Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, the Republican co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, who is known for having a long-time bias against Social Security, sent an email to a prominent women’s rights advocate early this week, which said in part:
“I’ve made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know ‘em too. It’s the same with any system in America. We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!”
Ashley Carson, executive director of OWL, the Older Women’s League, who received the Simpson email, made it public in a statement released (pdf) Wednesday.
In an email to Ashley Carson, OWL Executive Director, Simpson refers to Social Security as “a milk cow with 310 million tits.” Simpson also insults her intelligence, and claims she doesn’t do “honest work.” This kind of language plainly displays a complete disregard not only for women and seniors, but for the American workers who pay into Social Security throughout their working lives, and who receive benefits they earned through their own contributions. Taking those benefits when a worker can no longer work is not “milking the system.” It’s our money, and we deserve it.
Ashley Carson states: “This kind of blatant disrespect for women, and for the social fabric of our coun-try, has no place in a serious discussion about our deficit. Mr. Simpson’s fifteen minutes of sexism and degradation are over. Now is the time for serious people to have serious conversations about how to move our nation forward, protecting the men and women who have worked their whole lives to make this country great.”
But Simpson is just one cog in a Commission that is fundamentally undemocratic. Serious decisions about programs that provide health care and retirement security should not be shifted away from the elected Members of Congress, who answer to their constituents, to a select group of political insid-ers. And forcing Congress to vote on whatever recommendations the Commission makes - without the ability to debate and amend the recommendations - flies in the face of democracy.
Alan Simpson must be removed, but we should not forget that he is just one sexist, disrespectful and embarrassing component of a process that usurps the rights of citizens to hold their elected representative accountable. OWL looks forward to a serious, respectful, and honest debate in both Houses of Congress about the real causes of the deficit, and real solutions. Alan Simpson and the President’s Commission are not part of the real solutions Americans need.
Simpson has reportedly “apologized” for his remarks. But a storm of protests and calls for his removal have continued unabated.
I always thought that the deficit commission was a bad idea; it has only looked worse over time, as the buzz is that Democrats are caving in to Republicans, leaning ever further toward an all-cuts, no taxes solution, including a sharp rise in the retirement age.
I’ve also had my eye on Alan Simpson, the supposedly grown-up Republican co-chair, who has been talking nonsense about Social Security from the get-go.
[...]
And no, an apology won’t suffice. Simpson was completely in character here; it was perfectly consistent with everything else he’s said, and with his previous behavior. He has to go.
Ryan Grim reports at the Huffington Post with a host of updates on the growing coalition calling for Simpson’s removal and opposing plans to cut Social Security.
The author is the winner of the 2010 CREDO Mobile/Netroots Nation award for Blog Activist of the Year.
Sam Seder has a great new video now featured on StrengthenSocialSecurity.org on what working people think about the attempts to weaken Social Security while giving tax breaks to the rich.
Rather than extending tax breaks for those who already have plenty of money and cutting Social Security, a fair tax approach could actually strengthen and expand Social Security. That’s exactly what EPI economist Monique Morrissey proposed earlier this year, and highlighted in a brief New York TimesOp-Ed piece on Sunday:
Do you want to know how much LeBron James pays in Social Security taxes each year? Bill Gates? Oprah? Your dermatologist? $6,622. That’s the maximum anyone pays in Social Security taxes, because earnings above $106,800 are not taxed.
By slowly raising the cap — say, 2 percent each year, though increasing it faster would raise more revenue — so that it eventually covered 90 percent of all income, we could eliminate roughly a third of Social Security’s projected shortfall. Next year, people like Mr. James would pay slightly more than they pay now while eventually receiving slightly higher benefits.
That would help restore a balance to our tax base that has disappeared over the past few decades, as incomes among top earners have grown so much more than incomes among those earning below the cap. Indeed, 16 percent of earnings in this country are completely untaxed by Social Security — a huge windfall for the rich and a terrible shortfall for the benefits program.
Better yet, we could close about 70 percent of the shortfall if we immediately eliminated the cap on the employer side. Both employers and employees pay a 6.2 percent Social Security tax on earnings only up to $106,800. Instead, employers should pay their share of the tax on their employees’ full salaries.
I’m sure someone, somewhere would complain that this just makes too much sense.
The author is the winner of the 2010 CREDO Mobile/Netroots Nation award for Blog Activist of the Year.
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.
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.
Asked about that Republican budget, the one that privatizes Social Security and Medicare, House Minority Leader John Boehner didn’t know quite what to say.
Since he was sort of all over the place, I think we better just translate. Shorter, more direct John Boehner: “I don’t disagree with anything in the budget, but I know it’s terrible politics, so this is me distancing myself from it.”
True, this plan was not officially THE single plan from his party. No, it was the plan of their top budget guy, and one said top budget guy says has a lot of support from his party’s leadership. But if Boehner’s response is any guide, don’t look for anyone else to release specific proposals anytime soon. Because specific proposals have a nasty way of being really unpopular when they’re issued by Republicans, what with all the cutting and privatizing of very popular programs.
All that, and a budget surplus at some point in the late 21st century.
We won the Social Security fight in 2005, the last time Republicans tried to privatize it. Since then, we’ve watched the stock market—the source they want people to rely entirely upon for their retirement—collapse. Imagine if Social Security had been privatized in 2005 and America’s retirement security had been shifted into the stock market by fall 2008. What would that have looked like?
Yet they’re back for another crack.
Medicare won’t just be privatized, either. It’ll be privatized with vouchers that grow more slowly than insurance costs. So that’s fantastic policy, too, and should be very popular among senior citizens and people who hope someday to become senior citizens.
This is nuts. It’s also what the Republican party wants, even when they try to pretend otherwise.
Last week, Nicholas Kristof found some more opposition to health care reform.
Critics storm that health care reform is “a cruel hoax and a delusion.” Ads in 100 newspapers thunder that reform would mean “the beginning of socialized medicine.”
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page predicts that the legislation will lead to “deteriorating service.” Business groups warn that Washington bureaucrats will invade “the privacy of the examination room,” that we are on the road to rationed care and that patients will lose the “freedom to choose their own doctor.”
Have you figured out the punchline yet?
Those quotes, familiar as they seem, were actually from the 1960s, when the reform being debated was Medicare.
Indeed, these same arguments we hear today against health reform were used even earlier, to attack President Franklin Roosevelt’s call for Social Security. It was denounced as a socialist program that would compete with private insurers and add to Americans’ tax burden so as to kill jobs.
So apparently, a strong public health insurance option would lead to gloom, doom, and the enduring popularity of Medicare and Social Security.
On my ninth day of canvassing in Dayton for Working America, I met a woman with an interesting and inspiring story. She was in her late fifties and raising her ten-year-old grandson, whose mother and father didn’t want anything to do with him. She didn’t want to see the boy sent to a foster home and so took custody of him. She explained that she had a medical problem consisting of a mass building up inside of her and didn’t know what exactly it was, except that it causes her a lot of pain. She also said that she had so many medical bills from her past problems that now she couldn’t possibly pay them with what she was receiving on social security. As such, she felt she couldn’t go to the doctor to find out what was wrong with her on her $450/month from social security. A few months ago, her social security had been raised to $520/month, but as a result her food stamp allowance had been reduced to $23/month. As she started crying, she told me that her rent was $325/month and that she could barely afford food and utilities.
She said between sobs that she couldn’t pay any dues but said she would make phone calls for Working America, put together fliers or even follow canvassers around with something cold to drink. I thanked her for her generosity and willingness to help despite her situation and she told me, “No, thank you for coming out each day trying to help better the lives of people like me.” I gave her a big hug and assured her that things will get better and she smiled.
As I left, I couldn’t help but think about what we do and the impact it has on peoples’ lives. And I know in my heart that coming to Working America was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. If we don’t stand up and fight for these people, no one will.
I spoke to a guy who worked for a local factory for 31 years and was forced into early retirement. Two months ago he went to the Social Security office twice to get his benefits started. He has to return two more times and each appointment requires a month and a half wait — so it will be at least five months before he sees any of his Social Security benefits. He has 13 and 15 year old daughters.
When he answered the door he seemed reluctant to speak to anyone, but his attitude changed when I told him who I was and what I was doing. “Oh, come on in!” he said, and told me his story. After listening to him I told him that retirement security is one of the very things we are fighting for, it was a great thing to see his face light up. He not only signed up, but thanked me for what we do.
