One attendee of the Netroots Nation panel provocatively titled “Obama’s Social Security ‘Death Panel’” later told me he had gone into the panel dubious that there is any real threat to Social Security. “But I left mad,” he said, questioning how such an important part of America’s social fabric could be threatened. Yet as the panelists detailed, Social Security is most definitely under attack–and it’s an attack that could fundamentally alter how we understand the program.
Panelists agreed the most direct assaults on Social Security takes are likely to be defeated, as the privatization of the program was in 2005. But they pointed to a more nuanced threat. Robert Borosage of Campaign for America’s Future contrasted the “frightened, timid and cautious leadership” of today with the “confident society” that, following World War II, responded to a much larger deficit (as percentage of GDP) by embarking on a series of spending programs that reshaped the economy and built the middle class.
Today, Borosage said, there is an emerging elite consensus that is “focused on Social Security because it will show they’re ’serious,’ even though it will have no effect on the deficit.” They portray Social Security as being in crisis, then claim that proposed cuts are “saving” the program. Eric Kingson, co-director of Social Security Works, made it clear that Social Security is not in crisis.
Social Security should and can work for the next 75 years.
“But it’s up to all of us” to defend it. Crucially, defending Social Security
is not about dollars and cents and it’s not about balancing the books. It’s about how well the American people do—all of us.
The elite consensus will, unfortunately, drive too much of what happens on a policy level. But what about working people? As a panelist myself, I spoke about what Working America organizers hear in the field every night, on the doorsteps of thousands of working Americans. Working people are deeply worried that their Social Security benefits will be cut, but too much of what they hear is dominated by fear-mongering claims that Social Security is in crisis. If the progressive movement doesn’t reach out to working people with the message that Social Security is not in trouble, we allow its enemies to define the debate. And if the debate begins with the assumption that cuts are needed to “save” the program, we’re stuck fighting against backward movement. Instead, we need to be fighting our way forward by providing working people information that shifts the debate forward.
That fight “is going to be the battle of our lives,” according to the blogger Digby. She referred back to the successful fight against privatization in 2005 and highlighted the importance of repetition: For every time opponents of Social Security say it’s in crisis, its defenders have to say “no, it’s not.” Or “strengthen Social Security—don’t cut it.” (And make no mistake, raising the eligibility age is a cut.) As progressive bloggers and individuals and organizations, she emphasized, we have to use every tool at our disposal to amplify those simple messages.
In the waning days of the Bush administration, and before the implementation of restrictions on some executives’ pay, the highest paid bankers at 17 of the firms bailed out by the Bush Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) also got bonuses totaling $1.6 billion in the period from October 2008 to February 2009.
Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master on executive pay, issued a report today identifying the 17 banks, many of them among the nation’s largest, following an inquiry into compensation at all firms receiving TARP funds. The report does not include specifics on the amounts paid out at any of the banks.
At a news conference on Friday, Feinberg stressed that the firms did nothing illegal, but that their actions reflected “bad judgment” that was “contrary to the public interest.”
Later, President Obama, speaking briefly at the White House, said the review was meant to put firms on notice “that continued to pay out lavish bonuses” as they received government assistance.
The inquiry focused on the five month period during which banks received TARP money but were not yet subject to the new compensation oversight provisions. During those five months alone nearly 3 million American workers had their jobs taken from them by the Great Recession caused by Wall Street and the Bush administration’s failures.
Of the 17 banks identified, 6 have not yet repaid the TARP funds. NPRprovides a list:
Here are the 17 firms that Feinberg says made ill-advised payments. Those that have not yet fully repaid taxpayer bailouts are listed in bold:
* American Express
* AIG
* Bank of America
* Boston Private Financial Holdings
* Capital One
* CIT
* Citigroup
* JPMorgan Chase
* M&T Bank
* Morgan Stanley
* Regions Financial
* SunTrust Banks
* Bank of New York Mellon
* Goldman Sachs
* PNC Financial Services Group
* U.S. Bancorp
* Wells Fargo
Where does populist anger over the economy go—left or right? It’s a question Working America has focused a great deal on as it relates to both policy and politics, in our discussions of a “working class at the tipping point,” in our daily work and as it relates specifically to this fall’s elections. This morning, a Netroots Nation panel also took up the question. “The 2010 Elections: Power of Jobs, Populusm and Angry Voters,” moderated by Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing featured pollster Mark Mellman, Coffee Party USA founder Annabel Park and Campaign for America’s Future blogger Dave Johnson.
Mellman set the stage with an overview of the recent bipartisan poll on attitudes toward manufacturing and economic policy. That poll found high levels of concern among voters—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—about America’s loss of world economic leadership and a lack of action by the government to create jobs. Voters say manufacturing is the most important sector for a strong economy and to ensure national security and rejected the idea that other sectors, such as services or technology, can replace manufacturing.
Participating in a focus group held in conjunction with the poll, a woman from Chicago said that “If manufacturing is not successful then the economy is not successful.” The poll’s results, as Mellman detailed, show that her view is widespread.
Annabel Park used the example of the current devastation of the Gulf to highlight how interconnected economic factors can destroy lives in ways too often ignored by policymakers. Scott Voytko, for instance, found his auto body shop’s business slashed by the reduction in tourism to his Florida community, but BP refused to compensate him for his lost business, saying the oil spill was not directly responsible. People need help, Park said, right now and in direct ways, not through complex programs that take time to implement.
Dave Johnson contrasted the narrative coming out of the Great Depression with narratives now emerging. The Roosevelt administration, he argued, provided a strong narrative about who was responsible for the loss of jobs—and as a result, Roosevelt’s party was in power for a generation. By contrast, today corporate conservatives have had success pushing their own interpretations of who is to blame for economic hardship. As Johnson said:
With this conservative movement it seems facts don’t matter. What matters is repetition.
And with a powerful corporate media glad to repeat claims that the mortgage crisis was a result of the government directing lenders to give loans to unqualified minorities, or that the current budget deficit is a result of President Obama’s actions and not those of his predecessor, too many people have not only absorbed conservative interpretations of real events, they’ve been misled on the facts.
How do we combat this? Scott Paul closed the panel by pointing to elected officials like Sen. Sherrod Brown, Rep. Mark Schauer and Rep. Mark Critz, all of whom focused their campaigns on keeping jobs in their districts and improving trade agreements. Turns out that strengthening the economy by defending working families is not just the right thing to do, it’s also a winning strategy.
DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: The official figures will tell you there are 1,371,000 people like Randy Moe.
RANDY MOE, 99ER CHICAGO: I was unemployed, laid off, August 15, 2008, and collected benefits until about six weeks ago.
GERSH: That’s because Moe hit the limit on benefits. In most states, that’s 99 weeks, which is why many of those who have run out call themselves “99ers.”
MOE: We’ve become thrown away people. They’re losing a lot of valuable people, the country is.
GERSH: Randy Moe found other 99ers online. A dozen meet regularly in this chat room. They talk about finding a job and about lobbying Congress for help. They’re part of a grassroots movement to add what’s called a tier five to unemployment insurance — another 20 weeks of benefits.
Unemploymentality has a lot of links to other unemployed bloggers, some helpful options (look for Broke-Ass Stuart’s money saving recommendations) and there’s also plenty of entertainment.
The only way to end long term unemployment is to put a human face on it.
The Netroots Nation panel I’m on — “Obama’s Social Security “Death Panel”: Engaging Activists to Defeat the Drive to Cut Critical Social Programs” – is starting soon.
If you’re at Netroots Nation, well, why don’t you come on by? If you’re not, here’s some of what you’d hear at the panel anyway.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to text “Activist Mitchell Hirsch” to 27336.
And if you’re at Netroots Nation, text “NN10” to 30644 to qualify for your free union beer tasting from 4:00 to 7:00 today or 3:00-6:00 tomorrow in the exhibit hall.
Congress has finally passed a bill to restore extended federal unemployment insurance to more than 2.7 million jobless workers, continue the program for millions more, and allow those unemployed for more than 26 weeks to file for the program through the end of November.
President Obama is scheduled to sign the unemployment extension later today.
The House passed the measure this afternoon, with the Senate having approved it last night by a vote of 59 to 39. Even after their two-month filibuster was finally overcome, Senate Republicans delayed a final vote for an additional 30 hours by refusing to give back any post-cloture time. The added delay caused another 60,000 long-term jobless workers to have their benefits cut off temporarily.
Now those benefits will begin to be paid out retroactive to June 1 when the Republican-led obstruction caused them to expire.
The victory on unemployment insurance comes just one day after President Obama signed a landmark Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act which was passed by the Congress despite strenuous opposition from Wall Street’s lobbyists and conservative Republicans — the very folks whose disastrous policies caused the Great Recession and our debilitating high levels of unemployment.
The agonizing two-month struggle to pass an unemployment insurance extension exposed the Republicans as deficit frauds who want to block any measures to improve the economy and support a recovery. In their calculations, the more pain working families are in, the better the Republicans’ chances are politically.
That’s why renewed efforts are needed now to press the Congress to take up the critical measures that were put aside during the unemployment extension struggle. Congress needs to extend FMAP funds to help states pay for Medicaid and avoid mass layoffs; and it needs to provide critical state aid to help keep teachers in classrooms in the coming school year.
Have you personally shouldered the burden for economic hardship in your household?
Do you feel more hopeful and confident or worried and concerned about the future of young people going into the workforce?
We want to hear from you and thousands more working women by the time our Ask a Working Woman survey ends at the end of the month. Let us know how the economy is affecting you and your family, what your challenges are, and what you think about the future.
You’d be surprised what goes on behind closed doors. Every day, you were asked to break the law. If you didn’t break the law, you were asked what was wrong with you.
From making calls day and night to elderly people hard of hearing to faxing a person’s workplace about the money they owed, we had to do whatever it took. If the person we were looking for didn’t answer our calls, we were told to ask neighbors to pin notices on the person’s front door, saying to call us immediately.
Revealing a person’s debt to friends, relatives and neighbors was common, even though it’s illegal.
Mike Huddleston:
Unlike some of the other collectors I knew, I didn’t try to scare people or take advantage of peoples’ ignorance by threatening things like eviction even though we weren’t allowed to evict someone. But it was still tough to deal with people who are struggling so much, and it was even harder knowing that a lot of people aren’t telling you the truth.
When I first started out, after someone filed for bankruptcy, I thought, “Anyone who files bankruptcy is a good-for-nothing deadbeat,” and I was mad at that person. At that point, I was young and nothing very negative had happened in my life, but as I grew up, I learned that many things happen that are out of your control. And there’s no point in telling a deadbeat they’re a deadbeat. They already know it.
I’m off to Las Vegas for Netroots Nation. We’ll be posting some from the event, and Mitchell and Susan may have regular news posting, so just because I’m out of the office doesn’t mean Main Street will be closed for business.
Along with Harvard legal professor Elizabeth Warren, Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson and others, Trumka will take part in the panel, “Building a Progressive Economic Vision,” where he will focus on the key steps the nation needs to take to rebuild our nation’s economy (hint: Trumka’s proposals don’t include slashing the deficit at the expense of jobs).
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler will moderate the July 23 panel, “Young Workers: Taking Charge of Our Future,” following up on the AFL-CIO’s successful, first-ever Young Workers Summit last month.
That panel with President Trumka is at lunchtime on Saturday.
Also,
“Freelancers of the World, Unite! Unions for Permatemps and Independent Workers,” sponsored by the Writers Guild of America, East, July 22.
“The 2010 Elections: Channeling the Power of Jobs, Populism and the Angry Voter,” sponsored by our friends at the Alliance for American Manufacturing, July 22.
“Obama’s Social Security ‘Death Panel’: Engaging Activists to Defeat the Drive to Cut Critical Social Programs,” with Working America’s Laura Clawson on the panel, July 22.
“Immigration Reform’s Strange Bedfellows: The Surprising Consensus that Reform Will Improve American Jobs and Bolster Our Economy,” sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers, July 22.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson, Blue-Green Alliance President Chuck Rocha, Franken and others in the closing night event, July 24. Chavez-Thompson is running for lieutenant governor of Texas and will join us throughout the conference.
You can participate in our Raise a Glass for the Working Class union beer happy hours by taking action at the booth or by texting NN10 to 30644—you’ll get a reply message that you can show directly to the bartender for your beer sample. This year we’ll be serving Miller and Leinenkugel’s beers.
And once again, please check out the CREDO Mobile/Netroots Nation blogger awards and vote for Main Street’s Mitchell Hirsch for blog activist of the year. I’ll have more to say about it, but anyone who reads this blog (or any of several others) knows how tireless Mitchell has been advocating for unemployment extensions and jobs legislation. So text “Activist Mitchell Hirsch” to 27336 if you think he deserves to be recognized for that.
After an infuriating two-month struggle to overcome the obstruction of the Republican-led deficit frauds, the Senate finally voted 60 to 40 today to end the filibuster and allow a vote to restore the extended federal unemployment benefit programs through November.
Upon final passage, the measure will go back to the House, which is set to pass it Wednesday and send it to President Obama for his signature. Since Republicans first succeeded in blocking the jobless benefits extension prior to the Memorial Day weekend, the number of long-term unemployed workers who have had their benefits cut off has continued its inexorable rise.
The Senate’s newest (and youngest) member, Democrat Carte Goodwin of West Virginia, provided the 60th vote needed to end the Republican-led filibuster. Maine’s two Republican Senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, also voted to end the filibuster, as did every Democrat with the exception of Nebraska’s Ben Nelson.
The bill will allow states to pay the extended benefits to eligible jobless workers retroactive to when they expired on June 1. Those who had been receiving these benefits prior to that date will also be eligible to file for their next available Tier of benefits, and will be able to continue doing so if needed until the duration of benefits is exhausted. Those who had exhausted their regular 26-week state benefits from June 1 until now will be eligible to file for and receive the extended federal benefits available in their state.
The extension, however, does not create any additional Tiers of benefits beyond the existing EUC and EB programs for those who have already exhausted the up to 99 weeks of unemployment compensation.
And because this extension continues only through the end of November, it will not provide federal benefits to those who have or will become unemployed after June 1 of this year.
The bill is a stand-alone, six-month unemployment extension only. The number of other critically needed jobless aid, state aid and jobs provisions that were stripped from the original bill is staggering — evidence of the full-scale war being waged by the conservative minority to thwart any recovery that might benefit working people.
For example, the bill no longer contains the additional $25 per week that had been included previously in unemployment checks. The federal COBRA subsidy, which has helped millions of unemployed workers maintain affordable health insurance while they look for work, was also removed. An extension of additional FMAP funds to states to help support Medicaid programs, as well as funds for summer youth jobs and expanded infrastructure investments all were removed from the bill.
So, while the victory on unemployment benefits will restore urgently needed aid for millions of America’s record number of long-term jobless workers, it is also a testament to the persistence and fortitude of those families and individuals, and all the groups and organizations who have fought so hard, and mobilized petitions, emails, phone calls and letters to finally get this done.
More than that — it also has served to educate us as to the real objectives of our opponents, and the nature of the crucial policy and political challenges ahead.
