Blogs Apr 5, 2013 at 11:24 am

Comments

1
It wasn't just liberals who elected him Dan, just as many moderate Dems out there if not more. We don't like it but may need to be done in order to get a grand bargain. Liberals like to act like they are a majority of the party yet every President yet elect as as a Democrat is a moderate. Hmmm.
2
Technically, the people collecting Social Security elected Romney.

Luckily for us, those deadender 47 percent and their tax-subsidized rural and suburban lifestyles are dying off.
3
Obama, Romney, or Mickey Mouse: the clown in the Oval Office is just a sock puppet for the corporate klepto-junta that owns and operates the government.
4
LOL, of course this is happening.

Obama was always a corporatist and a moderate republican. Just pay attention to what he does and who were his appointees, not what he says.
5
@ 4 How wrong can you be, he has always been a moderate Democrat and I don't know what you mean by corporatist but he is not an occupy wall street hippy.
6
It doesn't matter what he proposes, because he is a black President who wants to raise taxes on the wealthy. No compromise is going to get through; this is the party that vociferously turned down the prospect of $10 budget cuts for every $1 tax increase.
7
Dan, I'm going to have to go with a big ole DUH on this one. You were out there pimping this guy to anyone that would listen while the majority of us knew he'd stab us in the back and tell us it is for our own good.

Why not fight for politicians that actually fight for gay rights AND our other issues. Instead of weak sauce politicians on gay rights and right-wing collaborationist on fiscal issues.

Side note, the judiciary also called him out on playing politics with women's bodies yesterday. This guy is no better than the rest of them. It's time regular people had a party that represented them instead of corporations and billionaires.
8
@6 - If it has no chance of getting through, why demoralize the base that elected him when he should be getting people amped up to trash the GOP in 2014?
9
Where's Matt in Denver?!? He was a vocal supporter of this corporate whore and LOVED to attack me for pointing out Obamney's many failings.

Hmmmmm wonder where he is at?
12
" the clown in the Oval Office is just a sock puppet for the corporate klepto-junta that owns and operates the government."

Do you wear a black turtle neck, pea coat and beret while furious typing these screeds from a coffee shop with a copy of 'Das Capital' sitting pretentiously on the table for all to see?

The loony left never got past the fact that Obama was black; thank god he tossed you all over board the day he got elected in…. 2009!
13
too little too late
14
Don't you mean President Omney?
15
Obama is proposing cuts to liberals?
16
Please read this except closely:

Obama’s decision to include Chained CPI in his budget, which is expected to be unveiled April 10, reflects his latest effort to entice Republicans into a grand budget deal that stabilizes the national debt at a level where it’s growing more slowly than the economy. Republicans have demanded Obama support significant entitlement cuts but have refrained from proposing such policies themselves. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) responded Friday that Obama shouldn’t hold entitlement cuts “hostage” to tax increases, but Obama has steadfastly insisted that such cuts must be accompanied by higher taxes on the wealthy, to spread the burden of deficit reduction more evenly. Part of the administration’s calculus is that backing these cuts will illustrate Obama’s willingness to compromise and bring the GOP’s obstinacy to light.

Permit me a moment to scream my fucking head off:

SOCIAL SECURITY DOESN'T CONTRIBUTE ONE CENT, NOT ONE MOTHERFUCKING CENT, TO THE DEFICIT.

Perhaps the failure of journalists to report this basic fucking point is one of the reasons we're in this mess to begin with.

And, yes, Obama's is about to shoot Santa Claus. Brilliant strategy.
17
Of course he has to compromise when trying to work out a bargain, but Obama's problem is coming to the table with an already compromised position--to effectively bargain he needs to start high and work down--not start low and work down. The public option removal in Obamacare is a perfect example--now we are worse off for it.
18
I'm not "furious". At some point, SS and Medicare are going to have to be means-tested and the eligibility ages will need to be raised. Might as well get started with that.
19
Maybe we should wait until there's an actual proposal on the table instead of losing our shit over an anonymous report.

In the past, proposals for chained CPI have been paired with raising the minimum benefit and other tweaks so that it has the end effect of slightly lowering benefits for upper-income earners and slightly raising them for lower-income earners. Horrific stuff, I know.

But the President is black and must be opposed at all costs, even if chained CPI was something many more-progressive-than-thou purists were championing just a few years ago.
20
Five years ago, Obama and his vocal supporters (such as the Stranger) made a gigantic deal about how Obama was a "real" liberal and that Hillary wasn't because DADT! and DOMA!

I argued here in the SLOG that by any reasonable measure there wasn't a rat ass of policy difference between the two, and that the more people set BHO as the liberal messiah, the harder it would be for him to govern and the more disappointment and cynicism would ensue when he invariably had to forge compromises to Get Shit Done.

It's hard being always right, but it is a curse I am willing to bear.
21
@18 "Going to have to be?"

Why?

Anyone who knows about social security knows that it's in surplus now and will be for some years (is it 2023 or 2033, I cannot remember) and then when it isn't able to make 100% of its obligations, there's a very simple fix: raise the payroll tax cap on the rich.

It only "has to be" means-tested because the GOP is determined to privatize it.

The CPI is a poison pill, just like the legislation that financially crippled the Post Office was a poison pill, just like Medicare Part-D was a poison pill, just like No Child Left Behind was a poison pill..

"Means-testing" is just a cover for "find a way to kill it" and, in the GOP's case, find a way to make it look like it was the Democrats who did so. Again, this is about the GOP being able in 2014 and 2016 to tell the elderly over and over: "Obama shot Santa Claus" or "Obama wanted to shoot Santa Claus and we stood united against him."

We seem to forget that the GOP is brilliant at two interrelated things:
1. deliberately break government programs that work so you can continue to run for elections on the principle that government cannot work; and
2. shift the ideological goal posts further and further to the right so that a self-identified "moderate Republican" (Obama's own words) is consistently framed as some variation (take your pick) of left-wing radical. That way you'll end up, I dunno, trying to kill a health care bill proposed by the Heritage Foundation that you've convinced people is the exact oppose of what it actually is: instead of requiring the insured to purchase private insurance, no no no, it's really "a government takeover of health care." Even Orwell couldn't make this shit up.

And I don't think Obama falls into their trap, or has some superior chess game that we politically naive purists cannot see, or is so so hamstrung by the GOP's obstruction that he cannot follow his progressive heart. (What incentive do they have to cave at this point, especially given their successful efforts at gerrymandering, taking over state legislatures, and nationwide ALEC-inspired efforts to suppress the vote?) Unlike others, I take him at his word: he is a pro-business, pragmatic-obsessed, centrist, moderate. That is how he's governed and that is how he will continue to govern.

In short, count me among the furious.
22
@18, there's no reason to "means-test" either Social Security or Medicare. The strength of social insurance programs is that they help everyone equally.

Efforts to make the wealthier pay more through Medicare Advantage have massively swelled overall costs, and even optimistic projections suggest that means-testing benefits will raise very little revenue compared to the cost of programs. It's a misdiagnosis of the cause of rising Medical costs, too, which is the rise in health spending overall because of our insurance-led system. Every way of controlling costs short of single-payer for all is already in Obamacare, and showing some early signs of success. We should wait for 5-10 years to see if that continues. If not, the next step to control costs is to add more people to Medicare and make it universal, single-payer, not to exclude people or shift costs from the wealthy to the middle class.

As for Social Security, it does not contribute to the deficit and will never contribute to the deficit. When the rest of the budget finishes paying off the trust fund in the 2030s, any shortfall at that time will come in reduced benefits automatically. The program is already capped at income over $100k or so, and cutting benefits for rich people won't plug the gap at that time, and won't even make a notable difference unless you redefine rich as $60k/year income or so. The best thing to do is to slightly raise taxes at the future date that the program runs out of money. If we fix our overall economy and we outperform the conservative estimates of intermediate cost by the Social Security trustees, it's possible there won't be a shortfall if we do nothing. There's no reason to cut already low benefits. None. The only people who benefit are the 1% who have been stealing all of the benefits of productivity increases over the last 30 years.
23
We have huge budget problems. There are three possible solutions: 1. Invent or discover a new source of revenue. 2. Cut programs. 3. Increase taxes.

Mr. Obama should categorically refuse to sign a budget that doesn't do both 2 and 3 to some extent. That should get those whiners in Congress moving.
24
You're confusing the issues. Surely they're still mad about the sexist remark.
25
#18... and why exactly? To the extent that these programs have problems (and with Social Security, the problem, such as it is, is decades away from occurring), reducing benefits (means testing, chained CPI, raising eligibility age, whatever) is one approach of many to address the problems. Lots of alternative 'solutions' are out there, but the 1 percenters want to limit the discussion to a very short list of choices, all of which benefit them at the expense of everyone else. The media, for the most part, goes along with this charade, but that doesn't make it reality. It is people meekly accepting bullshit sandwiches and saying, 'please, can I have some more?' - that make it reality. And anyway, cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit (a deficit that came about because of Wall Street fraud, imperial wars for oil, and tax cuts for the rich) is like management stealing employee pension fund contributions to cover the money they stole stole from the company coffers. Bullshit sandwich all the way.
27
Got to raise the money to pay for your wars somehow.
28
@22, making the wealthy pay more through Medicare Advantage plans? Do you actually know anything about Medicare plans? Millions of people who are anything but wealthy are on Medicare Advantage plans.

As far as Social Security, currently you receive an amount based on the highest income in the previous five years. That's not exactly equality in action. So I can't get terribly upset about wealthy people having to pay SS taxes on more than about $120,000 of their income when they make a million.
29
@6 Thank you! That's what I've been saying.
30
Obama HAS to cut social security. The program was doomed since the beginning. It REQUIRES a constantly growing population. And guess who doesn't wanna contribute to the population? Be careful if you scream too loudly you'll give fodder to the wrong side.
31
Supremely ironic that our nation's first black president has presided over the total annihilation of the black middle class and now demands cuts that will further harm the poor and elderly. So wrong.
32
@30 Wait, so gays are bad because they usually don't reproduce? Um, with seven billion people walking the earth, what we should say to anyone who voluntarily refrains from having kids is "Thank you for leaving more room for mine."

Yes, the leveling off of the population is going to cause huge economic and demographic problems, but not leveling off the population would cause worse ones as we deplete our resources and fight over what's left. (If only we'd, you know, figured out how to send people offplanet. Years ago, during the early years of the Iraq War, I heard three older astronauts talking about Mars. Someone asked, "What would get the American people behind a project of this magnitude?" They looked at each other and said. "How about a leader? Oh, and $83 billion." Holy crud but this was not a good use of our time, money or young lives...)
33
"our nation's first black president has presided over the total annihilation of the black middle class"

So you're arguing the black middle class is entirely made up of gub'ment moochers?
34
Social Security was, from the beginning, a Ponzi Scheme that depended on ever increasing numbers of suckers piling in at the bottom to remain solvent.
And every factor possible combines to bust it; people live longer, more and more pathetic American'ts claim 'disability', fewer children born (who needs reproduction, right Danny?), but, worse of all, the quality of the rising generations are woefully inadequate to care for themselves, let alone the pampered retired leisure class.

Medicare? Shifts Trillions from the productive working age cohort (and, most perversely, their children) to old geezers who have least to contribute to society. Depriving children who have their whole productive lives before them of health care while wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on each old fossil.

The WhinyBitchMoochers like your typical Slogger do not get it, let alone have the character or stones to address it.

The only solution is a virus that wipes out millions of old people.

Hopefully the CIA is busy at work on it,

Hopefully it is more effective than their creation the AIDS virus....

35
In vote after vote, the Republicans have given no quarter, EVEN WHEN the bills contained Republican-backed provisions. Fuck them. Shit can pass without their votes, drop their demands and do the right thing. Don't destroy Social Security for the sake of Wall Street stock numbers..
36
I'd like the people who support cutting social security tell us how much money you make per year and what industry you work in. Seriously, I think that would be "enlightening" for everyone on Slog.
37
We'd like the people who oppose making social security solvent tell us how much money you make per year and what industry you work in. Seriously, I think that would be "enlightening" for everyone on Slog.

Perhaps we could make a little "Moocher Class" badge to go on your posts.....
38
Obama is the best ever! I mean look at his healthcare reform. It is fantastic--the very best thing ever!

Then again, I am an insurance company.

Please wait...

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