Nice! Will donate.

Yeah, my father – who served his country in WWII & worked hard all his life to provide not only for his family but for his retirement – is so effen selfish. Why that LAZY MOOCHER has the nerve to sit in a retirement home – collecting SIMPSON’s personal stash of cash – at the age of 93. Even though Dad has Alzheimer’s, he should get offa his lazy frickin selfish mooching ass and get a JAWB… so Simpson can get even more EGREGIOUSLY RICH.

Fuckin’ psycopath.

If you’re retired you have an incentive to contribe $5.

How will Chained-CPI impact your Social Security benefits?

This year, for example, Chained-CPI would shave about $4 a month off the cost of living increase for the average Social Security recipient. Currently slated for a $21-dollar-a-month increase, the average Social Security recipient would instead receive a boost of only $17 a month.

So if you received last year’s average benefit of $1230 per month, this year you’d only receive a benefit of $1247 monthly, rather than $1251.

Thank you FDL.

The British version of the austerity dance is also self-satirizing. Cameron instituted a ‘bedroom tax’ which is a reduction in rental assistance to any family having a ‘spare bedroom’ in their rented apartment/home. The disconnect is also played out in the increase in child poverty attributed by Cameron to ‘poor parenting’, and to Cameron’s praise for Food Banks in light of exploding demand for food by their country’s recently dispossessed. Instead of asking why there is not enough money given to those needing food, there is praise for Food Banks! There is no mercy. Only distraction and energy sapping lies.

Link Here if you would like to read about their troubles.

Elites solve the gap between the 99% and the 1% by blaming all problems on the victims of their policies of deprivation. Meanwhile more QE for the banks.

Thanks for the support! Just $5 lets us put this ad in front of 1000 people. And you are absolutely right – chained CPI is particularly devious. It is nothing more than an accounting gimmick to cut Social Security benefits. Unfortunately, this looks like the proposal most likely to make its way into a Grand Bargain, and one we will have to fight the hardest to prevent.

$ 5 trillion? That isn’t what it says up above? Says 2.4 trillion.

so long as we’re talking about pate-style catfood, i have no objection. shreds or chunks are too hard to digest.

We’ve already done $2.7 trillion in deficit reduction. The numbers in that chart are the additional cuts wanted by those parties. 2.7 + 2.4= $5.1 trillion. This is actually $1.1 trillion more than Simpson-Bowles’ original target of $4 trillion.

It is confusing. Here’s from their latest tripe:

I

n “Step 3,” we call for an additional $2.4 trillion of deficit reduction over the next ten years. Roughly one quarter of those savings should come from health care reforms and another quarter from tax reform. The remaining savings should come from a combination of mandatory spending cuts, stronger discretionary caps, cross-cutting changes such as adopting the chained CPI for inflation-indexed provisions in the budget, and lower interest payments. This $2.4 trillion should exclude savings from policies such as the war drawdown. Savings would total $1.9 trillion from current law and $4.4 trillion relative CBO’s Alternative Fiscal Scenario.
In “Step 4”, we call for a parallel process to make Social Security sustainably solvent, bring transportation spending and revenues in line, and make further reforms in health care programs if necessary to limit cost growth to about the growth rate of the economy.

One of the clever avoidances of their latest scheme is to put flattening the benefit structure of Social Security by 2050 into step four, and by avoiding going into the details. They made the chained cpi into the nearest item on their agenda.

It is interesting how Jonathan Alter bought into the chained cpi, refusing to call it a cut. The chained cpi cuts SS benefits cumulatively over time: 3% by ten years, 6% by twenty years, 9% by thirty years. It adds up, especially if you are a disabled Veteran who might live another fifty to sixty years. Or female, as they retire with smaller benefits and live long lives.

Link to Jonathan Alter+
http://majority.fm/2013/03/04/34-jonathan-alter-on-his-calls-for-dems-to-embrace-entitlement-cuts/

The new Simpson-Bowles plan

I actually prefer “The new Bowles-Simpson plan” because duh…

Here is a fact sheet from Strengthen Social Security on the chained cpi.

I refer anyone to item 8. on the fact sheet. There is also an updated chart which shows the ineffectualness of trying to give someone a birthday bump benefit after years of subjecting them to the chained cpi.

Actually, this Feb 2013 Chained cpi fact sheet is even more illustrative.

http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/sites/default/files/Chained_CPI_Fact_Sheet_FINAL_Feb-2013_0.pdf

Thanks. From the second document (my bold):

The COLA cuts are real and get deeper every year, so they have the biggest impact when Social Security benefits are needed the most, usually in old age when other sources of income have been used up. As Figure 3 shows, the amount lost annually at age 85 is more than the amount of money a senior would spend on food in five months.

no one slse will get that nicety either. Three different numbers on the chart is NG.

Looks like Obama is planning to run “around end” (to use a football term). The only way for Obama to dismantle the best program developed by the New Deal and the foundational rock solid base of the middle class, is to go extra-legislative.

By creating all of these phony committees like the Bowles-Simpson mess, and getting his talking points from the Peterson Fix the Debt folks, he creates a false consensus for the small government, neoliberal policies.

From his meetings with Republicans, some suspect that Obama is looking for a trigger device to allow Senators to indirectly support cuts while allowing them to have the cover of an arbitrary troika -committee made decision.

And by refusing to act to create jobs for the unemployed and to create stimulus for the economy, he creates the very crisis for which his response is ‘more cuts.’

“Everybody knows” we have to make cuts, was the last thing I heard him say recently. He has not only imbibed the cool-aide, he’s selling it to the media.

Hi Zach!

In the video, Simpson whines about raising the retirement age to 68. Doesn’t their Bowles-Simpson plan raise the age to 69?

He freely admits that he is not a ‘numbers’ guy, that Erskine is, that Simpson is just there for the ‘color’.

Raising the FRA to 69 is a big cut in benefits. Here’s the Strengthen Social Security chart for that:

http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/sites/default/files/Cuts_from_Raising_Ret._Age_to_69_updated_9_7_12.pdf

The chained CPI will be applied to tax brackets, also. If the tax brackets are not adjusted to real inflation, year after year the poor and middle class will be spending a larger portion of the income in taxes. It will not affect the very wealthy, because they are already in the highest bracket, and get most of their income from dividends and capital gains, at a lower rate than regular income tax.

Obama is looking for any excuse to institute the cained CPI. He’ll probably make a deal with Repugs to implement a few temporary tax increases to get the deal done. Once the cuts to entitlements are completed, it will be business as usual – more unpaid for wars (Africa, this time), and more corporate welfare.

Here’s an analysis of all of the warts and moles in the original Bowles-Simpson chairpersons’ plan to cripple Social Security. From CBPP:

Link Here.

The new Simpson-Bowles plan includes $600 billion in unspecified cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and the uniquely terrible idea of calculating Social Security adjustments through chained CPI. The worst part is, the President continues to embrace many of these ideas — including chained-CPI — in his unending quest for a grand bargain.

Where it TBOGG when we need him. He is the GRAND OBAMABOT of firedoglake. Please request his highness to tell us how and why is Obama any different from GOP on this or on almost any other front ??????????????????????????????????????

Yes I’d like these EARNED benefits actually paid out rather than the preemption-by-looting, Bowles-Simpson approach (satire provided by Tom Tomorrow).

I think the ad needs some work to become an effective message to those not following the details of the drive to cut Social Security. First, it casts Alan Simpson as the evil villain pushing the cuts. Unless you live in Wyoming or are a politic junkie, you’d probably say “Alan who???” And to that effect, so what that he’s been pushing this message?

The changes to social security are being sold as a technical fix to improve the longevity. My father is a pretty smart cookie who retired and starting drawing social security checks in 2011, so you’d think he’d be one to recognize the con in switching to chained CPI. But no, he thinks its a tweak to keep the benefits flowing and doesn’t realize that he’ll be getting 10% less very shortly.

To be effective in casting Simpson as the villain, you’ve got to tie him to Obama. Use clips of Obama praising the Simpson/Bowls report. Everybody knows Obama (duh), people generally approve of his performance, but that approval probably drops dramatically when you ask Obama why he keeps singing the praises of someone desperate to cut Social Security. So there’s risk to Obama if people know that he’s the BFF of the cut Social Security crowd.

One graphical note is that the text throughout the ad doesn’t fit on the screen. Was that done on purpose?

Would have been nice to have a President who worked that diligently and persistently for the 99.9% instead of the .1%.

Hi! I believe you are technically correct. It raises the age to 68 by 2050, and then by 2075 it will be pushed all the way to 69 (this is the original plan). The point is to keep digging in deeper and deeper gradually over time.

he’ll be getting 10% less very shortly.

a) He’ll never get less. Even in deflation COLA only goes up, or stays the same, never goes down.
b) Chained CPI is approximately 0.3% less than CPI. So if “shortly” to you is 33 years, ok.
c) Chained CPI isn’t worth the effort because it doesn’t fix the SS shortfall, but there’s enough ways to spin it on both sides without being inaccurate.

We are fighting to “see clearly what is really going on” and for our survival; the .1% are fighting to screw us our of our earned benefits, and working like spiders to steal our kids Social Security out there in 2050- land.

yep. you are right about that.

Keep up the good work!

Wrong. COLA is to keep the value of the same benefit amount over time. COLA does not increase a person’s benefit, it is done to maintain a constant value in the face of inflation.
Any reduction in COLA through a chained cpi is effectively cutting benefits slowly over time.

We agree. That’s why I said there’s enough ways to spin it on both sides without being inaccurate.

You can say it doesn’t increase the benefit because the “value” doesn’t go up and the next person can say it does increase the benefit because the “amount” does go up.

AT said 10% less very shortly. Most people would think going from $1230 to $1107 would be 10% less very shortly. Going from $1230 to $1247 instead of $1251 next year is not going to get to 10% less very shortly.

One of the great myths (lies) which Bowles and Simpson use in the media and which the media use in talk shows, is the lie that the Big Three social insurance programs are “going bankrupt”. I think that it is important to refute that argument over and over again. The public is getting a steady diet of lies. We have done a decent job of showing that Social Security is independent from the General Budget and does not contribute to the deficit; and that any 75 years out, actuarial gap can be closed by scrapping the FICA cap, currently set at 113K.

We have done a so-so job of conveying that Medicare spending is actually lower than the projections from the CBO predicted. So much lower, that to continue to propose cuts to Medicare benefits (other than setting prices to keep costs low) seems ridiculous. Dean Baker of CEPR has written about healthcare costs extensively and is puzzled by the administrations pursuit of more Medicare cuts. Means testing does not really return revenue to the program unless it hurts the middle income folks, and increased cost sharing simply punishes claimants for utilizing healthcare. These proposed cuts are unreasonable.

One clue to the cuts in Medicaid revealed last week was the privatization of Medicaid and how health insurance companies are picking up Medicaid contracts to make money. We could focus on the commodification of our social right to medical care as a response to these intrusions by profit-seeking parasites into what ought to be a public service.

We don’t really need to shrink medical services, do we? We just need to return them to true non-profit, public service status.

Thank you lainey — good comment — Obama is in and at the middle in all this B-S Cut/Gut SS junk and Obama’s ongoing 2.0 GWOT is a big Obama tell on Obama wanting to take,keep and spend SS money on Obama 2.0 GWOT explanation.

Did not see Obama mentioned uptop as in POTUS Obama — just a “the POTUS” — so — not going to be mentioning B.H.Obama by name? Now why is that?

>>> Doing so is like not mentioning G.W.Bush when talking about GWOT and Cheney.

Alan Simpson was placed in this Cut/Gut SS “job” by B.H.Obama so why not just be plain about that being so and mention Obama? B.H.Obama IS the guy pushing and keeping this Cut SS junk going. It would stop on POTUS Obama’s say so. Yet POTUS Obama isn’t telling and seemingly won’t tell Simpson and Bowles to quit with these attacks on SS.

Obama is the guy who could push Simpson and Bowles aside but has not been / is not doing so.

>>> Plain question — Who is POTUS? Simpson? Bowles? Obama?

>>> Not pointing out / highlighting POTUS Obama’s act,acting and actions in / with Bowles-Simpson Cut SS Plan seems intentional uptop and in the “messaging” in this piece. Is this a “go easy” on O and Ds piece? Yes? No? Seems it may be. A ” Let’s not mention Obama too much / at all” intent.

>>> Why not get to main / middle point as to Obama being up to Obama’s neck in both Bowles-Simpson initial set-up and sustained keep it / kept going politics?

>>> Why not show and mention Obama’s name as many times as Simpson’s? What is that about?

I agree “going bankrupt” is an exageration. But SS expenses have exceeded receipts since 2008 and are projected to continue until the trust fund is expired in 2033. It can never go bankrupt unless payroll taxes stop comming in. Zero employment, I don’t think so.

Medicare spending may be lower than the projections the CBO predicted, but payroll taxes and contributions only cover 25% of costs. It’s not “going bankrupt”, it’s never been solvent in the first place.