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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWarren: ‘The GOP is inventing a Social Security crisis’
Posted with permission.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/warren-the-gop-inventing-social-security-crisis
Warren: The GOP is inventing a Social Security crisis
01/07/15 04:36 PMUpdated 01/07/15 06:04 PM
By Steve Benen
House Republicans, literally on the first day of the new Congress, quietly went after Social Security last night, and as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) put it, GOP lawmakers are inventing a Social Security crisis.
Heres the deal. Social Security doesnt just provide benefits to seniors once they retire; the system also includes a disability-insurance program for those who want to work but cant due to health reasons.
Over the course of the last several decades, when the disability-insurance program runs short on funds, Congress transfers money from elsewhere in the Social Security system to prevent benefit cuts. Its never been especially controversial in fact, its been done 11 times over the last seven decades.
And, with the disability-insurance program facing a shortfall next year, Social Security proponents expect this Congress to do what previous Congresses have done. The systems trustees have seen this coming its largely the result of demographic changes and the fix should be pretty straightforward.
Not only do congressional Republicans oppose the fix, as Dylan Scott explained, GOP lawmakers also took steps yesterday to make the solution almost impossible to pass.
The largely overlooked change puts a new restriction on the routine transfer of tax revenues between the traditional Social Security retirement trust fund and the Social Security disability program.
Republicans didnt prohibit the transfers, sometimes called reallocation, but the new policy does say that transfers must improve the overall financial health of the combined Social Security Trust Funds. And as TPMs report added, While that language is vague, experts say it would likely mean any reallocation would have to be balanced by new revenues or benefit cuts.
And thats a problem.
At first blush, a provision that says it want to improve the overall financial health of the Social Security system may sound great, but the devil is in the details. For one thing, transferring funds to the disability-insurance program would have little discernible effect on the systems financial health, so its not as if Republicans can say this new policy of theirs is somehow intended to protect Social Security.
For another, this little unannounced stunt in the House floor last night seems to clear the way for proposed Social Security cuts, which would be consistent with congressional Republicans larger goals.
And finally, if the disability-insurance program doesnt get the resources it needs, households that rely on these benefits which is to say, people who physically cannot work will face drastic Social Security reductions.
When looking ahead to the more contentious fights of the 11th Congress, many of us, including me, hadnt given much thought to Social Security. As of last night, that changed.
Gothmog
(145,264 posts)The GOP is getting really arrogant if the GOP think that voters will not remember this
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Who's gonna do that? Fox?
StevePaulson
(174 posts)And listen to Rush.
"The Needy" are to be urinated on. Them "takers".
And the MSM keeps mum. They're gettin' paid so
why make waves.
Them folks that need SSI to hell with them. They
aren't workin' and bein' productive (piling money
into the Swiss bank accounts of the billionaires).
KayLaw
(2,321 posts)There is a good page called, "Social Security Works." I'm sharing their memes and anything else that comes along.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)midnight
(26,624 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)An unwillingness to tax the people who have all the money.
StevePaulson
(174 posts)++++++++++
http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/23/super-rich-hide-21-trillion-offshore-study-says/
21 to 31 trillion offshore
There's the money.
demigoddess
(6,641 posts)post office crisis comes to mind.
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)lpbk2713
(42,757 posts)They are the party of fear and hysteria. It has always worked for them in the past.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)I love her!
bananas
(27,509 posts)hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Talk about cutting off one's nose to spite their face.
Hopefully, the new revenue can be had by lifting the cap on salary taxable for SS.
msongs
(67,406 posts)babylonsister
(171,066 posts)Bandit
(21,475 posts)are always full of ideas to cut and/or eliminate Government..
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)...too busy kissing corporate ass?
...looking for missing spine?
...can't get away from the K Street dinner table?
...selling lemon aid for campaign contributions?
SpankMe
(2,957 posts)...we don't hear a word about paring that back a bit.
polynomial
(750 posts)Especially with the disabled, encouraging Online Internet Jobs is the future money machine for both disability people and those billionaire one percenters that want to make more money.
Its stupid to cut money for disability in this technological society we have.
This GOP represents a culture in government similar in many ways to old third world types America is in conflict right now. Beside America used toxic warfare experiment in Iraq not talked about that has created severe disabilities in American veterans...
Operation Desert Storm, fought in 1991, was the first time in military history that depleted uranium was used. Now never talked about but is the responsibility still ours, of course and it was the Bush family that profiteered through this endeavor at the expense of American and Iraqi lives.
Herbert Walker Bush should parachute down and do a wheel through to inspect the war torn of that era. Better yet every Journalist that supported that time should same sample the water to see if its good.
That depleted uranium contaminate water and soil and enter into the food chain. The particles are so small that they can be blown by wind for tens of kilometers. The uranium aerosol enters the body through ingestion or inhalation, or through coming in contact with an open wound.
Thats the real reason to get out. Our America Herbert Walker Bush president poisoned these Iraqi people with all the intention to make them suffer for a long time.
American service men and women subjected to a horror of unbelievable truisms in that toxicity of Depleted Uranium does not come only from its capacity to kill life, but also its ability to create an array of pathologies and afflictions.
In the lungs, the radioactive uranium dust has a bio-toxic life span of close to one year. It can cause many acute symptoms due to its immediate chemical toxicity, which irritates and destroys lung tissue.
As it makes its way to the blood stream, the uranium oxides bind with organic compounds to form chemical and organic complexes that deposit in the bones, lymphatic system, liver, and kidneys. This stuff is radioactive toxicity, more than its chemical toxicity, affects the development of different kinds of malignancies and genetic mutations.
Still, the chemical and irradiation toxicity happen simultaneously to produce a series of acute, chronic, and deadly ailments.
This is a war crime.