The AARP is flip flopping like Mitt on healthcare I smell weakness they retreat we attack!

Yeah, they’re digging themselves into a weird little hole right now.

Supporting cuts so long as they’re not part of the deficit talks? I don’t see how that makes stealing from the elderly any more acceptable.

I signed the letter and was going to put my $5 where my outrage is. A message popped up that I might be clicking to a fake site. Twice.
I’ll come back later and try. Now, to call AARP demanding to be removed from their mailing.

Hmm, that’s weird. You can email me directly at brian@firedoglake.com and I’ll be happy to help you figure that out.

AARP is slithering, as usual. It was originally organized by a very canny retired teacher who saw a golden opportunity to market various types of insurance and annuities to those in education industry, both still working and retired. That is still its primary objective, generating $1.4 BILLION in profits in their most recent fiscal year. The “senior advocacy” part is a cover, and a ruse, as we now see.

Hey Middle Class AARP is not our friend!

AARP is an organization for retired people who made 6 figure salaries and have investments (probably over seas where they are not taxed) that they live comfortably on. It is not and has never been for those of us with vanishing pensions and Social Security.

Currently, payroll tax contributions going into the trust fund run short of benefits being paid out.

If nothing changes, this will continue until about 2036 when the trust fund will be empty.

After that, benefits will be reduced to the amount of payroll tax contributions brought in each year.

So doing nothing will eventually result in reduced benefits. But is seems ridiculous to think that the fix is to reduce benefits now. The trust fund might last longer, but what good is that if the problem – reduced benefits – is already happening?

The only sensible thing to do is raise payroll taxes to extend the life of the trust fund. Congress raised payroll tax rates two dozen times in the first 55 years of the program, but hasn’t raised it 1/10th of 1% in the last 20 years.

If you believe that bullshit, I got a whole bunch of bridges to sell you.

Currently, payroll tax contributions going into the trust fund run short of benefits being paid out

As foreseen 30 years ago, when a policy was put in place to deal with it: those paying into the system since then have been paying for more than their share for precisely this reason.

They need to remove the wage cap. That’s all.

And some prime real estate down here in Florida. It’s a bit damp, but what the hey.

That’s not all.

If they remove the wage cap they also need to change the formula used to calculate benefits, since your benefit is based on how much you’ve paid in. So if you remove the wage cap and leave the formula the same, Bill Gates SS checks will be in the millions and the problem still won’t be solved.

AARP strongly opposed a privatization plan in 2005, and continues to oppose this approach. Private accounts would reduce benefits and add a large measure of risk. They would eliminate the guaranteed income that Social Security currently provides.

They want to say they oppose reducing benefits and eliminating the guaranteed income, but that’s precisely what they’re doing by supporting “changes.” I guess it all depends on how you define “reduce benefits” and “guaranteed income” just like how Obama defines “hostilities.”

I thought AARP was faux astroturf advocacy wing of the insurance industry.

This e-mail is a useful illustration of the kind of bafflegab you get from most members of Congress too.

They’re all confident we are blithering idiots and won’t figure out we’ve been screwed in the fine print.

My response is that if I can’t get a simple answer out of them, they’re getting no money and no vote.

Are you going to support cuts to Social Security?

All they need to say is:

No.

“The only sensible thing to do is raise payroll taxes to extend the life of the trust fund”

O-Bomb-A reduced payroll taxes and touted that as a good thing.

You can buy some of the organizations all the time.

A few days ago one of this SS-related stories we had some who said they were affiilated with AARP in a non-paid capacity – I wonder if it was someone from the AARP board trying this stuff out here, since they said basically the exact same thing as this letter says.

Oh, and that 30 year old fix, Obama’s been tampering with it. This year he lowered the employee rate by 30%, meaning that workers are putting 120 Billion fewer dollars into the trust fund than they should be.

They seem to think framing it around the deficit hysteria makes things somehow different.

aarp needs to say it loud and clear;

“social security is well funded and does not face any monetary challenge, benefits should be INCREASED not decreased”

they need to hear that from everyone

those projections assume worst case scenarios, they are also easily fixed once the fund is depleted by reducing the regressive rate of the tax code as it stands

there is no reason the wealthy pay less for social security then the poor and middle class pay

and that doesn’t even need to be addressed for quite some time, however to make ss even more financially sound I think it’s a good idea to reduce the regressive nature of that tax right now

start talking like that and watch how quickly they change their tune about how ss supposedly needs fixing

I think it’s a crack up that so many people are going goo goo over this news. Who ever thought that the AARP was anything but what it is, isn’t a thoughtful person. Of course they are what SI at #14 said. Who would think otherwise?
Just more fodder for people who have nothing better to do than point fingers and swear and other stuff.

Until 2036 or so. According to the CBO:

The projected gap between outlays and revenues
ultimately will eliminate the balance in
the trust funds and make it impossible, under
current law, to pay the full amount of scheduled
benefits. Payable benefits will equal
scheduled benefits until the trust funds are
exhausted; after that, they will equal the Social
Security program’s annual revenues. In 2039 [currently 2036] —
CBO’s projected date for the exhaustion of the
trust funds—revenues equal 79 percent of
scheduled outlays in CBO’s projections. Thus,
payable benefits will be 21 percent lower than
scheduled benefits.

no, they won’t

those predictions rely on worst case scenario AND they assume we do not remove the regressive nature of the tax burden

in other words, it’s right wing propaganda

start talking about fixing the supposed (and untrue) projections that the fund will continue to deplete by removing the regressive structure of the current tax burden and I guarantee they will advocate for not changing ss one iota, they will then begin to tell you “the fund is solvent and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”

I guarantee it

but the politicians won’t broach that dialogue

A lot of people assume that because of the $106,000 wage limit, but the fix to that problem is in the benefit payment formula.

The amount of Social Security taxes paid by various
groups of people differs, as do the benefits that
different groups receive. For example, people with
higher earnings pay more in Social Security payroll
taxes than do lower-earning participants, and they
also receive larger benefits (although not proportionately
larger). Because of the progressive nature
of Social Security’s benefit formula, the amount
of annual benefits as a percentage
of annual lifetime earnings are lower, on
average, for workers who have had higher earnings.

And the projections are not worst case scenarios, but they’re based on current law, so they can be changed.

those predictions rely on worst case scenario AND they assume we do not remove the regressive nature of the tax burden

Half correct. As indicated below, they run hundreds of simulations and throw out the worst case and best case and average the rest. It’s true however that they do not assume a change in the tax burden, since it’s based on current laws and not guesses of what future laws may be.

To quantify the amount of uncertainty in its Social
Security projections, CBO created a distribution of
outcomes from 500 simulations using its long-term
model. In those simulations, the assumed values for
most of the key demographic and economic factors
that underlie the analysis—for example, fertility
and mortality rates, interest rates, and the rate of
growth of productivity—were varied on the basis
of historical patterns of variation. In 80 percent
of the 500 simulations, the value in question
fell within the range shown; in 10 percent of the
simulations, the values were above that range;
and in 10 percent they were below. Long-term
projections are necessarily uncertain, and that
uncertainty is illustrated in this publication;
nevertheless, the general conclusions of this analysis
hold true under a variety of assumptions.

CBO projections are many things, but they are not right wing propaganda

judging by the outrage and backlash generated by the original WSJ article, i’d argue it was news to a good amount of people.

i don’t think people believed AARP was some sort of angelic organization always operating in the best interest of the elderly, but I also don’t think they necessarily realized that AARP would be completely unwilling to oppose cuts to the program. i also dont think a lot of their members are going to want to financially support and organization advocating such a position.

and completely aside from that point, AARP will likely use their tremendous money and influence to provide cover for congress to cut social security. that way they can say they have the support of the largest seniors advocacy group in the country.

the people on this blog and elsewhere may be very well aware of AARP’s true colors, but that doesn’t mean we should keep quiet on the subject. if AARP wants to support cuts, we’re going to make a hell of a lot of noise to try and stop them from happening.

fair enough points

on the other hand, what other social programs do you think have run a surplus and are in the black up till some future time?

they claim the problem is benefits when clearly the problem is the fact that the tax burden is regressive, equal out the tax burden and the fund goes on ad infinitum

btw

I need to ask ecahn or econobuz what the effective tax rate is on a gallon of gas by percentage of income for a person earning 50k vs a person earning 2mil

that’s the way we really need to talk about taxes, making the point that the middle class pay far more then the uber class.

when they “claim” they want a flat tax we can “claim” we agree, so long as they equal the regressive tax burden along with the progressive tax burden.

Well, go for it, Brian. I’m just saying that I’m not surprised and that others shouldn’t be either.
Many people don’t like heat waves or droughts either, but, there you have it.
And, of course, it’s none of my business which articles get posted here.

we have to destroy the program in order to protect it

makes sense to me

they claim the problem is benefits when clearly the problem is the fact that the tax burden is regressive,

As I pointed out in #26 above, the tax burden seem regressive because they take the same rate from everyone, rich and poor up to $106,000, and then nothing on the rich above that level.

But that is made up for in the benefit payments formula. The rich actually get back a smaller percent of the amount they paid in than do the poor. I don’t have a problem with that, I think the poor need the boost and the rich don’t need SS nearly as much.

equal out the tax burden and the fund goes on ad infinitum

I’ve not seen projections on this, do you have a source? It’s true that Congress can change the tax burden any time they want, in fact they did this year, lowering the rate from 6.2% to 4.2% and starving the trust fund of $120 Billion. So they made the SS situation worse.

The interesting thing about gas taxes is they go into a fund for road construction and maintenance. The rich guy and the poor guy use up the roads at the same pace, so the tax should be the same, unless you want a poor guy lane and a rich guy lane. Which we kind of do, but it’s not funded through gas taxes. Toll roads will get you from point A to B much quicker, but you have to pay extra. You can get there cheaper on the back roads, but it’ll take longer.

Just because people are outraged about something doesn’t mean they were surprised by it. For example, it didn’t surprise me to hear Obama’s support of Bradley Manning’s treatment, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to do something about it.

AARP has morphed from an old folks (okay, over 50) lobby into a mega-sized insurance company.

JOHN HESS, HEALTH WRITER (from archives) – “Once again, the AARP has stabbed America’s elderly in the back. For more than 30 years now, it’s been held up as a scarecrow – a monster representing 35 million greedy geezers. . . Briefly, the AARP is not a league of the elderly, but a marketing agency with a shady past. It peddles insurance, travel, advertising, and anything else it can get its hands on. It has a mailing list – not a membership – of 35 million customers. If you turn 50, they’ll try to get your name on it. It calls itself an ‘association’ and goes through the motions in an effort to dodge taxes and commercial mailing rates, and it’s been in constant trouble with the IRS and the Postal Service.”

Like you said, why does anything need to be done now? SS still has money through 2036 (albeit having been loaned to the US and subject to repayment). So, using your logic, why do we need to raise the tax NOW? Why not wait until 2037?

So noted. And, best of luck on doing something about it.

I guess the answer to that is you could raise the rate a percent or two now to keep the trust fund full. If you wait till 2037 you’d have to raise the rate by a lot more. CBO says there would be a 21% shortfall, but that has to be made up by the workers, to the olds. And by 2037 there ratio of retired people to workers might by out of wack, to the extent that 100% of everyones paycheck would have to go to fund SS benefits.

It used to get an adjustment every couple years. So now Congress is talking about cutting benefits rather than raising rates? I don’t get it.

Employer and employee, each %
1937 1
1950 1.5
1954 2
1957 2.25
1959 2.5
1960 3
1962 3.125
1963 3.625
1966 4.2
1967 4.4
1969 4.8
1971 5.2
1972 5.2
1973 5.85
1978 6.05
1979 6.13
1981 6.65
1982 6.7
1984 7
1985 7.05
1986 7.15
1988 7.51
1990 7.65

the tax burden is regressive even though the wealthy don’t take as much directly from it

“social security” is a social net that benefits the entire economy, regardless of the fact that the wealthy don’t take as much directly from the fund they still reap dividends by securing those who have aged passed productivity

I don’t have kids but I still pay school tax where I live, the fact is I need an educated society to run the business I run, I get dividends from that school tax even though I do not personally use the school

nor do I get anything out of research dollars directly but I reap the rewards of that research anyway

the same thing is true of social security, the wealthy shouldn’t get a pass on securing our aging just because they don’t need the money personally

Here’s the letter I sent in response to the boilerplate reply I got to my first e-mail castigating AARP for embracing SS cuts:

Pardon me if I believe you are less than committed to keeping Social Security benefits at their present level.

“It has always been AARP’s policy that Social Security be strengthened
to provide adequate benefits, in order to ensure solvency for the
next 75 years. Any changes should be phased in slowly, over time,
and should not affect any current or near-term retirees.”

Artfully worded, but it doesn’t mean what you want me to believe it means. “Changes?” “Phased in slowly, over time?” That means exactly what that moron Ryan from Wisconsin is pushing, which is that it’s okay to screw future generations as long as present retirees and near-retirees are safeguarded. Problem is, Ryan’s plan DOES NOT safeguard current retirees, much less near-retirees, but rather starts taking benefits (the donut hole for one) away right away.

You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves for thinking that current retirees would be willing to thrown future retirees under a handy bus in order to keep their own benefits intact.

So far, I haven’t gotten another auto reply, but figure I will within the next few days. Sure makes a person feel warm and fuzzy to get form letters in reply to queries. But then that’s all I get from the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, aka Dick Durbin, when I write to him, too.

Awright, Betty White – stand and deliver!

I’ve taken my Postage paid envelop and glued it to a brick. I’ll take it to the post office tomorrow and insist it be treated like any other postage paid mail.

My man!

I called last Friday evening to cancel my membership and explicitly explained why I was doing so. The young man on the phone asked me multiple questions about why I was taking this action, etc., and agreed to make sure my membership was canceled forthwith. I later wrote an email to AARP after the statement came out on Monday explaining in their weasel words how they were going to “protect” social security from cuts, blah, blah, blah. In my email, I noted, as many have here, that they were not actually saying they would never support cuts of any kind, especially raising the retirement age. I also told them I would never again consider joining them since this was the second time they had let seniors down (the first being the Bush Medicare Part D fiasco). I also asked them to clarify their “statement” by letting me know if they would agree to any cuts of any kind, or would state unequivocally that they would never agree to support cuts, no matter what kind of cuts they were, including raising the retirement age. So far, crickets. No response. Probably will not respond since they will not make such a categorical statement. I no longer trust them, and will not join again, no matter what kind of statement they make. I will also make it my business to let all my senior friends and near-senior friends know that they should not trust AARP and should never consider joining them and wasting their money on an organization that would sell them down the river in a NY minute.

I am a member (for now) of AARP. When I read your original posting on this subject, I thought, “No, it can’t be. They must have misunderstood something!” So I went to the AARP website and read the “clarification” that purported to “set the record straight (their words, not mine)” for the distortions of AARP’s position on Social Security cuts in benefits.

According to AARP, some advocacy groups (I guess that means FDL Action) were distorting AARP’s position and that AARP had never changed its position. After I finished reading the “clarification” I emailed AARP and told them what a weasel-worded “clarification” they posted and that all it really said was that AARP was supporting cuts to Social Security Benefits.

Then I researched their claim to have “never changed their position.” To my amazement, that was actually true. They never have changed their position. They have been stabbing seniors in the back all along. I need to talk to my wife and come to an agreement, but for my money, I do not intend to spend another dime enriching AARP.

I received the EXACT same reply as you have printed. My what a coincidence. IN a country with nearly 100 Million seniors and an organization that claims to speak for all those seniors, two of us should write the EXACT same email and request a clarification of the exact same thing at the EXACT same time. Things that make you go hmmmm!

In response to alan1tx @ 32

“I’ve not seen projections on this, do you have a source?”

The Congressional Budget Office has done the study of what the result would be if the cap on payroll taxes for those making over $108,000/yr and $225,000/yr were removed on the viability of Social Security and Medicare. The results were staggering. If it were done at 1970 balances of income distributions, the change would be modest, but sufficient to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent forever. If done in 2008 income distributions, the changes would be staggering and would result in Social Security and Medicare not only being solvent forever, the Clinton cuts could be undone and benefit increases of up to 10% could be given out to every recipient without affecting, even in the slightest, the solvency of the two programs.
Just thought you’d like to know. I was requested by one of the very liberal congresspersons, although I can’t recall who anymore, but with results like that, I sure as Hell can remember the results.