Here’s the vote breakdown from the Deficit Commission:
Can anyone explain to me why Dick Durbin and Kent Conrad, both sitting members in the Senate, and Durbin with leadership aspirations, voted to attack social security?
The money party wins another round.
Calouste
Max Baucus and three Republicans (including Paul Ryan) on the No side suggests that the discussions in the commission weren’t only about whether cutting Social Security went too far. It rather suggests that discussion were more focussed on it not going far enough.
Corner Stone
I saw Conrad on MSNBC this morning. He was trumpeting the 60% vote they got in favor of these results.
Lots of people are going to poo these results but this fucking thing isn’t going away.
Hunter Gathers
Conrad, because he’s an asshole budget peacock.
Durbin, I have no fucking clue.
Time for the rest of us to pay for the sins of Brokaw’s rancid ‘Greatest Generation’ and the shitty Baby Boomers.
Midnight Marauder
@Corner Stone:
Much like John Cole’s posting for the rest of the day.
demkat620
I totally don’t get that Durbin vote.
WTF?
FlipYrWhig
I dunno, maybe lots of Democratic senators have idiosyncratic views that fuck up every attempt to formulate and promulgate a coherent political/rhetorical/”messaging” strategy? Or, you know, Obama done did it.
beltane
Kent Conrad is not a surprise, Dick Durbin is. But look how ideologically skewed this panel is; it’s like having the board of a child-care center staffed with NAMBLA members. If they gut social security, there really is no point in voting for anyone for president-they’re all going to screw you in the end.
Suck It Up!
And to think liberals wanted Dick Durbin to take Harry Reid’s place.
ha!
beltane
@Hunter Gathers: Don’t forget the “Silent Generation” of teabagger fame. They are way more at fault than the Boomers, who are not going to end up faring very well.
Dexter
All I see is “bipartisan” Yes and No votes. David Broder should be very happy.
FormerSwingVoter
(I posted this on another thread – re-posting it here because its relevant)
Hmmm…
I’ve been reading the final plan, and I’ve got a confession to make.
I… don’t think it’s terrible.
I mean, it’s got increased Social Security for low-wage retirees and older retirees who’ve likely outlived their savings, it applies the Social Security payroll tax to more high earners, and it taxes dividends and capital gains as standard income (which will, incidentally, close the carried-interest loophole). These all seem like good things to me.
It’s likely not worth passing the whole thing, but it’s not the festering pile of evil that I was expecting.
Midnight Marauder
Also too, here’s an op-ed Durbin wrote yesterday in the Chicago Tribune explaining his Yes vote:
Sentient Puddle
I think I heard the explanation for Durbin’s vote was something along the lines of the fact that the report was imperfect, but could be used as a starting point for more consideration on what to do to the deficit.
Which is also kind of stupid because that wasn’t the point of the commission in the first place, but then apparently Coburn was in the same boat, which makes me think that nobody on the commission really had any clue what the fuck they were supposed to be doing in the first place.
And yet because Serious People say this is a Serious Problem, the slow-motion clusterfuck will likely continue well into next year.
p mac
Pretty good demonstration of Julian Assange’s point on conspiracy.
Social security is held in treasury bonds paid for by a mandatory regressive payment fee. As such, they should be considered debt of the highest grade. Instead they are considered debt of the lowest grade. There’s no way that banks (or China) would accept this kind of repayment schedule. It’s just criminal to do it to seniors after 45 years of SS tax. just criminal.
I’d like to see the wikileaks for the minutes of those meetings. Right up there with Dick Cheney’s oil task force.
Omnes Omnibus
I don’t see 14 yes votes there.
Maybe Durbin has been drinking.
wengler
Hey labor unions get 1/18th of a voice in the US!
In Germany corporations are required to have 50 percent of their boards be made up of worker representation.
Also…Fuck you, Dick Durbin. I’d vote for Roland Burris over you.
General Stuck
Posturing, most likely. Whether misguided or not, at a perceived sense of public revolt over the old “liberal tax and spend” zombie Reagan meme.
One thing about a committee where a threshold of yea votes is needed, for it’s recommendations to become official, is that when those votes aren’t there, then the game is open for such pol posturing.
If you think Dick Durbin would sign on to something like this otherwise with the 14 needed votes, well, my bridges for sell all have rivers included.
FormerSwingVoter
It might be worth noting that this would result in a more-progressive tax code than current policy, assuming all Bush tax cuts are extended.
http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=2855&DocTypeID=2
S. cerevisiae
I think I’ll buy stock in Little Friskies.
Although with my budget maybe I should just stock up on Little Friskies.
Hunter Gathers
@beltane: Heard my fat assed, disability collecting neighbor the other going on about how the young should have SS taken away completely, for being race traitors.
I’m at the point where we should just let the whole fucking country burn, just to our asshole majority something else to bitch about.
J.W. Hamner
@Sentient Puddle:
That was the way I heard it too… that there were a couple of people (including Durbin) who didn’t totally support it but thought it should be sent to Congress where it would obviously change.
DanF
Durbin yes and and Baucus no? I think my head ‘sploded.
In truth – I think Baucus is a fairly staunch defender of Social Security. Could be wrong, but that’s my memory. I thought he played a significant roll in torpedoing Bush’s privatization scheme and helped prevent it from ever coming out of committee.
Bob Loblaw
@FlipYrWhig:
Actually, this time he actually did do it.
This stupid commission is 100% his baby. It had no reason to exist but for the administration’s complete unwillingness to deviate from its austerity script it wrote in 2007 and 2008 for the presidency. If you’re going to go around every day preaching the Serious evils of the deficit problem, you can’t be surprised when the Serious sheep that populate our halls of government go and do stupid shit because of it. Like go on the record in favor of 20% cuts to social security in a resolution that doesn’t even have a prayer of passing…
cyntax
I’m actually a bit more surprised that Baucus ended up on the right side of the issue. Not used to agreeing with him… and still at work so can’t apply alcohol to the problem.
BGinCHI
@Midnight Marauder: The op-ed was in today’s Trib.
Durbin praises what’s good in the report, and I think he’s right about that. It’s not all terrible.
The problem, though, and it’s a big one, is succumbing to the falsehood that we are starting from zero, right now, with no context or history about how we got this deficit.
The Commish is also poor cover for political courage, which the Dems don’t have. Of course the GOP is even worse: they want to grow deficits, blame the Dems, then do economically stupid things to get us out of them (or pretend to get us out of them).
Durbin’s biggest problem was to have been on this thing in the first place. With Simpson and Erskine Fucknut running it there was already doom in the water.
FormerSwingVoter
Seriously, though. Why do people hate this so much? The final version, not the silly leaked one.
It looks like they addressed a lot of the main issues: it keeps the child tax credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, mortgage tax deduction, health care and retirement tax deductions, establishes a minimum Social Security payment…
Please tell me what I’m missing so I can be properly outraged ;)
Pancake
These were hardly votes attacking Social Security; raising retirement ages at distant points in the future serves to help.. assure that the vast majority of retirees will be able to actually receive benefits.
Shinobi
I love Jan Schakowsky even though I cannot pronounce her name. It is nice to actually have my views represented.
Zifnab
Count’m up. 11 “Yes” and 3 Republican “No” with 14 being the magic number for “Hurray, the deficit panel succeeded”.
We’ve got a perfectly balanced board. Just enough to call the commission itself a failure but all the results desperately necessary to implement. :-p
Dick Durban can vote any damn way he chooses. This whole thing was a waste of time from the start and won’t influence anyone who wasn’t going to get steamrolled anyway.
Suffern ACE
My guess is that the Rs who voted against it voted against it because it raised taxes (by any amount) and the Ds because it cut benefits too sharply.
Whatever. I do have to say that if I am ever given a chance to vote on an amendment to abolish the Senate, I will do so. And will do so as often as I can…
Blue ribbon commissions and panels don’t have much power and are often filled with the nonesense that serious people dream up to pass their time, but this one really led nowhere.
JC
You know, I think we really need to start advocating strongly for this. Otherwise, all capitalist systems will simply create an us versus them buffer between the executives, and everyone else. And then those executives hire lobbyists to buy off the government, to put even more money in their pockets.
This is inevitable, given most versions of capitalism.
It’s one idea, to keep the great things about capitalism – great product driven stuff – while limiting the two class system (executives and everyone else.)
It also helps go away from authoritarianism – ‘executive as king’, that most of us live under, here in the US.
General Stuck
@BGinCHI:
I agree, it was a bad idea, but not catastrophic. In another month, no one will have heard of the Catfood Commission, nor care to know, with the new crazy over the horizon that will come from the House of Reps Catfood Commission, GOP edition. Though I am fairly certain, some of our brainiacs here on BJ will remind us of it’s cosmic importance, every single goddamn day.
JC
Also, the report does seem better than it was, when it was leaked earlier.
I’m skeptical, but what am I missing?
burnspbesq
@wengler:
Then you’re even dumber than I thought, which is nearly impossible.
Suck It Up!
@Corner Stone:
So will progressives stay in the conversation, try to pull the best stuff from the report and leave their imprint on legislation that may save this country? or will you all, once again, retreat and start looking for the mythical true progressive?
“don’t retreat, reload”
cyntax
@FormerSwingVoter:
For one thing, SS would be fine if you raise the income tax cap, no need to raise retirement age. People earning $400,000 pay the same SS tax as people earning $100,000.
But we all know that the richer you are the less you owe society.
beltane
@Hunter Gathers: Your idiot neighbor must think that SS refers to that other SS.
In England, the treacherous LibDems have had to keep postponing their meetings due to “security concerns” from the rapidly escalating student protests. In this country, we allow racism to make us passive and docile. When all is said and done, it will be the white supremacists who are responsible for our downfall, and they will be the ones sorely in need of a day of reckoning.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob Loblaw: Except that, as has already been established, this whole dumb panel was set up (1) so that conservative Democrats would stop balking at the big spending bills (2) carefully enough so that anything that managed to clear its procedural hurdles might actually be a good idea worth examining, insofar as to get the approval of 14 out of 18 members it would have to draw support from at least two from every bloc of 6: appointees by Pres., Congressional Dems, and Congressional Repubs.
Personally, I don’t care about The Deficit one iota. And I think that the vast majority of people who _say_ they care about it don’t understand what it even is, and they think it means something like “the bad economy” or “free stuff for Other People.”
I want no deficit commissions.
But if enough Democrats bleat about deficits, though, you might find yourself having to do something to shut them up.
Mary Jane
@beltane: Thank you. The fucking Boomer bashing is tiring. At 51 years old I’m a late one, but a Boomer nonetheless and for the most part, we’re not the ones who shat all over the 30somethings’ dreams. I still have kids at home whom I’d like to have somewhat of a future.
The Silent Generation, that’s another story. There’s my 70 year old teabagger mother who’s convinced having a godless, commie daughter is her life’s greatest trial. Or punishment for having sex at 17, whatever.
JC
Stuck, you are such an interesting commenter.
I agree a lot of what you say, and like your analysis, and memory is incredible, but you can’t help but always throwing in dickish smugness. Somewhat funny and loveable dickish smugness, but still, it’s there! :)
I would prefer to call you Captain Cheerful Smugness, rather than Captain Stuck.
But we can shorten that to Captain Smegma, perhaps? :)
Sentient Puddle
@FormerSwingVoter: The problem with this proposal (and pretty much every other released) is that the driving factor of the long-term deficit problem is health care. Any proposal that was actually serious about tackling the problem would devote the vast majority of its effort into controlling health care costs.
Health care reform did more to reduce the long-term deficit than any of the recent proposals would have ever accomplished.
FormerSwingVoter
@cyntax:
It does raise the payroll tax cap – from like $100k to $170k. I think that’s why the SS age doesn’t increase at all until 2050, and then it does by one year (another in 2075).
I guess my point is that I feel like people are still arguing against the insane version of the plan that was leaked weeks ago instead of the actual final version.
(Edit: Payroll tax cap, not income, my bad)
Mnemosyne
@Bob Loblaw:
Really? The Obama administration was in charge in 2007 and 2008?
I think you’re catching a bit of Conservative Temporal Disorder there. Maybe take a look at Obama’s inauguration date and try again.
DanF
@Pancake: Raising the retirement does nothing to assure me. It just means people with jobs that require physical labor have to work those jobs even longer until they can retire. I can do a desk job until I’m 75, but asking a janitor to clean toilet, or a trucker to keep driving until they are 68 or 69 is f-in’ crazy.
cyntax
@General Stuck:
No, not true. This is the opening gambit in mainstreaming the ideas in the report. This isn’t about next month, it’s about 2012 and beyond.
Hell, you’ve got Digby and Simpson in agreement on that point, so probably worth considering.
Mnemosyne
@FormerSwingVoter:
Because people think that the Simpson/Bowles PowerPoint presentation was the final version, and they haven’t bothered to look at the actual final proposal. Which is the kind of shit that happens when people decide that we’re DOOOMED! DOOOOOOMED! before we actually see the real report. I can’t tell you how many people I saw refer to the ACA as “the Max Baucus bill” even though virtually nothing that Baucus proposed was in it.
MoXmas
Durbin also said this morning on NPR something along the lines of, “better to have a progressive in the actual meeting as we move forward, making things less awful and representing that voice.”
Didn’t fully follow the language, but it appeared to be tat voting for it was about being able to continue influencing what it would actually be in the end, rather than no longer being part of the process.
Which might be logical with a sane Republican party, or logical enough anyway. Even Reagan and Tip O’Neill eventually got things done.
cyntax
@FormerSwingVoter:
Well 100K to 170K is something, but given how other taxes are structured relative to income, it’s a very small improvement. Why cap at anything under 250K?
Mnemosyne
@DanF:
I’m afraid you are incorrect:
Again, this is not the Simpson/Bowles PowerPoint presentation from a couple of weeks ago. This is a NEW REPORT that differs from that one in some major ways.
Can we at least talk about what’s in this report and not about what was in the PowerPoint presentation?
FlipYrWhig
@FormerSwingVoter:
Personally, I don’t see the purpose of even a good deficit reduction plan (if such an animal exists) when the deficit is the least of our worries. But I don’t see why it’s worth getting mad over. The whole thing is set up to placate deficit-hawk Democrats with cargo-cult rituals that mimic serious policymaking.
And for that matter my least favorite talking point about the continuation of upper-income tax cuts is that it “blows a hole in the deficit.” Fuck the deficit. Don’t worry about it. Climate change will come a-calling long before the deficit starts to matter.
beltane
@FormerSwingVoter:
The reason people are doing this is that all semblance of trust has been destroyed, with many of us now fearing that any degree of betrayal is now possible. This fear, combined with the dismal economy, is going to create a lot of paranoia among Democrats.
General Stuck
@JC:
Call me anything you like, even Ray. Been here 4 years, the early edition would have likely melted your ears. I’m all peaches and cream compared with back then.
You hear enough bullshit, over long enough period of time, often the same bullshit for the eleventy hundredth time, then a little or lot of smugness, becomes a trusted companion.
Mnemosyne
@cyntax:
That’s what I keep saying — if $250K is the new middle class, they need to act like it and pay their Social Security like the rest of us proles.
FormerSwingVoter
@cyntax:
Yeah, if I had my druthers I’d remove the cap entirely, to be honest with you.
Hunter Gathers
@beltane: Idiot isn’t a strong enough word for that tubby fuck. You gotta love it when a guy who is literally too fat to work any job, who lives off of a government ‘handout’, goes on and on and on about how minorities are destroying the country because, evidently, all they do is suck from the government teat. The hypocritical bullshit that comes out of his mouth is so strong it’s downright radioactive. I’m friends with his son, and thankfully the stupid wasn’t passed genetically. And according to his offspring, Daddy’s been too fat to work for going on 20 years. But remember, the darkies are what ails this country most of all.
Serenity now!
jwb
@Hunter Gathers: Yes, well, anyone who’s been paying any attention will realize that the boomers have managed to destroy pretty much every government program they have touched, and so those of us who have always had the government program we need be gutted just before we are eligible have figured that even Social Security and Medicare would likely only be shells of their former selves by the time the boomers got done with them.
Ash Can
Dick Durbin’s op-ed makes more sense than 90% of the comments in this thread, plus the original post, put together. Seriously, is it too much to ask to get all the facts before flying off the handle?
Dick Durbin has been a decent senator for years. When people start running around insisting that he’s turned into Boss Tweed overnight, I’m going to have my doubts.
Mnemosyne
@beltane:
Which, frankly, is what I think Simpson and Bowles were hoping for when they unveiled their PowerPoint presentation last week. Now the actual report from the actual commission is tainted with that piece of crap and people really think they’re the same proposal.
It always pisses me off to see Republicans succeed at freaking out Democrats, but I don’t know what to do about it at this point.
Tax Analyst
@DanF:
Well, according to Durbin there is an exception or exemption for manual laborers:
Per Durbin:
If this is true and written decently that would seem to address your issue here.
jwb
@beltane: Trust me, the boomers, at least those over 50, will be fine. They need the bulk of the boomers in order to have the numbers to make the generational warfare work: use the threat of losing Social Security and Medicare to turn the over 50s against the under 50s.
Jim C
@Shinobi:
Shuhh – cow – skee (accent on the first syllable, I suppose)
General Stuck
@cyntax:
In another month or two, the House wingnuts won’t be flogging catfood for granny to eat. They will be flogging grannies for cats to eat. imo.
Now you might say that this sets a sane bar compared to that, but when push comes to shove, democrats will not go along with gutting SS, the centerpiece of The New Deal, that defines them. Dems are wishy washy, until somebody does that. They and us, and the dem party in general, would commit mass pol suicide otherwise. This isn’t some deep analysis attempt on my part. It is dem politics 101. Though at some point, and the final version of this report isn’t near as draconian as the leaked one of Simpson and Bowles, some parts of it concerning SS will be up for tweaking, but to round up cash for Medicare, which was what this thing was really about anyways. again, imho.
The question now is whether using IMHO for every comment will satisfy concerns of my smug. smartass false persona.
A L
Hahaha remember when people on this blog were like, “This thing isn’t going anywhere, don’t worry about it.”?
Hi everyone, take a good look at that proposal. It now qualifies as the centrist position on what to do with social security. Now THAT is funny.
Bob Loblaw
@Mnemosyne:
The fact that you are so profoundly incapable of reading comprehension should chasten you, but clearly that’s out the window. Just get irrationally angry and call people conservatives instead, that makes you look amazing.
I said the Obama team wrote a script for their presidency during the time they were running for, you know, President. That’s why they hire transition teams and policy advisers…any of this ringing a bell?
Fiscal discipline and reform has always been a cornerstone of the Obama economic message. They have acted on that message many times in many ways while in office now. Not even a gigantic recession could dissuade them.
BGinCHI
@Sentient Puddle: Yep. Right as rain, and as pointed out on an earlier thread about this subject.
Until they face this, they won’t nick the deficit.
And here is where someone like Paul Ryan is especially called out for the moron he is: no desire to reform HC but all the desire to cut where it won’t do any good (including HC and SS).
Fuckwit.
Christin
@FormerSwingVoter:
————————————————-
Yup. Agreeed. Guess it ‘ s much for fun to scream CAT FOOD COMMISSIONS wer are ALL gonna DIE than address any reform at all. Blogs are turning into cable news. There is one that is a version of far left Faux with it’s over the top hypobole.
And as uusual, Jeebus forbid we figure out a way to stop giving money to zillionares becuse we have this one size must fit all policy.
That being said, I’ve given into SS for 20 working years of my life that someone else is getting and there better be some left over for mooah.
Hunter Gathers
@jwb: I don’t ever plan on retiring. Ever. Sitting around, waiting to die (like my grandparents did) is no way to shuffle off this mortal coil. Even if I have to be a wheelchair bound Wal-Mart greeter, it’s a sight better than watching TV all day, while your mind slowly rots.
Tax Analyst
@Ash Can:
This. Thanks.
marcopolo
I didn’t see this mentioned upthread but what Digby says:
Since Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, and since Social Security reform was not part of this asnine committee’s mandate, none of the Dems on the farking committee should have voted for the recommendations put forth. As Krugman continually points out: Social Security’s problem is that down the road benefits will need to be cut so the fix is…cutting benefits now (whether by raising the age or reducing the payouts)! Really! Why not just let the benefits get reduced in 2042 then?
cyntax
@Mnemosyne:
Exactly. 250K is the magic number so let’s start using it consistently. This inconsistency seems like a good barometer of where this argument is going to go in the future: the cap ends up being lifted to something like 125K threee or four years from now.
@FormerSwingVoter:
That would be pretty awesome–quite the commitment to a social safety net.
BGinCHI
@Ash Can: Agreed. Have to read what he wrote.
I flew off the handle on this initially and now I’m feeling much better about what he said, if not about having said it in praise of the Simpson/Bowles shit parade.
General Stuck
So I guess we are giving Obama bashing a temp break, for a little Durbin bashing. cool. I’m going to walk the dog
beltane
@Mnemosyne: Isn’t Bowles supposed to be a Democrat? Being that no one from the administration bothered to reassure us that we wouldn’t be forced to spend our last pitiful days on earth shivering in a cardboard box, it is only natural that people would freak out. I have been firmly in the O-bot camp from the beginning, but I will say that the president has done an incredibly piss-poor job of addressing the legitimate economic fears of his supporters. This has got to change.
Zifnab
@FormerSwingVoter:
That was kinda the idea. You’ll have Republicans conflating the two for political gain straight through to the next election.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hunter Gathers:
That is not a binary choice, HG. Many people retire from suck-ass jobs to do things they love doing, like gardening, crafts, creativity, etc. My grandfather (rest his soul), retired at an early age and spent the majority of his “retirement” in his woodworking shop and going to craft fairs and flea markets to sell his goods.
Lots of working conditions suck, whether in a cube farm or on the construction crew. People shouldn’t be chained to them for life.
Omnes Omnibus
A couple of points: 1. There weren’t enough votes for this to be official. 2. Congress isn’t going to act on it. 3. there is nothing new in it, so any parts that get cherry picked could have been cherry picked from somewhere else. 4. Obama gave the Blue Dogs the commission he promised them and it did stuff; see points 1, 2, and 3. BFD.
Yeah, it was more than a couple of points, so sue me.
Oliver
As someone has already observed above, the bulk of the comments here, together with the stupid and totally misinformed intro from Cole, demonstrate that most of you haven’t the slightest idea as to what’s actualy included in the report on which Durbin cast a ” yes” vote. Durbi’s vote was not an attack on Social Security, as Cole charged.
Maude
@A L:
It’s not going anywhere. Not enough votes to make it to Congress.
mr. whipple
Like deciding to label it as the ‘cat food commission’ before they even formed? Right wingers ain’t the only ones with jerky knees.
Tax Analyst
@jwb:
Gosh, how many times do I have to say “screw you” to all of you age bashers? I know PLENTY of people age 50+ who are reasonable, fair, and lean progressive who have an abundant amount of empathy and at least a passable degree of decency and common sense.
Why don’t you find another dead horse to flog & butt-fuck when you’ve run out of plausible reasons for feeling sorry for yourself.
Mnemosyne
@Bob Loblaw:
I do love how the people who mock “11-D chess” grab onto it with both hands when they can use it to their advantage. Because, yes, if Obama said anything at all about deficit reduction in 2007 or 2008, that’s PROOF POSITIVE that this commission was his devious plan to get rid of Social Security all along.
jwb
@Tax Analyst: And no one said such kind souls are in short supply. But would you deny that there are many, many assholes in the boomer generation? More to the point: do you believe it a coincidence that when proposals are floated about changing funding formulas for Social Security and Medicare that the magic cut off point is right around age 50?
Martin
Attack Social Security? Fuck, man. That’s even more hyperbolic than the claims that Assange is attacking America. How horrifying that my 9 year-old daughter’s embryos will have to wait until they’re 69 to retire! (She herself would not have to wait that long.) How can Democrats propose destroying the safety net for her children in exchange for getting the rich today to pay more into the system!
marcopolo
@Oliver: Well of course it wasn’t but let’s look at how the non-attack on Medicare in the HCR was twisted around to the Rethuglicans benefit in the midterms.
Furthermore, and having read Durbin’s comments in regards to how the commission approaches Social Security although it sounds workable, the shrill one has identified some issues with it:
cyntax
@General Stuck:
Ha! You’d have to give me pretty good odds to bet against that happening.
A month or two ago I would have agreed with you on this… now I don’t trust them even that far–they need to be watched the whole time or they’ll fuck it up. Look, in another thread someone pointed out that Boxer was one of the people asking the WH not to bring middle class tax-cuts to a vote before the election. Boxer was worried that her vote on a middle class only tax cut would hurt her against Fiorina?!! That passes for strategic thinking? Oh dear, I guess she was going to lose the Mill Valley vote. Frickin hell.
Tax Analyst
@General Stuck:
Smug, smartass, false personas are not generally disposed to feeling satisfied no matter how fully they are courted and accomodated, even if the real person behind them might be. I mean, what is the point of having a false persona if they can’t be a complete dick-head at least half the time?
Ash Can
@Jim C #61: Accent on the second syllable. :)
@BGinCHI #71: I’m almost glad Simpson-Bowles got out in front of the commission’s actual results and drew fire the way they did. Their hot mess makes the final proposal look better by comparison. I’m not holding my breath that it’ll result in anything over the next two years that the president will be willing to sign into law — assuming anything comes out of Congress at all. But it makes for a few headlines that show the great unwashed that the government is doing something about the deficit. And the great unwashed isn’t going to recognize that the deficit isn’t the problem that they’ve been led to believe, so good press on this is helpful.
Mnemosyne
@marcopolo:
So which Social Security recommendation did you hate more, the recommendation to increase the benefit for low-income seniors or the pool of money to allow manual laborers to retire early? Please be specific.
News Reference
@ Mnemosyne, December 3rd, 2010 at 5:16 pm
It’s been fascinating to listen to overpaid entertainers (who call themselves “journalists”) redefine the “middle” as ‘the top 2 %”.
I call that: Right-wing math.
mo
I think of myself as extremely committed to what I consider progressive values – creating a more equitable society, protecting our most vulnerable members, protecting the environment, etc. I also value living in a reality-based world. While today’s conservatives clearly don’t even care, liberals at least claim they do. Posts and comments like this really make me question that. You may not agree with it (particularly the increase in the retirement age), but the Social Security proposal in Simpson-Bowles is NOT radical and ultimately preserves Social Security as a government based insurance program. Other parts of the proposal are much more questionable, but it’s SS portion is fairly reasonable and in some ways is titled toward progressive values.
Quiddity
Durbin is a surprise, but also John Spratt.
Omnes Omnibus
Have I mentioned that nothing is going to come of the report?
cyntax
Rollicking Rhetoricians Batman, look what some of the Dems are up to:
Well that is inspiring. Probably means some attaboys are warranted to a few senators.
Mnemosyne
@beltane:
He’s about as much of a Democrat as Pat Caddell is.
So things like, “Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected, but all other discretionary government programs will” weren’t sufficiently reassuring? I realize not too many people watch the State of the Union.
Now, I will admit, never having had much of a 401(k), I didn’t see mine reduced by 50% after the crash in 2008, but I do think that’s where a lot of the panic comes from, not from anything that Obama has said or hasn’t said. The whole 401(k) system that was set up as an alternative to pensions collapsed on people when they needed it most, and they understandably freaked out. But I still don’t understand where this absolute conviction that Obama is going to kill Social Security comes from.
Martin
@marcopolo:
It doesn’t cut benefits now. It does 3 things:
1) It raises contributions now from the wealthy by raising the payroll tax cap.
2) It reduces benefits down past 2042 by extending out the retirement age, but that isn’t fully implemented until 2085.
3) It changes the COLA formula from one reasonable but arbitrary rate to another reasonable but arbitrary rate. Is it a reduction of payouts or an elimination of surplus payouts? Since they’re both inflation rates, you could argue that either way.
And Social Security at its inception was mandated to be solvent for 75 years. It doesn’t meet that now by the models. Most of the solution in this plan is raising contributions by those earning over $110K, letting them appreciate, and then reducing payouts way out in the future. It’s a perfectly reasonable plan. It’s not fantastic, but the GOP would prefer infinitely worse solutions.
All that aside, I’m surprised at how bipartisan the support for this thing was. I thought more Republicans were going to bail on it. It may not be as dead as I thought.
schrodinger's cat
Slightly off the topic. This is for a paper I am writing. Besides Glass-Steagall what other legislation went into effect that affected banking and financial markets in the New Deal era?
Bob Loblaw
@Mnemosyne:
Once again, straight up bullshit about what I wrote.
I don’t think Obama wants to “get rid of social security” or whatever the fuck that means in your stereotypical little world. All I said is that he created the commission on his own against the stated wishes of this Congress. Which he did. And that he has often advocated bipartisan budget and entitlement reform. Which he has.
He doesn’t own the policy recommendations this commission offers. He is completely removed from those. The politics of the matter, on the other hand, can be attributed to him, whatever they turn out to be. Which are probably nothing. As far as I’m concerned, this is just another example of government taking forever to do nothing. Their specialty.
FormerSwingVoter
Heh. Someone actually did the math on how the addition of a minimum benefit and the changes to the Social Security bend points actually affect payments:
http://www.economics21.org/files/social%20security%20earnings%20chart.jpg
Cat food indeed.
(from http://www.economics21.org/commentary/winners-and-losers-under-simpson-bowles-social-security-plan )
beltane
@Mnemosyne: That’s why they call it the third rail of politics, because when it’s even mentioned people tend to freak out. Putting big-mouth Alan Simpson in charge of this commission did nothing to help the matter.
Cerberus
@Tax Analyst:
It is also hilariously amusing to see the Boomers versus Gen X wars when we Millenials are unemployable because every single job, no matter the industry, looks at us like the black plague because we didn’t get a job in industry back when the economy was good, you know, back when I was in middle school.
So right now, the Gen Xers and the Boomers are whining at each other over grabbing the last few bits of a functioning society while the rest of us get to grow up in a second-world nation.
And what’s really sad, is that both groups have good and bad. I’ve seen a lot of Boomers who swallowed that hippie ethics and show it and I’ve seen a lot of Xers who wax nostalgic about Reagan (who do you think is single-handedly keeping Michael Bay movies in the black).
Basically, from my perspective, the bad of both generations and the bitter hearts from before them have done their best to deliver us a scorched wasteland and the rest of us after you are just biding our time to our eventual suicide attempts.
But hey, do go on. I want to hear how bad it is for those of you who can get jobs because you hadn’t yet fucked up the economy beyond repair.
marcopolo
@Mnemosyne: First, see my post above linking Krugman’s remarks in regards to the special manual-labor waivers for Social Security. Second, I have a problem making Social Security the slightest bit needs based because when you start down that road you start reducing overall support for the program (i.e. some folks are getting more out of it than others). That is why I would also not support reducing benefits for seniors with high incomes. Psychologically speaking you want everyone to understand they are in the same boat. Heck look at the different perception of Medicare versus Medicaid. One is age based the other need based.
I see and understand and sympathize with the merit of these suggested changes to make Social Security “more equitable” but I belief that these changes also make it more susceptible to change for the worse both by creating a situation where the program’s support is undercut with segments of the population and by setting up a precedent for mucking about with the benefit structure.
Mnemosyne
@Bob Loblaw:
If Congress didn’t want a commission, why did they try to form one?
It’s not a coincidence that Kent Conrad was appointed to the presidential commission after sponsoring legislation to form one for the Senate.
News Reference
Mnemosyne
Social Security could be fixed easily: Just tax wealthy income earners at the same rate that everyone else is taxed to support Social Security.
Problem solved.
As it is, Social Security is an incredibly regressive tax, the more you make over $100,000.00 a year, the less you pay as a percentage of your income.
Tax Analyst
@jwb:
Really? I’ve don’t recall seeing an age bashing commenter actually make that point within the same comment.
No more than you could deny(or confirm)that there are likely a fairly good-sized percentage of people in ANY age group that could be considered “assholes”, depending on the labeler’s criteria for assholehood. You don’t really know, but for some reason you want to smack +50’s around. OK, but don’t pretend that an assumption you pull directly out of your pimply poop-chute has any factual basis. I wouldn’t complain if you prefaced your age-bashing with “I believe +50 boomers are mostly amoral dickheads and the cause of way too much misery and grief for the younger generation. I just pulled the proof out of my asshole.”
At any rate, my shorter answer is: Why would I want to speculate? And exactly how many or what magical percentage number or quantity constitutes “many, many”?
“Right around 50”? I can’t decide whether to LOL or just say “WTF?”. Are you alleging some kind of conspiracy here? So let’s DO get “more to the point”, OK? I don’t know. And neither do you. You don’t really have anything here except some type of personal hard-on against “boomers”. My personal suggestion would be for you to find a private place and relieve this condition.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Would you mind terribly linking the complete report. I try to at least have a sit down and read these things before I say anything about them. Yes, I R NAWT A PUNDIT.
FlipYrWhig
@cyntax: I think it’ll turn into a “Democrats call Republicans ‘terrorists’! Did Senator go too far?”
FormerSwingVoter
It occurs to me that the actual report is kinda hard to find.
It’s here:
http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/TheMomentofTruth12_1_2010.pdf
Martin
@beltane: Wait, so the fact that everyone is going all emo and hair on fire is the fault that Simpson chaired the commission?
This is like the Oklahoma freakout over the imminent outbreak of sharia law because someone named Abdul was spotted at the Piggly Wiggly.
Can we instead conclude that most of the people here are fucking idiots rather than blame it all on Simpson?
Oh, and this is a vastly stupider post than anything that ED has written. And no, that’s not a defense of ED.
fasteddie9318
I’m sorry if somebody’s already brought this up, but when Durbin argues that a payroll tax holiday “could create up to 900,000 new jobs,” what’s the basis for that? If the economy is depressed for lack of demand, ergo there’s no market-driven reason to hire new employees, why would a year off from paying payroll taxes get businesses to hire employees they don’t need? It’s not like that money will burn a big hole in a corporation’s pocket if it doesn’t go out and spend it on new hires to fill job openings that don’t exist. This strikes me as similar to the “if employers don’t provide health benefits to their employees, they’ll increase wages instead” argument. No they won’t; without a labor market that requires them to pay their employees more, in which case they’d do it anyway regardless of the benefits they’re offering, they’ll stuff the money they would have spent on health benefits under a mattress.
Maude
@marcopolo:
Social Security is not meant to be means tested. The minute that happens with a program, they can lower the income eligibility limit.
Like the fight over Bush wanting to lower the income limit on Medicaid.
FormerSwingVoter
@fasteddie9318:
Payroll tax is paid by employees as well as employers – the real stimulative part is that employees take home more money, since FICA, Medicare/Medicaid, and Social Security are payroll taxes (yet are deducted from employee paychecks).
cyntax
@FlipYrWhig:
Well yeah, Gergen will get the vapors, but it sure is nice to see a few senators calling it for what it is. Ain’t ever gonna change if they don’t try.
Mnemosyne
@marcopolo:
Like it or not, Social Security is already partially needs-based: disabled people of all ages can apply to receive benefits. I’m guessing that’s partly what Durbin is talking about: letting people who worked manual labor jobs get retirement without going through the entire rigmarole of being certified as disabled. Contrary to what Krugman claims, it is not solely a retirement insurance plan and is used for non-retired disabled people as well. So, basically, Krugman is against making it easier for people to claim Social Security disability before they get to retirement age.
Well, sort of — the majority of Medicare money goes to elderly people in nursing homes, so it’s not like you automatically get switched from one to the other on your 65th birthday. I realize that it’s perceived that way, but perception is not always reality.
I disagree. Social Security is already not the pure retirement people like to claim it is, and these seem to be fairly minor changes to existing benefits. Heck, the proposal to increase benefits to people over 85 is age-based right there, so I don’t really see it as “means testing.”
Nick
@Bob Loblaw:
It was a deal struck with Senators to get the stimulus pass. It was the Senate’s “baby”
Bob Loblaw
@Mnemosyne:
I suppose not even the fact that the article you linked to is called “Senate Rejects Fiscal Deficit Reduction Commission” is enough to get you to shut up about this. Only 53 people voted for it. It was a bipartisan vote. It failed. Hence, this Congress did not act in favor of its creation. All I’m saying.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
There’s a slipstream effect, it seems, where one bad move just makes all kinds of other bogeymen proliferate on down the line. I think the wage freeze thing was stupid, the spending freeze thing was stupid, that the health care bill took an annoyingly long time, and that some of the war/peace/terrorism policy has been rather slower-moving than I’d like. Other people have their own pieces in the mosaic.
But it seems like a lot of smart people are counting towards the Obama FAIL-meter a number of things that are more implicit and conjectural than actual, and then a whole other set of things in the penumbras and emanations of those that he might as well have done already, so it’s well past time to be mad.
And the threat to Social Security is one of those. To people prone to disappointment, it seems like the kind of way he might be disappointing, or would soon be, given the chance.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Former Swing Voter at #108 was faster on the draw with the link than I was.
FlipYrWhig
@cyntax: Agreed. I was making a prediction about what would happen, not questioning the accuracy of the statement.
What I’ve long been, um, longing for a high-profile Democrat to say is some version of “Republicans treat you like you’re stupid. But you’re smarter than that,” and then spell out all the ways Republicans manipulate and distort language. Ideally, that would sow more doubt. One of my least favorite things about people is their gullibility. Battling against that would be awesome.
General Stuck
@cyntax:
I don’t, I yawn at all the deep concern about dems selling the ranch these past few days, and I will continue to yawn when it comes to dems selling out SS. But you may be on the right blog for that sort of thing, if the past few days are any indication.
Compromise in a democracy, or the effort at it, doesn’t give me the vapors in principle, and I have seen nothing from Obama and dems to call the tax cut issue capitulation, unless you want to consider a one year extension to the tax cuts capitulation for maybe even getting some UI extension. Two or three years would be stupid politics, imo, but only stupid politics.
And as far as the catfood commission goes, it was certainly not 11 th dimensional anything, it was more like a dumb game of checkers. But such things in politics sometimes lead to other unforeseen benefit.
Serendipity cannot occur in a perfect world, and there is no perfect world.
Who am I to disagree
I could be deranged, but think I’ll watch a nice movie tonight.
marcopolo
@Martin: You say it doesn’t cut benefits then in the same breath go on to say:
Well that is a cut to benefits, though probably not to folks my age. And as for:
From a letter from the Chief Actuary of the Social Security program to Congressman Pomeroy
The “chained CPI” proposal would reduce benefits by 0.3% a
year on average. This will result in a 3.7% cut in benefits after 10 years in retirement beginning at age 65 and a 6.5% cut after 20 years. That’s a cut in benefits. Maybe it does matter which inflation rate is used to calculate benefits?
ruemara
@FormerSwingVoter:
Bless you. And you too, Mnem.
@Bob Loblaw:
Again.
Conrad and other Senate moderates had threatened to oppose a significant increase without a budget commission. Conrad plans to meet today with the group of about a dozen senators to review the agreement.
Source
It does not take the whole of the senate to oppose something in order to get something. This has been the essence of the problem for the 111th Congress. It also makes you wrong on this matter.
Martin
@FormerSwingVoter: That’s a quite good writeup. Thanks for the link.
Mnemosyne
@Bob Loblaw:
So the Senate voting on forming their own bipartisan commission is proof that no one in the Senate was interested in forming a bipartisan commission?
As I have stated several times before, this commission was a long-held desire of the Blue Dogs and if Obama hadn’t formed one, they would have teamed up with the Senate Republicans to form one with much, much worse results. This was a bargaining chip that the Blue Dogs called in, and Obama formed a presidential commission to avoid having a Senatorial one that would automatically enact legislation based on its recommendations.
chopper
wow, so all the hyperventilating was for nothing. how…expected.
S. cerevisiae
Well, good. I never liked catfood to begin with. Now I can move up to ramen and spam.
chopper
what i love the most is guys freaking out over the report going on and on about how they were totally going to get the 14 votes. those of us who were all ‘name em’ got crickets.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
indeed. at the worry of being declared an obot, i’d call this a win for obama. this commission was a joke, but it was a neutered joke. i had no doubts at all that the report wouldn’t get the votes, which is a far better situation than if obama hadn’t handled it.
i’m imagining the usual ‘histrionicists’ are taking the night off?
Tax Analyst
@Cerberus:
I got laid off back at the end of 2003 at age 53. At the time I did not know if I would ever actually find another decent job, and I consider myself fortunate to have found another position only 10 months later. I shudder to think of where I would be if the layoff had been at the end of 2008 or 2009.
I don’t have issues with anyone from any other “generation”. I really can’t see the point of engaging in an argument that really boils down to accepting zero sum results and then assigning “villain” and “victim” roles. When you get down to looking at the gestation point of this type of argument all you are likely to find is a gas pocket in somebody’s colon. For every self-absorbed “boomer” you can find or point out you can just as easily find one who longs for a fairer, more equitable world and maybe even puts some of their time and money into trying to make it happen. And I’m just as sure you can find the same dynamic in any other generation or other arbitrarily manufactured demographic group.
Say, don’t you have a gate you’re supposed to be watching?
Mnemosyne
@Maude:
Reading the report, they’re not proposing means testing. They’re proposing fiddling a little with the current way of determining benefits to make it more progressive and setting the benefits floor at 125% of the poverty line even if the person drawing Social Security didn’t put that much in.
Seriously, people here need to actually go to the link and read the report. Except for raising the retirement age further, which I completely oppose, the suggestions are actually pretty sensible and would not leave anyone eating cat food.
Comrade Luke
According to Democracy Now (or maybe it was Sam Seder, I can’t remember), Dick Durbin is considered a proxy for the White House.
Martin
@marcopolo: No, I said it doesn’t cut benefits NOW. Since everyone seems to be okay with benefit cuts after 2037, I figured that cuts in the future aren’t a problem. Stupid me.
And as for the COLA formula, if we first change it to a 50% per year increase in benefits for inflation and then reduce it to the current formula, wouldn’t that too be a cut in benefits by your rule?
A cut in benefits is a cut in buying power relative to the current rate. That is notoriously difficult to do. So much so that we have a pile of different inflation indexes. Moving from one valid index to another may or not be a cut in purchasing power. Maybe the current rate is too generous, and we’ve been giving people increases in benefits that we’re simply eliminating. This is an honestly debatable point, so make your case for why the proposed rate doesn’t properly address inflationary pressure, but you aren’t even trying to do that.
And if you look at FormerSwingVoter’s link, it appears that for people at the bottom half of the income spectrum, this is not only a massive benefit increase, but it’s even a massive benefit increase if they retire at 62 vs currently retiring at 65 or 67 or the proposed 69. This seems, to be blunt, like a marvelously good compromise for anyone who cares about the low income safety net. I need to verify those numbers, but if they’re right, people should be fucking ecstatic about this plan.
Tax Analyst
@General Stuck:
Ooh, Ooh…I know: “A smug, smartass, false persona.”
Personally I’ve always been rather fond of my own petard. It’s more familiar and generally more comfortable than somebody else’s.
FlipYrWhig
@Comrade Luke:
Can’t Dick Durbin be Dick Durbin? I interpret literature for a living and even I get tired of how in the way we talk about politics this thing _really_ represents this other thing and this piece of language _really_ is a signal that means something else entirely, and sinister, too.
JWL
Can anyone explain to me why Obama convened the commission in the first place?
BGinCHI
@FlipYrWhig: I second that as another literary professional.
Sometimes a Durbin is just a Durbin.
marcopolo
@Mnemosyne: Once again, let me state I am with you on the reality of the issues. I live in the fact-based community but what I am talking about is the perception based reality that the vast majority of American’s seem to live in. Both you and I know that the HCR by targeting the elimination of Medicare advantage programs did not cut actually Medicare but that did not stop Republicans from putting out a bunch of truthy ads saying the Dems had cut Medicare. And if you think those ads did not have an effect then look at the turnout and party splits for senior voters. And I don’t think that false perception is just going to blow away. It is hanging out there for the next election and the next election and the next election till those seniors die. As Atrios says, “Zombie lies never die.” I see the Republicans spinning this in a similar manner as does Digby.
Perhaps you missed the first part of what Durbin said in that sentence: “It increases the minimum benefit for the lowest income Social Security recipients and adds a much needed increase in benefits for those above the age of 85.”
That was where I was referencing need-based not the over 85 clause.
cyntax
@FlipYrWhig:
Oh, I got that, and it’s probably a (depressingly) good prediction.
@General Stuck:
I don’t think I’m getting the vapors at some attempt to reach a compromise but I prefer what Menendez, Schumer, and McCaskil are attempting (relative to the taxcuts) to what we’ve seen to date.
General Stuck
Prolly the same reason I built an outdoor workbench in my living room before measuring if it would fit through the door.
Comrade Luke
@FlipYrWhig: Hey, I agree with you. I’m just telling you what they said.
I’m really tired of the eleventy-dimensional chess crap. It’s been two years now, and every time Obama “says” something the entire world then spends days or weeks trying to figure out what he really meant. Either we’re over analyzing things or he’s really just a very hollow suit.
General Stuck
@cyntax:
well, okay, that is your choice to get the vapors if you wish. But the peeps you listed there have little, to no sway on what ends up happening. Being a long time cspan junkie that watches congress, what i’ve learned from that is, sausage making has lots of spices thrown in, but only a few people get to choose the meat. And on tax issues, the House always starts the crank. Sorry for the food metaphor, but i’m hungry.
ruemara
@JWL:
It’s been posted 4x today, twice by me.
marcopolo
@Martin: First, where did that gdmn pesky now word come into play? Oh I see I used it in my post. Well fark me. Um, yeah, I shouldn’t have used that word since the supporting material I linked to (Krugman) did not make that specific claim. Not sure how it slipped in there. My bad in regards in thus misstating when the effect of age increases for benefit eligibility would affect benefits themselves.
That being said, and me not being an economist (which from your language I suspect you are), I cannot engage you with as much vigor as I would like on the benefits or drawbacks of using one measure of inflation over another when calculating COLA for benefits. Perhaps you can debate that with yourself as I am merely looking at effect over time on benefit levels that occurs from moving from the current COLA model to the one the commission is suggesting. Since I haven’t heard a lot of carping over the current COLA formula actually misrepresenting costs for seniors, I assume a lot of thought by folks with much greater background vis a vis economic policy and theory determined it was an appropriate model in the first place, and I certainly never heard much complaining that it was over generous until this commission’s report, I am perfectly happy to live with a COLA that is based on increasing costs for goods versus increasing wages especially in a time when there seems to be considerable downward pressure on wages in this country.
TruthOrScare
All the comments attacking Durbin are pretty disturbing. I saunter over to Redstate and a couple other wingnut sites fairly often just to see what outrageous outrage of the day they’re flogging. Right after the election Erick Son of Erick and his Trike Force warriors compiled a list of goopers to primary in 2012. One name on the list? Noted socialist John Kyl. John f-ing Kyl is too liberal for them. I mention it because this thread has hints of the purity purges we laugh at on the right — now Dick Durbin isn’t sufficiently liberal? LOLwut? I vote for Stuck’s take on it; come spring, the recs in this report will be the highwater mark we’ll desperately struggle to maintain, once GOTP wunderkind Paul Ryan gets his hands on the budget.
Cerberus
@Tax Analyst:
I know, it’s just been depressing, because pretty much everyone who is hiring has been looking to basically loot the employees their competitors have been firing. All the places have been looking for massive industry experience even for entry-level jobs and have been sneering at my job experience, because it’s focused in academic jobs and what I could scrounge in school because I couldn’t work full-time industry while in school. Especially since they haven’t been hiring entry-level since at least 2000 and this is in the “good”, “growing” industries.
I’m tired of being unemployable even for retail with a master’s degree. I’m tired of seeing everyone in my age group struggling just to pay food each month, much less rent, even much less minor expenditures.
And I guess, I’m just getting bitter at the old boomer versus generation X wars between groups of middle class white people when me and mine are having to beg and scrounge just to stay off the streets.
Yeah, that’s the summation, tired, bitter, inches from suicide.
I need a job. I’d take a position guzzling the fetid cum of our bankstah overlords for minimum wage these days, but even those jobs are looking for at least 5 years cum-guzzling experience, and specifically in the cum-guzzling industry.
Martin
@marcopolo: Well, the main problem with assessing what the inflation rate ought to be is that, well, you really can’t. The difference between the two indexes are going to get swamped by all manner of other variables, including regionality, the variable growth rate in costs in different parts of the economy, and so forth. If we walked forward 10 years, we’d still have a hard time telling if one or the other index was more accurate.
I don’t think this commission is claiming that it’s over generous. I think the claim is that going with a lower index is every bit as defensible as the higher index, and if it’s a coin toss over which one is more accurate, they’ll take the one that allows them to implement the minimum benefit provisions or something like that. It’s one of those decisions that people make all the time – what are you in the mood for McDonalds or Burger King? Don’t care? What do we have a coupon for then? If we don’t have compelling case for one over the other, at least get something else out of the decision.
Mattminus
@FlipYrWhig:
He’ll definitely be apologizing for that by Monday, if he doesn’t get a special invite to a Sunday show to do so.
Uriel
So, while largely unimportant, and quite possibly only an issue on my side aloe, just thought I’d mention that I’m entirely unable to select comment text on my Itouch. Not sure if it’s just the usual FYWP, or something worth looking into, but I’m pretty sure I was able to dothis last night. Like I said, just passing it on…
Uriel
And now I can. Fucking technology, how does it work?
Martin
@Cerberus: I hate hearing this stuff. I’m trying to hire a qualified analyst. It’s entry level, but the benefits are good. I don’t care about age or anything else (I had a wonderful 60 year old woman all lined up and her current employer promoted her to keep her). All I care about is that they be reasonably qualified and the working atmosphere remain positive and team-focused.
And I can’t find anyone. I have a zillion resumes and they all suck. As far as I can tell they’re 95% retail. I get people applying with experience at a car rental agency that give job experience as ‘I rented cars to customers seeking rental vehicles.’ A lot of these people aren’t getting jobs because the job market is so bad, they’re not getting jobs because they’re fucking bad applicants. I need people that can think, that can work through really complex problems without me having to explain to them that I don’t need to be told that people going to a car rental agency are there to rent cars. My job pays shit for what I expect of it. I know it pays shit, that’s the fault of the CA budget, but it’s secure, and full time, and even though I drive people crazy, it’s a really good office.
I know there are lots of good people out there, but they won’t apply for my goddamn position! I just get these morons instead.
Cerberus
@Martin:
Are you Bay Area, because I’ve got at least 2 years data analysis experience.
Cerberus
@Martin:
Seriously, though, if it’s NorCal/Bay Area, send up a link to the position and I’ll see if I’m qualified.
I would love nothing more than to solve your problem.
If you’re worried about spam posting it, just click over to my website from my name and leave me a comment on my sparsely populated blog and I can email you a request that way.
News Reference
Since the obvious and easy fix to Social Security is being studiously ignored, I’ll repeat it:
Social Security could be fixed easily: Just tax wealthy income earners at the same rate that everyone else is taxed to support Social Security.
Problem solved.
As it is, Social Security is an incredibly regressive tax, the more you make over $100,000.00 a year, the less you pay as a percentage of your income.
But the servants of the wealthy’s obscenely low taxes keep changing the subject.
Mnemosyne
@marcopolo:
I think you misunderstood Durbin. The proposal is to raise the current floor of Social Security benefits to 125% of the poverty line. Because it’s the floor, that means that everyone would qualify, even rich people, to receive no less than 125% of the poverty line.
“Means testing” is when they start talking about taking benefits away from people based on their income, not raising the floor above the poverty line.
Mnemosyne
@Cerberus:
IIRC, Martin is in central or southern Cal. We have someone in our office (Los Angeles) who had to move down here from the Bay Area because there was absolutely nothing for her up there, so you may want to at least give that some thought. At least the state is big enough that you don’t have to leave it to find something better.
Cerberus
@Mnemosyne:
Ah well, worth a shot.
Sadly I’m geographically locked at the moment. My partner is in the bay area and I’m coming off of two years spent long distance so I could get my master’s on the other side of the planet.
The hole of nothing is a bit soul-scarring, but what can you do but survive it?
PurpleGirl
@J.W. Hamner: As Martin told me a few threads down, the idea was to send it to Congress with support so it could not be changed.
Norwegian Shooter
@TruthOrScare: I’m with you. Dick Durbin will certainly have the highest (liberal * power) score in the Senate when Feingold’s gone – and maybe even the highest with Feingold. Although I think Ryan’s “leadership” of the GOP budget-busters will be a good thing for Dems. Ryan will be shown to be the douche that he is.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@News Reference:
That would be one way. An even easier way would be to make annual payments into the trust fund out of the general fund, say, by cutting back on worthless enterprises like the overseas Empire. That would be a ridiculously easy solution for the richest society in the history of the universe, given all the other stupidity and destruction that government funds without a moment’s thought.
OmerosPeanut
Isn’t it more interesting that Paul Ryan voted against?
Martin
@Cerberus: Sorry, SoCal. But if I hear of anything up there (being part of the state, I do with some regularity) I’ll let you know.
Cerberus
@Martin:
Thanks.