You Hurt Alan Simpson’s Feelings
Poor Alan Simpson. The co-chair of the Deficit Reduction Commission (popularly known as “The Catfood Commission”) isn’t feeling the love from folks responding to his initial recommendations on how to reduce the deficit. From the Wyoming Capital Journal:
During Al Simpson’s nearly 50 years in government, he hasn’t been afraid to take on critics and naysayers of his work in the U.S. Senate or on a variety of high-profile commissions and committees.
But as the co-chair of President Obama’s debt commission, the Wyoming Republican said he’s been taking an unprecedented amount of flak for the commission’s draft proposals to help erase the nation’s $13.8 trillion debt.
“I’ve never had any nastier mail or [been in a] more difficult position in my life,” said the 79-year-old Simpson. “Just vicious. People I’ve known, relatives [saying], “‘You son of a bitch. How could you do this?’”
And
Simpson said he’s spent about $25,000 of his own money on travel and hotel expenses on behalf of the debt commission — an expense he said he doesn’t mind paying.
Oh, the humanity! What a noble fellow, spending his own money to ensure that low income seniors live under bridges and eat catfood in the years to come! Simpson also had this to say:
“We had the greatest generation — I think this is the greediest generation,” he said.
In other words: he made millions. He’s got his. You, on the other hand, are greedy because you’ve paid in to Social Security, and will be receiving a retirement benefit.
Tags: social security
Actually, there has been an interesting strategy in place, concerning Social Security, for a number of years. First, get the public riled up about cutting Social Security retirement, then say, “Never mind.” Meanwhile, they quietly cut/freeze Social Security for the fully disabled, without much public notice (and evidently, without concern).
This year, the disabled face yet another COLA freeze.
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It’s the rich who have the false sense of entitlement, not those dependent upon social security that they paid into. Our nation’s deficit was created by a haphazardly-run war with shifting goals – not by social security, Medicare, welfare, immigrants and/or the disabled. Once Alan Simpson addresses that fact, his job will become easier.
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I hope Alan Simpson does not live to see 80! He’s a PIG!
Simpson needs to just look under the Rowe Blvd. Bridge heading into Annapolis, the Maryland State Capitol to see how former Middle Class citizens live now. A former co-worker of mine lives under that bridge!
I Frankly, I question Obama’s decision on who should sit on this Debt Commission.
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The cost of living increase freezes are very insidious. Every year rent goes up by $40 per month in California and $25 per month in some other states. This is not inflation indexed. Rent always increases. So without the cost of living increase people in their late seventies or older will be put in the enormously stressful position of having to move. This could kill some people in their eighties. Many of these people have to stay in apartments because they can’t afford to move into an assisted living facility. So the also have the cost of a caregiver and they are sleeping at night alone in their apartments when they shouldn’t be alone. People have to ask Simpson how he feels about having to move 80 year old people from one apartment to another.
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Now that California is getting a real governor who will take seriously the severity of the economic problems in his state, I hope this will move the Obama administration in the proper direction.
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Simpson’s committee actually had at least one good idea, although it wasn’t carried through sufficiently. The committee recommended increasing the percentage of Americans whose entire paycheck is subject to Social Security taxes to 90 percent from 85 percent.
I’ve decided every time I see this issue I’ll leave the same comment: We could fund Social Security into perpetuity and ease the deficit at the same time if we just removed the cap on income subject to Social Security. Let CEOs, Congressmen, movie stars and hedge fund operators pay the same tax rate on ALL their income that waitresses, bus drivers and teachers already pay.
No means test necessary, no added bureaucracy, no need to reduce or delay benefits. Just tax every salary the same — every last dollar the same rate. It’s a small tax — a little more than 7 percent. And the only payrolls that would be affected are the ones for people making more than $150,000.
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rackey, the public discussion has been so skewed since the Reagan admin that we can’t even have a legitimate discussion about US poverty. We’ve invented a whole list of euphemisms to assure those who are out of work and out of resources that they’re jobless workers, etc., somehow different from poor people. I think this is a tremendous barrier to any efforts to salvage American families hit by our economic catastrophe.
I think our war spending is just the final nail in the coffin. Since the 1980s, govt has been draining public dollars out of human needs programs (and everything else) to cover the costs of massive annual tax cuts for corporations. Every year for over 30 years, the public was told that this is vitally important to job creation. Indeed, it has been used by US corps to create hundreds of thousands of jobs — in Russia, Thailand, Mexico, etc., etc. Not here in the US. In exchange for covering the cost of exporting our jobs, US workers have seen a series of benefit and wage cuts, and the working class has steadily sunk. Incredible — We can see our govt hand over truckloads of money to corporations, which then record massive profits, only to announce that if workers still want their jobs, they have to settle for a sharp wage cut. And we just accept it.
This generation is a lot like baby seals as the hunters move in.
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