BeggarsCanBeChoosers: The Pentagon's hypocrisy on Iraqi deaths

We are respectable negroes: Rushbo suggests that Michelle Obama's vacation is linked to reparations for slavery! On the other hand, G-Dub - not his WIFE- spent all or part of 977 days at Camp David or at a ranch in Texas during his presidency.

cab drollery: The Social Security Trust Fund is not in any immediate danger, no matter what such oligarchs as Pete Peterson and some of the members of the Catfood Commission have been saying.

Angry Bear: "Run Government Like a Business" = Deficit Spending

skippy the bush kangaroo: Environmental news stories you may not hear about

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Saint Peter II, Antemedius, Grits for Breakfast

Social Security Trustees report that social security will be able to make full payments until 2037(pdf). Tax receipts will dip below outlays before then, but this is precisely why the Social Security program has taken in more money than it needed, so that it could handle baby boomer retirement and increased life spans.

Any projection which goes out 27 years is so incredibly reliant on the embedded assumptions about growth, employment and lifespans that it amounts to a fiction. It is, at best, a guess.

Increase growth by just a little bit and the entire "problem" goes away. Get rid of the taxation cap so the rich are not capped in what they pay and the entire problem goes away. Assume higher employment, and the entire problem goes away. Assume a reduction in inequality, and the problem goes away.

The US has a number of problems which are at or near crisis, such as employment, inequality and healthcare costs, to name just a few. Social Security is not one of them. It isn't even close, and politicians and billionaires like Pete Peterson who are trying to gin up a crisis should be ashamed of themselves.

If they want the US budget more in order they should look at health care, where single payer could cut costs by at least a third, and at the military, where real spending has doubled since the end of the Clinton administration.

Or they should work on increasing employment and increasing wages for ordinary people. That's a crisis.

Instead of dealing with real problems, instead of tackling the medical industry or the military-industrial complex, instead of fixing the job situation, they want to steal money from old people.

William Greider has been writing about economic issues since the 1960s, and is best known for his book Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country. He's been warning us that the Obama administration intends to cut Social Security (this video is a year old):

What's extraordinary about this assault on Social Security is that a Democratic president is leading it. Obama is arm in arm with GOP conservatives like Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson, who for decades has demonized Social Security as a grave threat to the Republic and has spread some $12 million among economists, think tanks, foundations and assorted front groups to sell his case. If Obama pulls the deal off, this will be his version of "Nixon goes to China"—a leader proving his manhood by going against his party's convictions. Even if he fails, the president will get some protective cover on the deficit issue. After all, he is targeting Big Government's most beloved and trusted program—the New Deal's most prominent pillar.

Obama's initiative rests on two falsehoods spread by Peterson's propaganda—the notion that Social Security somehow contributes to the swollen federal deficits and that cutting benefits will address this problem. Obama and his advisers do not say this in so many words, but their rhetoric implies that Social Security is a big source of the deficit problem. Major media promote the same falsehoods. Here is what the media don't tell you: Social Security has accumulated a massive surplus—$2.5 trillion now, rising to $4.3 trillion by 2023. This vast wealth was collected over many years from workers under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) to pay in advance for baby boom retirements. The money will cover all benefits until the 2040s—unless Congress double-crosses workers by changing the rules. This nest egg does not belong to the government; it belongs to the people who paid for it. FICA is not a tax but involuntary savings.

As a candidate, Obama assured voters that any shortfall was in the distant future and could be easily resolved with minor adjustments. As president, he has abandoned this accurate analysis and turned rightward without explaining why. He faces an awkward problem, however. Despite conservative propaganda, cutting Social Security will have no impact on the deficit problem that so stirs public anxiety. The White House knows this, and some advisers admit as much. So why is the president targeting Social Security?

Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chair and adviser to the president, declares, "In my view, we can deal with the Social Security problem fairly promptly." Cutting benefits, Volcker adds, "is not going to deal with the deficit problem in the short run, but it's confidence building." John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, another adviser, agrees but says, "Reforms could starkly demonstrate to skeptical debt markets that the United States is willing to take on a politically difficult fiscal issue."

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Have any of your friends ever invited you over to his or her house to discuss "a wonderful opportunity", and it turned out they wanted you to sell Amway? First, they try to win you over with sheer enthusiasm. When that doesn't work, they tell you how their products protect the environment - and then, if that doesn't work, you begin to see a delicate sheen of sweat on their upper lip and there's a growing edge of desperation to all that cheer. See, because their upline manager told them if they can't sell the product, and then sell their friends on selling the product themselves, the problem is with them, and not with their overpriced, heavily-hyped product line. It's because their faith is not pure.

That's what yesterday's AmericaSpeaks event reminded me of. (That, and a game show, with personable hosts with really good teeth, great special effects and Fabulous Prizes!)

For the first time in a long time, I might have some faith in America. Because no matter how many times the facilitators of this event (which was funded heavily by Pete Peterson, the conservative billionaire who wants to cut Social Security) tried to steer us toward cutting Social Security and Medicare, the 3500 or so people who took part in this national town hall weren't buying it. Sure, there were Fox News junkies here and there, and some cautious, low-information voters who kinda-sorta disagreed, but the majority who attended seemed to have their own ideas about how to solve the deficit "problem."

You know what most of them wanted to do? Soak the rich -- and cut defense spending. (Are you listening, President Obama?)

I thought maybe it was just my table, but when they tabulated the results, it was pretty much the same throughout the crowded ballroom of several hundred attendees. (Whew!)

And although the lead facilitator told us we couldn't expect the opinions from a Northeast city to be reflected in the national results, the tabulation from the 19 cities across the country showed pretty similiar sentiments. In fact, the only places in which it varied from a progressive agenda were on more complex, less familiar topics like the tax deductions businesses take to keep jobs in this country. ("They leave anyway!" my tablemates exclaimed.)

That, in spite of an ultra-sophisticated, full-scale marketing push. When you arrived, you were given a glossy information packet and asked to fill out a questionnaire about core values. Now, clearly this approach had been focus-grouped, because the common theme quickly seized on by the moderators was our desire to leave a better world for the next generation. (Apparently they thought this would translate to a spirit of self-sacrifice. Hah! Guess they haven't noticed we have nothing left.)

When we talked about the economic recovery, I said the deficit had nothing to do with it. "It's only a 'crisis' when the GOP is out of power and they want to cut entitlements," I said. "The top economists are all saying you don't worry about the deficit in a major recession, so why would we even accept this premise?" (I think I made our facilitator nervous. So did the guy who said he was worried about a double-dip recession.)

It was also a happy moment when we pointed out that they forgot to include the possibility of cutting the estate tax in their budget estimates. That, and the loud snickers sprinkled throughout the room when our hosts showed a video starring Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg. Oh, and via Twitter, I learned that the L.A. crowd booed the Peterson Foundation rep.)

Even more heartening, though, was how carefully everyone looked at the questions. You know what else they said? They'd rather see no cuts at all in any social programs than give Congress the go-ahead to slash them. They don't trust them to look out for the interests of the vulnerable over the corporate interests. (Hell, one guy at my table even quoted Karl Marx! "Shouldn't matter who said it if it's a good idea," he said.)

You know what everyone said they supported instead of Medicare cuts? Medicare for all! In fact, people wanted to spend more money on all social programs!

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Via Neiman Watchdog, I was trying to explain this to someone the other day: that the Obama administration has handed the decision-making power over Social Security and Medicare to a group of well-connected, wealthy men who know exactly what's best for them all of us.

And if you're a sucker - if you continue to buy the line that it must be okay if a Democrat does it, you and generations to come are just plain screwed:

President Obama and the leadership in Congress have delegated enormous, unaccountable authority to 18 unrepresentative, inordinately wealthy individuals. The 18 individuals are meeting regularly, in secret, behind closed doors, until safely beyond this year’s mid-term election. If they reach agreement, their proposal will be voted on in December by a lame duck Congress, without the benefit of open hearings and deliberations in the pertinent committees and without the opportunity for open debate and amendment on the floors of the House and Senate. Despite the speed and lack of accountability, the legislation will affect, in substantial ways, every man, woman, and child in this nation.

Who are these powerful people and what are their views?

They are the members of President Obama’s newly-formed National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. They lack racial and gender diversity, and more importantly, they lack diversity of opinion. Their mantra is that “everything is on the table,” but their one member who has any expertise with respect to defense spending, for instance, is the CEO of a major defense contractor that devotes millions of dollars each year to lobby Congress for more defense spending.

“Everything is on the table,” they say, but the members appointed by the minority leaders in the House and Senate have made clear that they do not believe that the problems in this country stem from under-taxing, rather from overspending. The one area that they seem to be in agreement on -- and which they are in fact, focusing on like a laser -- involves programs that help the middle class and those Americans who are the most vulnerable. Even liberal Senator Richard Durbin has stated, “the bleeding-heart liberals… have to…make real sacrifices to strengthen our nation.”

The co-chairs, in particular, seem to have a clear agenda. Even before the commission held its first meeting, Erskine Bowles went on record before the North Carolina Bankers' Association saying that if the Commission doesn't "mess with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security ... America is going to be a second-rate power" in his lifetime. (And he is already 64!) Alan Simpson, known for giving ugly voice to harsh, ageist stereotypes, described the future of the fiscal commission: "It'll be a bloodbath. Let me tell you, everything that Bush and Clinton or Obama have suggested with regard to Social Security doesn't affect anyone over 60, and who are the people howling and bitching the most? The people over 60. This makes no sense. You've got to scrub out [of] the equation the AARP, the Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare, the Gray Panthers, the Pink Panther, the whatever. Those people are lying... [They] don't care a whit about their grandchildren...not a whit." (For more about Alan Simpson, see Trudy Lieberman in CRJ: More Words of Wisdom from Alan Simpson.)

We write to raise questions and encourage press inquiry now, before the commission reports, at which point its recommendations could be on track and moving fast. Here are a few angles to explore:

Q. Have the members of the Commission made up their minds, at least with respect to the broad outlines, making the whole exercise simply an effort by elected officials to escape political accountability?

Q. Why is the Commission apparently working so closely with billionaire Peter G. Peterson, who served in the Nixon administration and who has a clear ideological agenda?

Q. Mr. Peterson has been on a decades-long crusade against Social Security. The day after the first meeting of the commission, which focused heavily on the need to cut Social Security, the co-chairs and two other members of the commission participated in a Peterson event that reinforced the same message. A Peterson-funded foundation is supplying commission staff. And Peterson’s foundation is funding America Speaks to develop a series of high-profile town halls across the country to host “a national discussion to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget.” (For more background about Mr. Peterson, see William Greider in the Nation on Looting Social Security -- Part 2.)

There's more. Go read the rest.

Progressive economist Dean Baker calls out Pete Peterson, the billionaire pushing the deficit "crisis", and his sidekick Robert Rubin for their immense hypocrisy:

Peter Peterson and Robert Rubin are both enormously wealthy men. (They joked about dividing their lunch tab based on their net worth.) They are lecturing the country on the need to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits for retirees who have a tiny fraction of their wealth. Many of the victims of the cuts that they would push are people who are already struggling.

This would be difficult to accept in any case, especially since there are ways to get the long-term deficit down to size that don't involve nailing middle income and/or poor people. However, it would be hard to find two people who have benefited more from taxpayer handouts than these two individuals.

Peter Peterson has been the recipient of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars through the fund manager's tax break. This tax break, which is also known as the "carried interest tax deduction" allows managers of hedge and equity funds to pay tax on their earnings at the 15 percent capital gains tax rate, instead of having it taxed as normal income. As a result, Peterson paid a lower tax rate on much of his earnings than tens of millions of people working as school teachers, fire fighters, and other middle income jobs.

Peterson not only collected the money himself, he came to Washington in 2007 to lobby Congress when it debated ending the tax break. He apparently wanted to make sure that his friends would still be able to benefit from this tax break even after he had retired.

After setting the country on a course for the current crisis with the policies he pushed as Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin went to work as a top executive at Citigroup. In this capacity, he earned $110 million before leaving the company in the middle of its 2008 meltdown.

As we know, Citigroup was one of the major actors in the housing boom. It produced hundreds of billions of dollars worth of mortgage backed securities.It would have gone belly up in the crisis were it not for tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer loans and hundreds of billions in guarantees. (That the government's guarantees restored Citi to life, which allowed us to get our money back is beside the point.)Rubin's public line is that he should not be blamed for Citi's collapse or the role it played in bringing down the economy; he really didn't know what they were doing.

This is an interesting claim for someone who got paid $110 million by the bank. Presumably Citi could have employed someone who didn't have a clue about what was going on for something considerably closer to the minimum wage. In any case, being at the center of a collapsed megabank that helped bring down the economy would not ordinarily be a credential that would give a person standing to lecture the country about fiscal policy and the need for sacrifice.

Yet, in Washington in 2010, Peterson and Rubin hold the high ground, lecturing the rest of us on the need to tighten our belt. As I said, I have work to do.

You know who Pete Peterson is, right? He's the wingnut hedge-fund billionaire who's pledged a billion dollars to "reform" (and we know what that word means to the right wing) Social Security and Medicare. Via lambert, from Institutional Risk Analysis:

As we discussed with Josh Rosner and will be writing about same next week, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed Chairman Bernanke think they are driving this process, but in fact the markets are setting the agenda. Either we act now to deal with AIG and C and take these names off the table before the other zombies arrive for the dance party, or we risk being overwhelmed. If we have a choice between preserving the credit standing of the US Treasury and flushing AIG, C and every other CDS counterparty on the planet, we'll take the latter every time.

Indeed, yesterday we were slumming at the Four Seasons in New York. Among the dinosaurs we observed grazing in the tall grass of this Midtown Manhattan refuge for the transactional class was former C director Robert Rubin, former New York Fed Chairman Pete Peterson and Treasury Secretary Geithner, who apparently was there to get new instructions from his sponsors.

Before Geithner arrived for lunch, Peterson reportedly asked one NY real estate mogul: "How much of that toxic paper is there?" Now we may know where Geithner gathers his market intelligence -- over a luncheon table in New York with his owners. Next time we are going to bring the flip-cam.

But isn't it nice that the man who wants to take our Medicare and Social Security (so we can see it go down the tubes in the market, I guess) has such good relationships with his employees!