his diagnosis wasn’t made until after that, in a few years the age cutoff will be raised to 46.

  75. 75.

    David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch

    Democrats make football great again.

    Super Bowl ratings up 13% since Biden became president.

    Yesterday match, featuring two black quarterbacks for the first time ever, was the 3rd most watched broadcast in history. The two highest broadcasts were Super Bowls during Obama’s 2nd term.​

  77. 77.

    RSA

    @Ohio Mom:  The more you know about these things (and I know a little as the mother of a disabled and sporadically employed young adult who receives Social Security benefits), the more uninformed, ignorant and mean-spirited you see Scalise is.

    I know only a little. In addition to the holes in the SSDI safety net that you’ve mentioned, it’s also notoriously difficult to get into the system. You hire a lawyer, if you can afford one, and you wait a few months for your application to be processed. You get rejected—only about 20% of initial claims are granted.  You collect more information and appeal, but again you’re likely to get rejected.  More than 60% of SSDI applications are denied. All for a monthly benefit that averages about $1200.

    It’s shameful how poorly our society treats the less fortunate.

  80. 80.

    CarolPW

    @Ohio Mom: I am absolutely in awe about not only what you do for Ohio Son, but the accurate help you always offer to others in related circumstances in an evil bureaucracy. I would kiss your feet because you are a disability mother goddess except when I see anyone else I always have a mask on.

  83. 83.

    Gvg

    @Brachiator: They have been saying this my whole life and using it as a scare reason that social security is doomed so we should go ahead and phase it out now or whatever or not count on it or raise the retirement age (they did that) or tax it, (they did that) and what they are doing is conditioning some of the population to not expect it to last and not fight hard enough to keep it. That apparently also means too many of the young currently have bought this bull.

    Someone, us, I guess, needs to go out and warn our young relatives and acquaintances that this has been a line for decades and it really doesn’t matter. There have been numerous supposed crisis’ that had a bunch of hair on fire news, then some legislation gets passed, mostly really minor and SS goes on. Right now we have too many stubborn flakey republicans so elect more democrats and tell the losers to their faces this is a reason why.

    lower the retirement age back down to what it should be, have no limit on SS withdrawal, cancel the tax on it, tax all income and end a bunch of exclusions of certain kinds of workers, which were meant to be racist back in the day but have also hurt plenty of white people and just make for loopholes. Eliminating the limit on how much income gets taxed would probably fund everything. Because we have let those CEO and high management inflate their wages way out of line.

  84. 84.

    Ohio Mom

    @RSA: Yes, SSDI for workers is very difficult to qualify for. For one thing, you must have paid into Social Security for 40 quarters (10 years worth). If you are a 40 year old roofer who fell off the roof and can no longer work as a result, yeah, you probably have enough quarters.

    But if you are significantly younger and have only been only paying into Social Security for say, six years? You don’t qualify (I don’t know what these people do.)

    Another catch is, you are not eligible for Medicare until you have been on SSDI for two years. I guess worker’s comp is supposed to cover you until then? You were disabled on the job, you surely have big doctors’ bills.

    Anyway, that’s the best case scenario, as you point out, the majority of applicants are rejected and have to appeal (and appeals often fail too). Though I understand that people with terminal illnesses can be fast-tracked (If they have 40 quarters).

    Now because he has a developmental disability (autism), Ohio Son was eligible for SSI starting at age 18 and a month. That comes with Medicaid.

    When a parent starts collecting Social Security Retirement benefits, a person with a developmental disability who has been receiving SSI is transferred to SSDI, pretty much without question (at least in Son’s case). That person’s SSDI benefit is based on half of the (better paid) parent’s retirement benefits. So if your dad was ditch digger, you get the minimum, if he was a brain surgeon, you get the maximum.

    I am very fortunate that our county board of Developmental Disability has a department of fabulous benefits advisors. I’d be lost without them.

  86. 86.

    raven

    @RSA: When I broke my back in a car wreck in 1975 I was not hurt badly enough for SSDI and I was hurt too badly for unemployment because I couldn’t look for work!

  87. 87.

    Ohio Mom

    @Gvg: Add this to your excellent list: reinstate orphan’s benefits for college students.

    It used to be that if your parent died, you were eligible for orphan’s benefits until you graduated high school, if that was the end of your education, or undergraduate college (I had a college roommate whose dad had died and she got orphan’s benefits. She was envious of anyone who took a year off because she couldn’t, that would end her benefit).

    Reagan changed that, now all orphan benefits end at high school graduation. As if paying for college isn’t hard enough.

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Washington — The pro-Trump rioter who marched through the halls of Congress while wielding a Confederate flag on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to 36 months behind bars on Thursday, more than two years after photos of him became some of the most widely recognized images of the attack on the Capitol.

    Kevin Seefried, 53, was convicted in June 2022 after a bench trial before Judge Trevor McFadden of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who found him of multiple charges, including obstructing Congress, entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct and unlawful parading.

  93. 93.

    Ken

    @Qrop Non Sequitur: So if government programs sunset every year, how are people meant to plan for, well, anything?

    Not just programs, all legislation. Hopefully they’ll get most of them back in place promptly, so that we don’t get “The Purge” as reality.

  95. 95.

    danielx

    @Frank Wilhoit: ​
     The Social Security trust fund, including all those IOUs from the Treasury Department, is the single largest pool of finds in this country remaining unlooted by Wall Street vampires. They’ve been salivating over the prospect for decades.

  97. 97.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    very bizarre to see a group made up mostly of ex-Republican operatives and ad-makers suddenly defending the safety net, but hey, it’s a hard fight and allies are welcome

    The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln 5h
    We know the GOP wants to make cuts to Social Security & Medicare. GOP leaders blast it as a lie. Here’s receipts.

  98. 98.

    RaflW

    To Mike Rounds, I just want to say “Up yours you, you utter dingleberry. Working people pay into Social Security and Medicare year after year, decade after decade. We’re banking on the promise that the money we hand over will come back for the length of our retirement (or disability).
    You cannot possibly be serious that we pay taxes for 40 years, and you get to dangle the return on investment in one year little spasms/hostage situations. Fuck all the way off with that nonsense.”

  100. 100.

    Ocotillo

    There should be more personal attacks on Scott about how he stole from Medicare back in the day as well.

  102. 102.

    Ruckus

    @Dan B:

    I’m 73, retired about 1 1/2 yrs ago, and I’m not working anymore. I’ve put in way too many years already, I paid in to SS for nearly 6 decades, it’s my money. I’m getting it back like I was told I would eons ago.

    We need to keep banging them over the head with this asinine concept of fucking over every senior citizen who’s done the same as me, no matter their party affiliation, that these clowns want to screw them out of the money we put into SS all these decades so we could retire in shitty style rather than starve to death.

  103. 103.

    Redshift

    @FastEdD:

    Where I’m going with this is, can you imagine the hew and cry when you take away Social Security from millions of seniors at the same time?

    I feel like they’ve gotten substantially worse at talking about this stuff, maybe partly because they spend all their time in an information bubble where everyone agrees with them, and partly because the same things has happened to “intellectual” conservatives.

    They used to be smart enough to make clear nothing would change for current seniors and those near retirement, to defuse at least some of the third rail. Now they just say the quiet part out loud about everything.

  105. 105.

    RaflW

    @Bostondreams: Wow. This just seems like a guy who has gotten way too wrapped up in his own pinched orbit.

    Maybe I’m wrong, or things have changed a lot since I was a kid in a heavily Republican, upper middle class suburb (TX rather than FL, but they seem to have similarities in politics, lib-owning, and revanchism), but many of the college-bound students with said Republican upper middle class parents were APing and placement testing aplenty.

    And even if I get the electoral politics of this issue wrong, what an absolutely bananas and toxic thing to do to an already at-risk education system in Florida.

    It sounds like the College Board letter from a day or two ago really, really got under Ron’s brittle skin and all he can see is retribution, not consequences to him or ‘his’ state.

  107. 107.

    Shalimar

    @Anne Laurie: thank you for the great summary of the current situation.  It is much appreciated wherever you get it from.  I am sure when an alternative to Twitter becomes viable for gathering these links, you will be the first to notice.

  108. 108.

    mrmoshpotato

    “Of course we don’t want to get rid of Social Security — we just want it on the chopping block every single year, so if we ever get total power again we can show you just how much we don’t want to get rid of it!”

    Assholes.

  112. 112.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    I guess my question really is what do the rethuglicans expect to get out of ending SS?

    How do they expect to have any support when their conservative supporters find out that they got fucked right along with all the liberals that collect SS? Or people who are 70 yrs old or younger and have paid into SS their entire lives? Where does all that money go?

    I say we have to get the word out because most of the people I know live on SS or other benefits of the Social Security system even if they have a pension and if I’ve been making deposits out of my paychecks since the first one I’ve gotten, and I have, so has everyone else my age or younger.

  115. 115.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ruckus: I think it’s part of why they need to have the Dems take the blame for it.  Then they can turn to everybody who gets shafted and say “y’see!  They’re out to screw you!  Government doesn’t work!  We need to free people to rely on themselves!  It’s those people who screwed you!  Put us in power, and we’ll make ’em pay!”

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @Roger Moore:

    THIS.

    It should be obvious that most if not all rethuglican politicians care only about their bank accounts and fucking over everyone beneath them on whatever pecking order pole they think they have stuffed up their asses.

  119. 119.

    danielx

    “How unfair and unsporting of you to point out that we’re a bunch of lying shitweasels by quoting our own words!

    Dear me, I can tell it’s prime pearl clutching time for the Villager, time to – dare I say it? – to view with alarm!

  120. 120.

    RaflW

    @Brachiator: I know that average life expectancy and what ripe old age any one of us manages to pull off are apples-oranges, but in aggregate, the US is a basket case compared to out putative peers.

    Why Life Expectancy Keeps Dropping in the U.S. as Other Countries Bounce Back
    COVID cut average life spans short in many high-income countries, but the U.S. decline has been steeper and longer than most – Scientific American

  122. 122.

    Another Scott

    @Ohio Mom: +1

    These benefits are too hard to get, and too easy to lose, as it is.  But all of that is by design.  My autistic brother likes working, but will lose his benefits if he works more than about 8 hours a week.  It’s insane.

    As usual, the GQP takes a small problem (a few undeserving individuals intentionally cheating) and uses it as a cudgel to bash a necessary safety-net and earned benefit program that is uncontroversial in modern society, while supporting massive waste and fraud by those who effectively steal from the public purse for their own enrichment.  (c.f. Rick Scott).

    The problem with America isn’t that the poor have too much money…

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  125. 125.

    Tony G

    The Republican Party has wanted to destroy Social Security since 1935, and has wanted to destroy Medicare since 1965 — (along with wanting to destroy all other government programs that prevent people from falling into poverty).  That has been their real agenda at least since FDR became president almost 90 years ago.  Everything else — abortion, gays and transgender people, “gun rights” the recent hysteria about “Critical Race Theory”, etc. — are just shiny objects to distract their stupid voters from the fact that they want to make the rich richer and everyone else poorer.

  126. 126.

    randy khan

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    The last time they tried the privatization idea, it did not go well for them.  I don’t really expect it would go any better today, particularly the way the stock market has been going the last year plus.

  127. 127.

    Another Scott

    @Jeffro: Plus, they refuse to pass a budget on time every year.  What makes them think we believe that they would actually vote on time to prevent a popular program from sunsetting??

    “I’m sorry, Old Widow Constituent, I support extending Medicare and Social Security, but my good friend, the Senator from Arkansas, would not let us hold a vote until the Demonrats agreed to his demand to fire the head of NORAD because of the Jyna Balloon Invasion.  And they won’t do that.

    “So, it’s the Demonrats’ fault.

    “Please send me a campaign donation.  God Bless America!”

    :-/

    It’s all performative nonsense with these monsters.  They never tell the truth about anything.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  129. 129.

    RaflW

    @randy khan: Plenty of people will remember* the sickening feeling they got looking at their 401(k) and IRA statements in late 2008, as often one third of their nest egg vanished.

    Younger(ish) people like me who kept our jobs could just work through it, and – dare I say it – probably dollar-cost-average bought some cheap stocks in the aftermath.

    But people close to retirement suddenly recalibrated. And people already retired were often kinda screwed.

    2008 is starting to feel like a long time ago in our foreshortened, news-cycle driven lives. But it’s not that long ago for a lot of motivated voters.

     

    *And, of course, Democrats and interest groups should be doing some reminding of that sickening feeling, if the GOP does dare start talking openly about privatization.

  130. 130.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RaflW: a lot of people talking about their 401Ks the last few months, too, even though the fall-off has been far less dramatic

  134. 134.

    Ruckus

    I may have to walk away for a bit and what, watch cartoons on TV or something.

    This almost 1/4 of a century has been my worst out of the almost 3/4 of a century that I’ve lived.

    Rethuglicans have gotten worse and worse and how the fuck do they keep getting even worse? Shit For Brains was president? What the ever loving fuck? How is it that we have arrived where we are, that complete and utter rethuglican liars get elected to the house, where there are more billionaires in this country than ever before, even shit for brains is a billionaire – sort of, maybe, but still how did we get where our politicians are actively fucking us over or at least attempting to and do it thinking it is the best outcome for the country? Or are they just so fucking selfish that their only concern is selfish monetary enhancement so billionaires can become much richer? We really, really, really need a magic mirror that shows us how bad it is, because we can absolutely not depend on the press to do anything other than pad their own pockets and play to the billionaires, after all they are the ones doing it right and becoming Scrooge McDuckies.

  137. 137.

    Dan B

    @Ruckus: I’m also 73 with almost 6 decades of paying in. I’ve got a very small savings. SS is my income. Fortunately I managed to buy a house 8n the Boeing bust and downsize when the neighborhood got very desirable. Bought in a lower middle class 10% white neighborhood at the beginning of the recession. Now houses are selling for $900,000, three times what I paid for my house. I own the house free and clear. That’s security which is amazing since I was kicked out of college.

  138. 138.

    Cameron

    @Ocotillo: I wasn’t here back then, but I believe that was actually pretty well known when he was elected governor.  The real Floridians here would know the score.

  140. 140.

    randy khan

    I am both impressed and amused by this.  The Republicans, thinking they would have great leverage and that there was nothing Biden could do about it, practically bragged that they were finally going to get a chance to “fix” Social Security and Medicare.  They never considered that the Dems would have a game plan, even though that plan was as obvious as it could be and they’d already seen the Dems doing the same thing on abortion.  (In fairness, they probably were drinking their own Kool Aid and thought that their fake polls reflected what was going to happen in November.)

  142. 142.

    Ken

    @randy khan: Dems would have a game plan, even though that plan was as obvious as it could be

    I worry, though, that the Democrats might lose their edge. Surely at some point “just keep quoting the Republicans” will stop working.

  143. 143.

    P Thomas

    All that sweet, sweet money in the SSA Trust Fund.

    All that sweet, sweet money going to fund schools.

    It is always true: Follow the Money.  They want it.

  144. 144.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    How is it that we have arrived where we are, that complete and utter rethuglican liars get elected to the house, where there are more billionaires in this country than ever before, even shit for brains is a billionaire – sort of, maybe, but still how did we get where our politicians are actively fucking us over or at least attempting to and do it thinking it is the best outcome for the country?

    Republicans here are trying to keep up with the Tories in the UK. The Conservative government has been fighting cost of living increases for nurses and various public sector workers, but will be giving themselves a pay increase effective in March or April. The Tories are also working hard to undermine the National Health Service. And the icing on the cake is that BREXIT promises continuing decline in the GDP. Still, a good chunk of the British public continue to support BREXIT because they want to keep foreigners out.

  145. 145.

    Ruckus

    @Dan B:

    Seems you might be better off than me. I live in a seniors apt complex run under a federal program that subsidizes the rent. It’s actually pretty nice place to live, lots of nice folks to talk to. I can live off my SS income reasonably comfortably. I use the VA for my healthcare and now that I’m retired, it’s extremely reasonable cost wise. My point is that because I have a modicum of an idea how to exist in a world that would just as soon that I kicked off tomorrow and dane to take up any more oxygen in their high falutin, steal everything not tied down world I’m going to last as long as I can and be a pain their snooty asses. I suggest that we all do this and maybe, just maybe, we can make this a better world.

    Don’t forget not to hold your breath.

  146. 146.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah:

    L. Louise Lucas @SenLouiseLucas 1h
    Today the AG’s Team came to the General Assembly and announced that he wants search warrants to access women’s menstrual health data.
    What women want is for Jason Miyares to keep his hands off our uteruses and keep our menstrual health data private as it ought to be.

  148. 148.

    piratedan

    well, I await Poptarticus mining all of the other social media platforms to share with us takes on how the GOP is looking to fuck over everyone who ever paid into Social Security.

    I am worried that despite it all, the GOP may STILL do their damndest to wreck Social Security and MediCare, after all; they took out Abortion despite public sentiment and they’re doubling down on that in State Houses across the country.

    These fuckers are going after it ALL and they don’t seem to be worries about public sentiment.

  149. 149.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Tony G:

    Everything else — abortion, gays and transgender people, “gun rights” the recent hysteria about “Critical Race Theory”, etc. — are just shiny objects to distract their stupid voters from the fact that they want to make the rich richer and everyone else poorer.

    With all due respect, Republican can multi-task and they genuinely hate gays, trans people, n-clangs! etc.

  150. 150.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah: Youngkin campaigned as a reasonable moderate with a nice persona. There were warnings from Democrats that he was not, and voila! He’s right out of Gilead, headship and all.

  151. 151.

    Chetan Murthy

    @rikyrah: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I remember when Fleece-vest Nazi was running for gov, and he was quoted saying that he couldn’t openly advocate for anti-abortion laws at the moment, but once he got in ….. It was the moment when I really despaired for our country, when I thought “women aren’t even going to fight back against this, against this, even against this!”

    Thankfully, I was wrong.   Roe and abortion are a red line.  Thankfully.

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    We will never win over everyone but maybe, just maybe if we expose them for the deranged, stupid, jack offs that they are and that they want to know things they have less than zero right to know, and want all the money for their worse than useless selves, we might just make this thing actually work.

  153. 153.

    Gvg

    @Ken: including murder? Scott might want to reconsider that one. I realize that sounds like a threat, but he is proposing the apocalypse to a lot of peoples lives as if it is nothing. I think a mob would kill them as soon as the result sunk in. They really don’t comprehend how….big their spite bombs would be. It also boggles me that the finance people don’t seem to understand economics either. As in destroy the system that they are wealthy and powerful in so that something new and surprising can replace them red of tooth and nail. We have to stop them before it happens.

  155. 155.

    Peke Daddy

    The 5th. Circuit is preparing to declare permanently funded programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid unconstitutional, requiring Congress to pass regular, scheduled funding for these programs. The unelected super legislature will strike again.

  159. 159.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Good piece on how mainstreaming anti-trans rhetoric in the UK led to a 16-year trans girl being stabbed to death by two classmates in a busy public park — and then the press actively digging up her deadname and using it in articles. Brianna Ghey’s death was a tragedy waiting to happen.

    We know where dehumanising tactics take us, who uses them and has used them historically. It is used in war, such as the Russian rhetoric about Ukranians. When an “other” is no longer regarded as “human”, then it is easier to kill them or justify shelling civilian homes or facilities.

    Trans people experience this, too. We face journalists and politicians playing the game of getting the word “trans” and “paedophile” or “child-molester” in the same sentence to create an impression. WE see people suggesting that conclusions about all trans people can be drawn from exceptional (always exceptionally awful) trans people. The parallels with the treatment of gay people during the time of section 28 are stark – and hard to bear.

    Be in no doubt: if you indulge in these activities you are putting real people at risk. Trans people are not going away – and increasingly expect to take their rightful place in society.

  160. 160.

    Kelly

    My final employer’s 401K worked great for me but it was a exceptional program. They kicked in 12.5% of my gross whether I contributed or not. This was over twice the average employer contribution. I was vested in my previous job and was able to roll money from the previous job pension plan into the 401k so instead of small payments based on old wages it grew with the rest and is portable. Nothing typical about it.

    I have several friends that were screwed out of their potentially very comfortable Consolidated Freightways pensions by a “restructuring” that that split the company in 3 new companies. Oddly enough all the 50+ folks with fat pension possibilities into a doomed company that promptly went bankrupt leaving them with half pensions a decade later than promised. Completely legal.

  161. 161.

    Ohio Mom

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: IANAL, but don’t the authorities need to prove they think a crime has been committed before they can be issued search warrants?

    The pendulum can not swing hard enough or fast enough in the other direction.

  163. 163.

    randy khan

    @Ken:

    I worry, though, that the Democrats might lose their edge. Surely at some point “just keep quoting the Republicans” will stop working.

    I expect that it won’t work for everything.  But it does seem to work when the Democratic position has a lot of support and the Republican position basically has none.  One reason for that probably is that it’s good to say you support popular things.  And Republicans seem to have lost the ability not to say how much they hate things that most Americans like a lot.

  164. 164.

    James E Powell

    George W Bush was pushing “put your social security into the stock market” in 2000. I had tote-bagger friends who thought it was a great idea. Reminds me what a stupid asshole George W Bush is. If not for 9/11, he’d have had a terrible time as the second one term loser in his family. I hate that guy and everybody who voted for him.

  165. 165.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Sarah Michals @sarahamichals 1h
    Watching the. @wxyzdetroit facebook live stream at MSU and one of the students just ushered out of a campus building by police is wearing an Oxford Strong sweatshirt.
    So sad & twisted that some of these students may possibly be witnessing their second school shooting.

    Oxford, MI, was the site of a school shooting a little more than a year ago

  166. 166.

    Citizen Alan

    @Peke Daddy: This is my big fear. Thanks to the people who could not bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton, a 3rd of the federal Judiciary is now trump appointees. And the majority of them are federalist society members who genuinely don’t think we should have a federal government for anything except national defense and roads

  167. 167.

    Citizen Alan

    @James E Powell:

    The main reason I flirted with 911 conspiracy theories back in the day is because no political party has ever benefited from an absolute disaster that happened on their watch the way Bush and republicans benefited from 911.

  168. 168.

    Rudi666

    Something kinda uplifting for the open thread.

    https://www.tmj4.com/service-dog-honored-final-flight-home?dicbo=v2-4z8ufbr

    A Southwest Airlines flight in Texas had a very special guest this week: Kaya, a service dog who was taking her final flight.

    Kaya — a German shepherd who was recently diagnosed with an untreatable form of cancer — took the flight with her handler, Cole Lyle. Trained to help veterans with their mental health, 9-year-old Kaya inspired the PAWS Act, which led to the creation of a program that provides canine training for veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

  169. 169.

    mrmoshpotato

    MLive

    At least 5 shot at Michigan State University; suspect at large

    Updated: Feb. 13, 2023, 11:26 p.m.|Published: Feb. 13, 2023, 11:15 p.m.

  172. 172.

    RaflW

    @piratedan: “These fuckers are going after it ALL and they don’t seem to be worries about public sentiment.”

    That was their strategy going into the mid-terms, and while yes, they eked out a narrow House majority, it was the worst out-party mid-term in multiple decades.

    Their ignorance of how much of the electorate feels or believes isn’t a superpower. It’s a bubble and massive weakness.

  179. 179.

    J R in WV

    @Brachiator:

    In 2020, about 16.9 percent of the American population was 65 years old or over; a figure which is expected to reach 22 percent by 2050. This is a significant increase from 1950, when only eight percent of the population was 65 or over.

    And somehow, I don’t understand why, but I keep getting older, doomed to age every year, perhaps until I finally die of something.

    ;~)

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