A gaffe, Michael Kinsley famously mused, is what results when a politician inadvertently tells the truth. And so it was Monday when Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch came clean about his party's scorched-earth opposition to health care reform being championed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Hatch acknowledged, as I've long argued, that the GOP is worried not that Obama's health care initiatives might fail, but that they might succeed.

As he did in his pivotal effort to block Bill Clinton's health care efforts starting in 1993, conservative strategist Bill Kristol warned his Republican allies then as now that that a victory for President Obama would earn his party the thanks of a grateful public and guarantee Democratic majorities for the foreseeable future. In an interview with CNS Monday, Senator Hatch revealed that was his darkest fear as well:

HATCH: That's their goal. Move people into government that way. Do it in increments. They've actually said it. They've said it out loud.

Q: This is a step-by-step approach --

HATCH: A step-by-step approach to socialized medicine. And if they get there, of course, you're going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody's going to say, "All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party."

Q: They'll have reduced the American people to dependency on the federal government.

HATCH: Yeah, you got that right. That's their goal. That's what keeps Democrats in power.

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(Sen. Paul Douglas D-Ill. - Stuck in the middle of warring factions)

By 1949 Social Security had become hopelessly out of date, with no cost of living increases since before World War 2 and a system that had largely in place since 1935. While a general revamping and updating the system was before Congress, there was also a movement to make Social Security and Pensions private, one which appeared to be favored by management and certainly not favored by labor.

On October 6, 1949, the program America United featured a panel discussion on the Social Security and Pensions funding issue with Senator Paul Douglas (D-Ill), Emerson P. Schmidt of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, James B.Carey of the CIO and Lloyd Halvorsen of The Grange.

Douglas acknowledged that something needed to be done.

Sen. Paul Douglas: “I think the demand for private supplementary pensions has arisen because the public old-age pension and old-age insurance laws give very inadequate sums to aged people. For example; men who have been employed in private industry are only entitled to $26.00 a month, on the average, under the federal Social Security law. And with the additions for a wife the total for a man and wife is only brought to $40.00 a month. This was inadequate in 1935 with the 70% increase in the cost of living which has occurred since then, it is still more inadequate now. And it is this inadequacy of the public system, which in my judgment has forced the unions to demand a larger amount of private insurance.”

But the solutions were anything but unanimous.

So there I was, driving to my friends' house for dinner and babysitting last night when Howard Dean called me.

I'd been scheduled to talk to him after his appearance at the Philadelphia Free Library yesterday, but there was some kind of miscommunication and it didn't happen.

Anyway, he apologized for the mix-up and we had an interesting discussion. (Remember, none of this is verbatim. I was driving while we talked, and I've reconstructed as best I can.)

The first thing I said was, "Every single problem you described at today's talk, logistical and financial, could be solved with single payer."

His response was along the lines of "And your point is?" As in, let's deal with what we have in front of us, I suppose.

So then I asked him what he thought the strategy was behind the administration starting the debate with the public option instead of single payer. "I think it was a terrible mistake," he said. "I think they were worried it would be called socialism." (Naturally, I agreed.)

Let's see. What else? He said the reason the focus of the campaign is on the finances of health care is because Obama was actually put in the White House by the under-35 voters, and while they're socially liberal, they're very conservative on the deficit and are convinced they won't be able to count on things like Social Security.

"You don't have to tell me," I said. "My kids are Ron Paul fans." He laughed and said, "Then you understand."

"Tell them if this bill doesn't pass, their sick parents will have to move in with them. That ought to do it," I advised.

(And I said that while the under-35 votes may have put Obama in the White House, I suspected the bulk of individual contributions came from baby boomers and he might want to look into that.)

I said the real problem with the current health care system was a matter of human dignity. I told him about a friend who's struggling with brain injury and has been turned down three times for Social Security disability. "They keep telling her she can work, but who's going to hire someone who doesn't know ahead of time if she'll be too sick to work?" I said.

He said yes, there's no question that the present system was a nightmare for the chronically ill or handicapped.

I told him I was really hoping the bill's final version included lowering the Medicare age to 55, "since I turn 55 next week."

"I'd like to see it lowered to 50, that would make a lot of sense," he replied. We talked about how it would lessen the cost burden on employers and increase the chances of the over-50s getting rehired.

We also discussed the positive ripple effects we could expect from the public option - that it would lower the costs of auto insurance, and take work-related injuries out of the worker's comp system.

I talked about the strange Beltway bubble and asked if people working there really understood what was at stake out here.

He said no, it wasn't my imagination, the people in the Beltway really do live in a different universe - "especially the Senate. It really is like a club," he said. He corrected himself: "No, it is a club. And they're most concerned about their personal relationships with the other Senators, and then everything else. It's very strange."

Don't they understand how angry everyone is out here? I said. "If they put us in a position where we're paying more money for less coverage, it's going to be war." He said no, they really don't - although he keeps trying to tell them. He said we're looking at a real political disaster if they screw this up. "Because I'm on the outside, I get to say those things," he said.

Dean says not to worry about the Baucus bill, that the final version won't look anything like it "but everyone's sort of tiptoeing around, no one wants to say it out loud. They have to pass a bill out of Finance first, and then they'll change it."

I told him the perception from here is that the Baucus bill was the one that had the White House approval, and he said, "I can understand why you have that perception, but I don't think so at all."

I told him many of us despaired of any real change, and he reacted immediately. "You absolutely shouldn't be thinking that way," he said. He believes there's a "95 percent chance" of a real public option, and if there isn't one, the bill shouldn't pass.

No point to throwing billions of dollars to the insurance industry if we don't get the public option, he said.

"Do you think the people working on this bill actually understand that?" I said. "Maybe I'm being cynical here."

"Yes, they do," he said. "The bill was basically written by the insurance industry. I do think they know [it's a giveaway]." He said it was written by two former insurance industry lobbyists, they knew what they were doing.

But the good news is, he really does believe there's going to be an affordable public option, and all this will be a moot point.

I told him a lot of us were counting on him, and if he told us to support the final bill, I'd feel okay about supporting it.

Here's hoping.

Star Parker who decided that wingnut welfare paid a lot better than actual welfare was one of the speakers at the Values Voters Summit 2009 this year, so C-SPAN decided to grace us with her presence on Washington Journal.

Here's Brad at Sadly, No!'s description of a wingnut welfare queen which I could not have described any better.

Basically, I define wingnut welfare queens as people who:

a.) Have very little talent.

b.) Work in the right-wing media machine, think-tank circles, or the Republican Party.

c.) Are employed solely on their willingness to act as shills for the GOP or wingnuttery in general.

When a Democratic caller noted the racism coming from the likes of Glenn Beck and many of those at the Tea Bag protests and said there is racism on all sides of the aisle, and asked Ms. Parker why evangelicals don't get upset about the death penalty or about the number of Iraqi babies killed in "this useless war we had", here's how she responds.

Parker: He's also not the first President that has gotten opposition from day one. We saw it under Bush and even before Sept. 11th. This is what we do as Americans. This is our society.

Now getting to the question of racism, you're absolutely right. I am sure that there are racists in this society on both sides. There are white racists, there are black racists, there are Korean racists, there are Japanese racists, there are... race is an issue regardless.

But now what we have to say are... is that everybody in the Republican Party racist. See this is what liberals have tried to convince society of. All of the racists are in the Republican Party.

Well I think it's just as racist for ah... for somebody to say that black children cannot learn in a private environment, so we're going to force them to a government school. I think it's just as racist to say that black people will never be able to learn how to save and invest their money, so we're going to force them into a Social Security that we know that they're going to die before they recover all of the money that they put into it.

I think it's just as racist to say that when we're having health care discussions we have to start at the premise that people can't fend for themselves--that they will not be able to look at private insurance options and choose one.

So, you know we can keep throwing that term on the table and acting like either everybody has to be all pure or everybody is not, but we can say let's move beyond the name calling and talk about the issues of the day. And on this issue of the day with health care and with this expansion of government, from the stimulus, to the auto industry, to the banking industry, you're absolutely right.

There is tremendous push back from the right against Barack Obama's policies and it's because we disagree with him.

Wow. I'm white, but I have quite a few very good black friends and I cannot imagine any one of them being able to listen to this tripe without being completely insulted. I don't think I've ever heard anyone denigrate their own race this badly before with the exception of possibly Michelle Malkin.

So apparently in Star Parker's world, if you're not for funneling tax dollars to private religious schools, you think black children can't learn in that environment. Social Security is somehow keeping black people from understanding how to invest their money if they’re lucky enough to have any to invest in the first place. And last but not least saying that anyone that thinks everyone should have affordable health insurance coverage which is possibly provided by the government thinks that black people are too stupid to pick from the non-existent choices they have now.

These wingnuts sure know how to pick 'em for their choice of speakers at these conferences, don't they?

Maybe Star Parker could just get all of the black people in America jobs shilling at right wing think tanks and Fox News for the Republican Party like she did and all of their problems would be solved.

(Ernest Lundeen - talked an interesting talk . . but)

I don't think there is any historic shortage of populist movements being undermined and subverted by people of skeptical motives. I say that due, in large part to the Teabagger Movement where, what appear to be sincere motives on some peoples parts, being hijacked by people of less than honorable motives to satisfy an agenda, a warped ideology or a grudge.

I was listening to a broadcast of a program, popular in the 1930's called "Peoples Lobby" which feature Congressman Ernest Lundeen as featured speaker from January 18, 1936. The subject was Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and Health Care (yes, talked about even then). Lundeen was author of the Lundeen-Fraser Bill, which was widely supported in Congress as an anti-poverty measure.

Lundeen makes an interesting set of points:

Ernest Lundeen: “ Two hundred giant corporations control over half the corporate wealth of the country. And at the present rate of concentration, by 1950 over eighty percent of the corporate wealth of the country will be controlled by two hundred giant corporations. Each year we read of the huge salaries and dividends drawn by bankers and captains of industry Recently, the top salaries of 1935 have been published. In 1929 Eugene Grace of Bethlehem Steel Corporation received one million, six hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars in salary and bonus. In 1935 the Chairman of Bethlehem Steels’ board received two hundred and fifty thousand in salary alone. Coca-Colas President received One hundred thousand three hundred and fifty dollars. Woolworth’s Company President received three-hundred thirty-seven and a half thousand. The country’s largest publisher William Randolph Hearst drew five hundred thousand dollars, and so on down a long list of executive salaries. And that is not mentioning the House of Morgan and other money lords of the American financial aristocracy . . . as long as these great American natural resources continue to fill the greedy coffers of the super-rich, the corporations continue to function, corporate surpluses are piled high for the rainy day. But let business become slack and profits be reduced, a great cry goes up from the corporations that they cannot afford to do business and employ labor. And that is why the American people do not derive full benefit from our enormous natural resources because they have no control over their operation and the distribution of the wealth they produce. We, the people have lost the ownership of the country in which we live.”

It all sounds very good - a sympathy heard a lot today.

But in Lundeen's case it had something of a hollow ring to it. Lundeen, it turns out, had a lot of connections to the Nazi Party in Germany. So much so, that he was actively tailed by the FBI all the way until his mysterious death in a plane crash in 1940. The controversy surrounding his death has never been explained, as were the extent of his connections to Berlin.

His motives on the surface looked good. Beneath the surface, another story.

It reminds me a lot of the current argument about Health Care and who is really running the argument against reform.

(LBJ Signing Medicare Bill - hysteria conspicuously absent)

On July 28, 1965, the Senate passed by large margin the Medicare bill. Despite grumblings from the right of "socialized medicine" and other fear-based rants, common sense prevailed and one of the milestones of 20th century social programs became law.

Dallas Townsend: “Now awaiting Presidential signature in Washington, is the milestone program of Social Security expansion and health care for the elderly, or Medicare. The Senate passed it yesterday, 70-24 thus completing Congressional action.”

Proof it can happen.

As always, Thom Hartmann makes a lot of sense:

One of the most powerful forms of stimulus we could apply to our economy right now would be to lower the current Social Security retirement age from the current 65-67 to 55, and increase the benefits back to where they were in inflation-adjusted 1960s dollars by raising them between 10 to 20 percent (so people could actually live, albeit modestly, on Social Security).

The right-wing reaction to this, of course, will be to say that with fewer people working and more people drawing benefits, it would bankrupt Social Security and destroy the economy. But history shows the exact reverse.

Instead, it would eliminate the problem of unemployment in the United States. All those Boomers retiring would make room in the labor market for all the recent high-school and college graduates who are now finding it so hard to find a job.

Hartmann goes on in the article to discuss in detail about how lowering the retirement age would open up thousands of jobs nationwide, and how wages for working class Americans have been devastated since the days of Ronald Reagan and our old pal Alan Greenspan started gutting unions and trying to lower our standard of living:

In September of 2007, in an interview on C-SPAN for Book TV, Greenspan said: “We pay the highest skilled labor wages in the world. If we would open up our borders to skilled labor far more than we do, we would attract a very substantial quantity of skilled labor which would suppress the wage levels of the skilled, because the skilled are essentially being subsidized by the government, meaning our competition is being kept outside the country.”

It’s shocking that ideologues like Greenspan, Reagan, and Clinton believe this, but they do. And the only way to reverse the past 29 years of Reaganomics/Clintonomics is to tighten up the labor market again. While a great start would be to pull out of our insane trade treaties and begin again protecting American manufacturers, that will take a decade for the impact to be truly felt even if we were to go back to our 1980 tariff levels today. Read on...

Thom finishes by stating that his plan would ultimately "take us to nearly zero unemployment and dramatically stimulate the economy." I happen to think it's a good idea. What say you?

August 24, 2009 CNN--From The Cafferty File:

More good news from our government. Friday the White House said deficits would climb to $9 trillion over the next ten years bringing the total national debt to $20 trillion a decade from now.

The government also announced Social Security recipients will get no cost of living adjustments during the next two years. That hasn’t happened since automatic increases were put into place in 1975. We can find hundreds of billions of dollars for AIG and Wall Street, but we can’t give our senior citizens a small cost of living increase in their social security. When does the revolution start?

We’re in the midst of a recession not seen since the great depression. Millions of Americans are out of work, unemployment has soared to 9.4 percent. Millions of good paying jobs have been have been shipped overseas never to return. And the manufacturing base that was once the engine of our economy is on life support. We simply don’t make “things” anymore.

We are in debt up to our eyeballs to China and other foreign countries as we increasingly look to them to finance out deficit spending. And through it all have you noticed? There’s no talk in Washington of cutting expenses or reducing the size of government.

There are unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars for Medicare and Social Security; and no plan for how to pay for health care reform. Add in the drain of millions of illegal aliens and the fact that many states are bankrupt. We’re in serious trouble here.

Here’s my question to you: How is the American dream changing?

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On this morning's Meet the Press, Rachel Maddow backs former congressman Dick Armey (head of the Freedomworks lobbying group) against the wall and lets everyone know exactly what his radical opinion is on Medicare:

MS. MADDOW: Do you really think that there’s a major uprising of seniors wanting to get out of Medicare? I know you’re suing the government for your right personally to get out of Medicare.

REP. ARMEY: Right.

MS. MADDOW: But do you really think that’s the problem...

SEN. COBURN: Is it...

MS. MADDOW: ...that Medicare—that seniors hate Medicare and they want out?

REP. ARMEY: No, I didn’t say that. Most seniors—I was talking to my minister the other day. My minister says, “Dick, I’m so fortunate I’m in Medicare.” I said, “Bless you, my, my friend that you get to be in it if you choose to be so.” But if you give a government program and you let me choose to be in or choose to be out, that’s generosity. If you force me in, irrespective of my desires, that’s tyranny. Now, if Medicare’s $46 trillion in the red, with no idea how we’re going to pay for it, why, why do they not let people who don’t want to be in out?

MS. MADDOW: This is...

MR. GREGORY: Let me—I want to get it...

REP. ARMEY: I mean, that’s...

MS. MADDOW: Just—I—very briefly.

REP. ARMEY: This, this, this defies logic.

MS. MADDOW: This is a really important point. The anti-healthcare reform lobby thinks that Medicare is tyranny, OK?

REP. ARMEY: I did—I said...

MS. MADDOW: This is an—I mean, you said in 1995 that “Medicare is a program I would have no part of in a free world.”

REP. ARMEY: Right. Absolutely right.

MS. MADDOW: You said in 2002, “We’re going to have to bite the bullet on Social Security and phase it out over a period of time.”

REP. ARMEY: And I’m going to enumerate exactly what I’m talking about. Medicare...

MS. MADDOW: Americans need to know this is your position and this is the position of the anti-healthcare reform lobby.

Lawrence O'Donnell actually uses the "L" word with Rep. John Culberson. This is the end of an over ten minute segment where O'Donnell continually asks Culberson whether he would have voted for Social Security and for Medicare and Culberson gets mad at him for interrupting him, which he does. He interrupts him though because he's trying to avoid giving him a straight answer to his questions.

After finally getting Culberson to admit that he would have voted for both Social Security and Medicare, O'Donnell calls him out for the fear mongering done by Republicans on the issue of health care reform, and tells him they're lying to the American people every time they demonize socialized medicine, but refuse to vote to repeal Medicare.

Culberson obviously wasn't too happy with O'Donnell for both the interrupting or for calling him a liar. His retreat was to attack MSNBC and say no one watches them, and go on the defensive about being called a liar and say that O'Donnell doesn't know him personally.

I hate to break this to you Congressman, but he doesn't have to know you personally to watch you and the rest of the Republicans fear mongering about socialized medicine. Culberson then goes on to prove O'Donnell's point.... by attacking government run health care and more fear mongering.

You can watch the entire exchange at MSNBC's web site.

So where do Conserva-Dems retreat when they want to get their Republican "centrist" talking points out there on health care reform? Why Sean Hannity's show of course.

HANNITY: Senator, always good to have you. Thank you for being back with us. Appreciate it.

BAYH: Good to be back with you, Sean.

HANNITY: All right. Let's start a little bit with the House version and the House turmoil that's been unfolding all week here. First, we hear that there's a deal with the Blue Dogs, the more conservative Democrats. They you've got the liberal congressmen rebelling, and you've got turmoil here and you've got a president that really wanted to push this through in two weeks and hadn't read the bill.

As you stand back, what is one to make of this process?

BAYH: Well, to the average American, Washington probably looks a little chaotic, Sean. But the important thing here is that we take our time and get it right. This affects every American. And particularly those 65 percent who currently have insurance. We need to make sure that we try and keep their costs under control going forward.

That's what's bothering most people. And put into place some reforms that make sure they won't lose their insurance. If they lose their job or they've got a health care condition of some kind. So that's number one. Number two, get the deficit down. This has got to be a part of long-term fiscal responsibility. Not making it go up.

And third, we shouldn't hurt the economy in the short run and this has got to be part of a long-term strategy to make America more competitive. So, you know, all these shenanigans and going on, it's regrettably part of the process but matters, Sean, is we have to keep our eye on the ball and at the end of all this deliver a product that's good for America.

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(The debate rages - sixty years and going strong)

In my continuing coverage of the Health Care debate and its historic place in our political life, here comes another debate via the NBC Radio program "America United" hosted by David Brinkley from June 27, 1948.

This debate, under the title "should we expand our Social Security coverage?" also takes on the subject of Universal Health Care, a proposal brought about months earlier by President Truman. It spends a good deal of time talking about the status of Social Security, since it was enacted in 1935, but the talk gets a bit heated when it turns to Health Care. The panel features Philip Pearl of the AF of L, Rep. John Dingell Sr. (D-Mich.) who co-authored a Universal Health Care bill in 1948. Dr. Emerson P. Schmidt of The U.S.Chamber Of Commerce and Dr. Lloyd Halverson of the National Grange.

Dingell is adamant about the subject of Health Care, despite the overwhelming amount of negative statements concerning the fear of "socialized medicine" (the ever-present mantra that continues to this day). It should also be noted that Dr. Lloyd Halverson was also a member of the AMA and this certainly shades his comments.

Rep. Dingell: “ The most important thing about Social Security, is that which was never put in; that’s Health Insurance. It’s more important than Unemployment Insurance. It’s more important than old age pensions. It’s more important than annuities. It’s more important than aid to the widows and orphans for this reason; that a man can take care of all of these if he’s in health – and he can take care of none if he’s sick. . . . It was, as you agreed, a complex problem. And it was one to which there was so much opposition on the part of reactionaries in this country that it was deemed wise to delay it. But there is no further excuse for it now."

And sixty one years after that was said, there's still no excuse for it.

Blue Gal: Sex, class, and our debt to society

Clusterstock: Krugman: Yes, California is a crisis of democracy

The Reaction: If there is a divide in the Republican party -- which is to say, if there are two sides competing for control -- it is a soundly lop-sided affair

Obsidian Wings: Robert Samuelson's dishonest jihad against Social Security

D-Day: North Korea continues its Screaming Baby act

Unqualified Offerings: Sadly, No! is on a roll, and so is Roy

It would make more sense for the government to keep extending unemployment benefits until the recession lets up, because the effects of this poverty-inducing trend are far more harmful to the long-term economy than putting out cash now to keep people afloat:

Reporting from Washington -- Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers.

Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.

Many of the additional retirements are probably laid-off workers who are claiming Social Security early, despite reduced benefits, because they are under immediate financial pressure, Goss and other analysts believe.

The numbers upend expectations that older Americans who sustained financial losses in the recession would work longer to rebuild their nest eggs. In a December poll sponsored by CareerBuilder, 60% of workers older than 60 said they planned to postpone retirement.

Goss said it remained unclear whether the uptick in retirements would accelerate or abate in the months ahead. But another wave of older workers may opt for early retirement when they exhaust unemployment benefits late this year or early in 2010, he noted.

The ramifications of the trend are profound for the new retirees, their families, the government and other social institutions that may be called upon to help support them.

On top of savings ravaged by the stock market decline and the loss of home equity, many retirees now must make do with Social Security benefits reduced by as much as 25% if they retire at age 62 instead of 66.

"When the recession ends and the economy bounces back, there may be a band of people for whom things will never be the same again. They'll still be paying the price for 10, 20, 30 years down the road," said Cristina Martin Firvida, director of economic security for AARP, the nation's largest membership organization for people 50 and older.

Lawrence O'Donnell filled in for Ed Schultz on Friday and besides destroying three of the right wing guests they had on the show he also did a great job in this Psycho Talk segment. If MSNBC is looking for another host during the week I nominate O'Donnell to fill the spot. O'Donnell says that if the Republicans are serious with their socialism rhetoric, let's see them put their money where their mouth is and repeal Social Security and Medicare and see how quickly they get booted out of office.