A Very Adult Social Security Tantrum

[marmar]

from In These Times:


A Very Adult Social Security Tantrum
Centrist Dems are horrified by Elizabeth Warren’s plan to raise benefits. But populists aren’t backing down.

BY Chris Lehmann



Populists! Run!

That, in a phrase, is how the sachems inside the leadership circles of the Democratic Party have greeted the merest suggestion that Democratic lawmakers might turn their attention to expanding Social Security.

On another, saner planet, you might expect the strategists of a major political party to hear out a proposal to make the most popular spending program of the past century or so available to more people. You’d also think that said strategists would understand, on a purely political calculus, that it’s a good idea to reinforce the honorable Democratic origins of Social Security in the minds of voters who have precious little else to induce them to vote their pocketbooks in coming election cycles.

But you would, of course, be wrong. That’s because the Democratic establishment is an all-but wholly owned subsidiary of Washington’s interlocking lobbying, consulting and pundit classes. These operators are devotees of the catechism that entitlement spending simply must be reined in at every conceivable other cost—and that making the difficult, grown-up decision to do just that renders one a Responsible Political Leader with the bona fides to lounge about in David Gregory’s Green Room.

So it was with the brio of genuine Democratic Grown-ups that Jon Cowan and Jim Kessler, respectively the president and senior policy executive for the center-right Democratic think tank Third Way, took to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal to hammer away at the refrain that the principles of economic populism, as embodied in Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s modest plan to increase Social Security benefits to keep better pace with inflation, are simply “disastrous.” Warren would pay for the increase by raising taxes on the wealthy, they wail. Worse, they argue, increasing federal spending on dread “entitlements” would beggar other progressive Democratic causes, like more robust spending on the nation’s aging infrastructure. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at http://inthesetimes.com/article/16007/centrist_democrats_reject_elizabeth_warrens_populist_social_security_plan

[MannyGoldstein]

1. "a traveling debris field, with no solid nucleus or core"

The Third Way is doing its best Comet ISON imitation, and doing it quite well.

[Enthusiast]

2. Those so-called centrist Democrats are not centrist.

Third Way policy is the sure path to ruin.

[riqster]

18. Exactly. They are right-wingers with a smoother sales pitch.

[djean111]

3. I think what Third Way and their standard bearer will offer is "Eat yer peas" and

another couple hundred thousand work visas and no mention of jobs or infrastructure besides trickle down and privatization.
Unless campaign bullshit is employed, and works again.

[Enthusiast]

22. I think you are right.

I bet, "Eat you peas." came straight from Third Way.

[merrily]

28. "Eat your peas" because you can't afford arugula.

Embrace the succotash.

[Enthusiast]

30. Succotash can be a meal.

[gerogie2]

4. This is going nowhere

With the republicans in control of the house there is no way they would allow any change in social security except to cut benefits and kick the disabled off the rolls.

IMHO. YMMV.

[safeinOhio]

6. Let them vote against it and

insure a Democratic majority in the house next election.

[mbperrin]

7. Yes, let's make them stop spouting off and get some on-the-record

VOTES and get those assholes out of there!

[redqueen]

15. Exactly. nt

[merrily]

29. Doesn't that also depend on how Democrats vote on it?

If it is a bipartisan vote, as some of the sucky ones have been, what real choice will voters have?

Embrace the suck?

[Enthusiast]

23. Well, according to 60 Minutes, every single

person on SSDI is faking.

[Kablooie]

5. The tax rate should spike at the top.

The top category shouldn't be 500,000 or even a million dollars.
It should be something like 10 million dollars and people who make those kind of salaries should pay several million back in taxes.

The obscenely excessively salaries should be taxed so heavily that it's hardly worth making that kind of loot. That's the way CEO salaries could be reigned in.

[mike_c]

8. +1

[ErikJ]

17. $3 Milliion and up at 90% like in the 1940's and 50's.

And at least triple the top Cap Gains rate from 20% to 60%.

[Enthusiast]

24. + A shit load! nt

[JHB]

27. In 1955 there were 24 tax brackets. For a moment ignore he actual rates...

...and just consider the distribution. Adjusting for inflation:
16 of those 24 brackets kicked in at a level above the equivalent of $250,000
11 of those kicked in above the equivalent of $500,000
The top rate kicked in on income above ~$3.5 million.

The rates ranged from 20% on the lowest bracket to 91% on income above that 3.5 mil.

You can argue the rates were too high, but it's crystal-clear how the load was distributed. Tax reforms under Kennedy and Reagan lowered taxes at the low end, but took a chainsaw to hem at the top end. All progressivity on very high incomes was eliminated under Reagan and has stayed that way.

[xchrom]

9. du rec.

[L0oniX]

10. Ah yes freedom of speech where you have to pay to get heard. An equal voice for all ...system?

Do you really have freedom of speech when the rich can drown you out? When the rich controls what gets put out there who really has the right to freedom of speech? You might as well give a free speech in your closet for all the affect your freedom of speech will have.

[truth2power]

11. "...the sachems inside the leadership circles of the Democratic Party..." That says it all...

IIRC it was Goldman Sachs that was one of the top, if not THE top, contributor to Obama's campaign.

So, good luck with trying to raise the standard of living of SS recipients. I am sure that Pres. Obama will utter some bafflegab that sounds like he wants this to happen.

Rec.

[tularetom]

12. A lot of people are reacting favorably to Warren's proposals

And turd way is beginning to panic.

[jeff47]

19. Yep - that's why they shout "populism doesn't work!!" so loud

Because it works very, very, very well. But it results in policies Third Way doesn't like.

[mwooldri]

13. To me, Third Way == Tony Blair.

Tony Blair == Iraq War == GWB's "lapdog".

But that's from my perspective... so whenever I hear the words "third way" ... yikes! is my reaction.

[pansypoo53219]

16. i think vichy.

[pansypoo53219]

14. children need a basic guarantee as well. parents need a feeding + housing security too.

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. Why don't they just go back to the republican party that spawned their idiocy?

They want a repressive, regressive, ordered society under their perceived control, exerted and enforced through violence. They just want the brutality to be hidden away from their sight so it never disturbs their beautiful minds.

[hfojvt]

21. kinda funny

because the Catfood Commission itself, suggested raising social security benefits for those at the bottom.

[NYC_SKP]

25. Draft Senator Warren for President, 2016 (nt)

[jtuck004]

26. Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S.

Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm.

More people now die of suicide than in car accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published the findings in Friday’s issue of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides.

Suicide has typically been viewed as a problem of teenagers and the elderly, and the surge in suicide rates among middle-aged Americans is surprising.
...

NY TImes, here.

There are very real consequences to the way things are being run by both parties, but so far people are just taking their conditions on their own shoulders. I wonder if it will always be that way, or if there really will be a revolution...

[woo me with science]

31. K&R

[BornLooser]

32. Warren walks to Roosevelt...

...because there is only ONE WAY...... not the second, not the thirds, not for 'illery, not for turds. Now spread this far and wide, for our ONE WAY has nothing to hide. Beware the lamb that lies on the street of Wall, it is NEVER what it seems. Strengthen the ONE WAY, today!

[another_liberal]

33. Every member of Congress . . .

There is a way to repair this disconnect between reality for elderly Americans and reality as experienced by the fatcat assholes who run our government: Simply make it a condition of voting against raising Social Security that every member of Congress who casts such a vote must then live for a year on the level of income they are forcing our seniors to live on.

If my plan is implemented, we will never again see cutting Social Security even scheduled for a vote.

[The Wizard]

34. Expanding Social Security

will put more money in circulation and create more demand that translates into more jobs. In essence, it would benefit everyone. To pay for it we should cut our bloated military budget. Some defense contractors would have to withhold some payments to Cayman Islands accounts, but the greed of the wealthy elites should not supersede promoting the general welfare as prescribed in the Constitution's preamble.