TYT: TARP Champion: Cut Social Security

[The Northerner]

Run time: 06:09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl6sixD3NhA   Posted on YouTube: July 31, 2010 By YouTube Member: TheYoungTurks Views on YouTube: 303   Posted on DU: August 02, 2010 By DU Member: The Northerner Views on DU: 988

 

[SugarShack]

1. Don't forget the Five Myths About Soc. Sec!! Share with everyone that you know!

Social Security is Under Attack - 5 Myths

Top 5 Social Security Myths
Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.

Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.1 After 2037, it'll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits—and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers' retirement decades ago.2 Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.

Myth #2: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.

Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago.3 What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly—since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half.4 But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.

Myth #3: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.

Reality: Social Security doesn't need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here's a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come.5 Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income.6 But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.

Myth #4: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs

Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn't full of IOUs, it's full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.7 The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market—which would have been disastrous—but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.

Myth #5: Social Security adds to the deficit

Reality: It's not just wrong—it's impossible! By law, Social Security's funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.8

Defeating these myths is the first step to stopping Social Security cuts. Can you share this list now?

Thanks for all you do.

Sources:

1."To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security," New Deal 2.0, June 14, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89703&id=22141-6865392-I0x5a0x&t=4

2. "The Straight Facts on Social Security," Economic Opportunity Institute, September 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89704&id=22141-6865392-I0x5a0x&t=5

3. "Social Security and the Age of Retirement," Center for Economic and Policy Research, June 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89705&id=22141-6865392-I0x5a0x&t=6

4. "More on raising the retirement age," Washington Post, July 8, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89706&id=22141-6865392-I0x5a0x&t=7

5. "Social Security is sustainable," Economic and Policy Institute, May 27, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89707&id=22141-6865392-I0x5a0x&t=8

6. "Maximum wage contribution and the amount for a credit in 2010," Social Security Administration, April 23, 2010
http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/240

7. "Trust Fund FAQs," Social Security Administration, February 18, 2010
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html

8."To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security," New Deal 2.0, June 14, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89703&id=22141-6865392-I0x5a0x&t=9
Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.


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PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

[1monster]

8. deleted

[GreenTea]

2. Cut Social Security - But don't touch the largest recipient of out taxes by far the military

over a trillion dollars year counting the wars - Of which more than 90% of that trillion dollars of our tax dollar goes to over 200 corporations & multi-nationals cheering on more war for profit at the expense of Social Security and other social programs that we prefer instead, that our tax dollars be spent on!

[breadandwine]

3. Yep, cut Social Security. And Medicare.

Old people are lazy.

And what about children? They've been getting a free ride for ages. Make them go out and work for a living! Child labor laws are communist!!


And Medicare? Get up off your hospital bed and go out and get a job!

[damntexdem]

5. As opposed to Social Security, which our GENERAL taxes are NOT spent on.

And which does not affect the deficit.

[JDPriestly]

4. Social Security is the expression of self-sacrifice for the common good.

Asking Social Security beneficiaries to accept cuts in their benefits of on average less than $1200 per month is me firstism at its worst.

Neil Kashkari knows very little about the philosophy and sense of community that built America. I'm talking about the time when Americans settled the west and middle west. Communities worked together, built schools and churches as communities, built their local governments as communities and took care of each other as communities. Neil Kashkari's family is from India where they traditionally have a caste system. He should not be preaching his caste system attitudes to Americans. He should be learning about America. I am by no means anti-immigrant, but Neil Kashkari talking about sacrifice is just a cruel joke.

Doesn't he understand that Americans lost their homes thanks to the me firstism of his company, Goldman Sachs and others like it? Neil Kashkari and Goldman Sachs are the epitome of me firstism. That editorial made me feel nauseous.

The Harijans, or the people outside the caste system, had the lowest social status. The Harijans, earlier referred to as untouchables by some, worked in what were seen as unhealthy, unpleasant or polluting jobs. In the past, the Harijans suffered from social segregation and restrictions, in addition to extreme poverty. They were not allowed temple worship with others, nor water from the same sources. Persons of higher castes would not interact with them. If somehow a member of a higher caste came into physical or social contact with an untouchable, the member of the higher caste was defiled, and had to bathe thoroughly to purge him or herself of the impurity. Social discrimination developed even among the Harijans; sub-castes among Harijans, such as the dhobi and nai, would not interact with lower-order Bhangis, who were described as "outcastes even among outcastes".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India

When Kashkari writes about sacrifice, I smell something very impure.

[Red Knight]

6. The evil of raising retirement age

Is that if they continue to raise it high enough---you won't collect a penny. You'll be dead.

It's a perfect way to funnel future funds to the wealthy---funds that come in but are never paid out--except to those who they want to pay them to.

You'll continue to pay into social security.

But you'll never collect it.

[1monster]

7. To the GREATEST! If Corporate Interests want to do away with my

(future) Social Security benefits, then they are welcome to reimburse me (and anyone else whose benefits are curtailed) in one lump sum for every penny of my investment in Social Security AND compounded daily interest for that investment at the vairous rates of interest that I could have been getting on that money during the years that the moneys were deducted from my pay check and for the amounts that I paid out of my pocket for self employed earnings.

Oh, and the lump sum payment is due the day Social Security benefits are cut or interest rates of 15% over prime rate will apply to any unpaid balance.

[JDPriestly]

9. This Kashkari article makes me so mad.

If Kashkari is so keen on sacrifice for the common good, where is his military record?

He is preaching sacrifice to the generations that fought WWII, served in the military Post-WWII during the most frightening years of the Cold War and of the Vietnam vets.

My own husband volunteered for four years of military service at 17 (or possibly younger, believe it or not. He really wanted to join up.)

Kashkari was born on July 30, 1973, in Akron, Ohio, and grew up in the Akron suburb of Stow, Ohio. He attended Stow–Munroe Falls schools before transferring to the Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio, from which he graduated in 1991.

Kashkari earned bachelor’s (1995) and master’s (1997) degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Both degrees were in aeronautical engineering. As a graduate student, he was the team leader for the mechanical engineering component of a solar-powered car the school entered in the 1997 Sunrayce, a solar-powered vehicle race from Indiana to Colorado.

Kashkari earned an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neel_Kashkari

Let's see. At the age of 17, where was Kashkari? Oh, attending private school and thinking about those college applications I'm sure.

Wow! He's such an expert on sacrifice for others, for the common good. Let's hear what sacrifices you have made?

Do you think that working for the government instead of grabbing your bloated salary from Goldman Sachs was some sort of sacrifice? Please.

I hate to pick on this guy. But he really deserves it. He needs to understand that he is asking heroes to sacrifice when he doesn't know what sacrifice is.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

10. Ah Cenk- At last you've earned another one...

Not quite as good as that beat down you put on Mark Souder, but deserving nonetheless.

BTW- Anybody else notice the resemblance between this Kash-N-Carry creep and a certain comic book villain?