Durbin: "Social Security is a good candidate" for bipartisan work to cut deficits

[somone]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aIXTc_cvjenY

Lawmakers Target Social Security, Tax Breaks to Reduce Deficit
By Heidi Przybyla and Mike Dorning

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Lawmakers may embrace plans by President Barack Obama’s debt commission to curb the costs of Social Security... While the commission lacked the votes to send its proposal to Congress, bipartisan agreement on the panel will open a debate over the retirement system and the tax breaks, which include the home-mortgage deduction, several lawmakers and analysts said.

Peter Orszag, who was running the White House budget office when Obama formed the panel, said if Congress makes any progress on the debt-reduction proposal, it’s most likely to be on Social Security’s long-term financial challenges. “The most auspicious part of these proposals is in Social Security, where you need some tweaks to get bipartisan agreement, but they are tweaks,” said Orszag, who led the Congressional Budget Office before joining the Obama administration in 2009...

Republicans signal they intend to make their first order of business federal programs directed at specific groups. Republicans “must immediately start a conversation with the nation about the kind of entitlement changes that are necessary,” Majority Leader-elect Eric Cantor said in a statement Dec. 3. On Social Security, the commission’s report proposes moving to a formula that slows future benefit growth, particularly for higher earners, and raising the retirement age to 68 by 2050. Previous efforts by Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush to overhaul the retirement system failed.

Now, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, says: “If we want to come up with something bipartisan to work on together, Social Security is a good candidate.”...

[BeyondGeography]

1. Why does that make me want to cover my nuts?

[Subdivisions]

3. Because you feel you're about to be kicked in them? n/t

[Hell Hath No Fury]

7. I don't have nuts --

but I had the same reaction! :(

[d_b]

2. We need a new party.

[Subdivisions]

4. Yep. n/t

[sasha031]

6. sure do

[Individualist]

9. or excise the DLC cancer and take back our old party.

[aquart]

13. Nothing like a good purge, is there.

Tell me, what would your purity test consist of?

[sudopod]

19. Are you willing to destroy social security?

Yes or no.

[aquart]

21. Is that your purity test? Yes or no?

Get up the guts to answer my question first.

[Individualist]

26. Is the DLC "purity test" meme all you have?

[aquart]

37. Is a purge all you can think of?

[sudopod]

29. Yes.

lol

[aquart]

38. Then the premise is utterly false and equally unfunny.

[sudopod]

39. Why? nt

[glitch]

27. Much better idea. nt

[me b zola]

28. Progressive Party

This is how I voted the last election:
http://progparty.org/

...and how I will continue to vote. I will in all likelihood be writing in a name for President in 2012.

[sasha031]

5. Durbin should just join Lieberman

get out of our party along with the pres

[elehhhhna]

17. Lieberman was Obama's mentor. Evidently still is.

[WillyT]

8. And The Beat Goes On...

:wtf:

[Autumn]

10. Take it to the bank. It's coming

them and their fucking tweaks.

[iamtechus]

11. Must we repeat over and over and over ...

..that social security has NOTHING to do with the deficit. Social security is paid-up for many years.

[EFerrari]

22. Exactly. Social Security is not a "cost". n/t

[gratuitous]

34. The boulders are beginning to move

It's far too late for the pebbles to object. The "bipartisan" "deficit reduction" commission has social security squarely in its sights, and the drum beat is growing to raise the retirement age and cut benefits for future retirees, all in the name of "fiscal responsibility." This will set the table for means testing of social security benefits, which will make it easier to cast it as an entitlement for the poor. Then it starts to become "welfare" for people who were too lazy or too stupid to be investment bankers on Wall Street. And because we can't raise taxes on the wealthy, cuts will have to come from somewhere, so why not those stupid, lazy, greedy geezers?

[aquart]

12. So that's what we sacrifice the next time the extension needs extending.

[laughingliberal]

24. Sure. Keeping the billionaire tax cut blows enough of a hole in the deficit, they'll hand wring...

and say they have no choice. I love these guys with the cush office jobs who think making us work 4 more years is a 'tweak.'

[PA Democrat]

14. The salaries and pensions of Republicans and sellout Democrats

are a good candidate for efforts to cut the deficit. These people need to feel some pain themselves before they impose it on people who are already struggling.

[glitch]

15. Why, obviously if we can afford tax cuts we don't have a deficit problem.

Not that Social Security has anything to do with the deficit anyway, and is solvent for 25+ years.

These fuckers have no shame whatsoever.

[Lorien]

16. Fuck.

[bluethruandthru]

18. I just sent Durbin a "terse" email.

I told him to get his hands off social security! I said we - the working class - were sick and tired of him and his republican friends trying to balance the budget on our backs. Social Security didn't create the deficit and if he, the president and the republicans are now sooo concerned with getting rid of it, the need to look at what caused it. Bush's two wars and tax breaks for the rich.

Durbin and any other politician - Democrat or Republican - needs to hear from all of us - loudly and clearly!

[Lorien]

20. We already paid into it. This is outright theft

Carlin was right: THEY WANT IT ALL!

[glitch]

30. Yes it is.

And yes they do.

[laughingliberal]

25. Thank you for that! nt

[wildbilln864]

23. those two fucking wars are better candidates! nt

[jwirr]

31. Okay, several post on DU have indicated that cutting social security

will NOT reduce the deficit because it is not part of the fiscal budget. Do people like Durban just think we are all that stupid or is he just that stupid? Why would they promise something they know will not do the trick?

[Laelth]

32. No, no, no! Democrats must be seen as the party that will DEFEND SS.

We never cut SS, and it's insanity for us to do so. Only Republicans attack SS.

I can't believe we're blowing this issue so badly.

-Laelth

[Waiting For Everyman]

33. Why not price controls on medical costs instead?

A 90% rollback would be in order. For instance, I'd like to see an investigation into how much profit is in these drugs that cost thousands of dollars per month (for life-threatening illnesses). That is absolute bullshit, there's no way the cost is that much different from other drugs - it's extortion as it is, and unlimited profit shouldn't be allowed in a life-and-death situation. Or how about the cost of a tylenol on a hospital bill, as opposed to what we can buy it for ourselves at a discount drug store? Charging more at a hospital for the same thing should be illegal. Those are the kind of things Ds & Rs could "work on together". That would bring down the cost of Medicare, private insurance (also for employers), and the deficit all at the same time.

Durbin and all those like him are such a fraud. What the Ds & Rs are ACTUALLY working on together quite cooperatively, is the phoney 'good cop, bad cop' routine they're jointly pretending to play on all issues. More stupid theater.

[somone]

35. Yep. And repeal the no-negotiation clause for Medicare drug prices

like Obama promised:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/09/flashback-obama-promises_n_254833.html

The pharmaceutical industry wrote into the prescription drug plan that Medicare could not negotiate with drug companies. And you know what the chairman of the committee, who pushed the law through went to work for the pharmaceutical industry making 2 million dollars a year.

Imagine that.

That's an example of the same old game playing in Washington. You know I don't want to learn how to play the game better, I want to put an end to the game playing.

[knotwurstforware]

36. Dick Durbin

:finger: