These bastards really do think were stupid

[DJ13]

Each time the Catfood Commission holds its secret meetings, Alex Lawson of Social Security Works has been outside with his camera, shooting video of the closed front door as FDL runs a live stream on our front page. The Washington Post wrote it up recently. As committee members go in and out of the room Alex asks them questions when he can and yesterday he had an exchange with Alan Simpson that was…well, extraordinary......



ALAN SIMPSON: We’re really working on solvency… the key is solvency

ALEX LAWSON: What about adequacy? Are you focusing on adequacy as well?

SIMPSON: Where do you come up with all the crap you come up with?

SIMPSON: We’re trying to take care of the lesser people in society and do that in a way without getting into all the flash words you love dig up, like cutting Social Security, which is bullshit. We’re not cutting anything, we’re trying to make it solvent.

SIMPSON: It’ll go broke in the year 2037.

LAWSON: What do you mean by ‘broke’? Do you mean the surplus will go out and then it will only be able to pay 75% of its benefits?

SIMPSON: Just listen, will you listen to me instead of babbling? In the year 2037, instead of getting 100% of your check, you are going to get about 75% of your check. That’s if you touch nothing. If you like that, fine. You’ll be picking with the chickens yourself when you’re 65.

So we want to take care, we’re not cutting, we’re not balancing the budget on the backs of senior citizens. That’s bullshit. So you’ve got that one down. So as long as you’ve got those two things down, you can’t play with anymore, that we’re not balancing the budget of the United States on the backs of poor old seniors and we’re not cutting anything, we’re stabilizing the system.

~~~~~~~~

SIMPSON: There are 15 of them in there. All of them have to do with stabilizing the system, which we are told is insolvent, it’s paying out more then it’s taking in.

LAWSON: Right now?

SIMPSON: Yes.

LAWSON: But what about the $180 billion in surplus that it brings in every year?

SIMPSON: There is no surplus in there. It’s a bunch of IOUs.

LAWSON: That’s what I wanted to actually get at.

SIMPSON: Listen. Listen. It’s 2.5 trillion bucks in IOUs which have been used to build the interstate highway system and all of the things people have enjoyed since it has been setup.

LAWSON: Two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy.

SIMPSON: Whatever, whatever. You pick your crap and I’ll pick the real stuff. It has to do with the highway system, it was to run America. And those are IOUs in there. And now there is not enough coming in every month. You’re paying in every month for me. I appreciate that, I really do.

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/06/17/alan-simpson-cutting-social-security-benefits-to-take-care-of-the-lesser-people-in-society/


Get that?

Your money taken from your checks to provide Social Security in your later years was never yours, they spent it and dont expect to pay you back.

Forget a return to rational tax rates on the wealthy, they are determined to rob the lower classes and the elderly so the wealthy can continue paying as little as possible.

:grr:

[Catherina]

1. Par for the course they're on. Nothing has changed

except now they smile a little more. They must be that happy.

[Jamastiene]

2. K&R

This needs to be seen.

[Mimosa]

3. Thanks for this article! n/t

[Warpy]

4. Who's the idiot who thinks he's never going to get old?

K&R to get it up to a positive number.

Simpson is a prize fool. He knows damned full well how to keep it solvent, get it out of the general fund and make it pay as you go, raising and lowering the earnings cap subject to OASDI taxes as needed, but he's not going to milk his sacred cows and he sure as hell doesn't want it solvent.

My curse for the lot of these men is that they be poor.

[alstephenson]

5. K & R

[WillyT]

6. Big K & R !!!

:kick:

[BrklynLiberal]

7. And everyone laughed at Al Gore when he mentioned a "lock box"

[flyarm]

8. This "commission " was put in place to privatize SS..anyone who thinks diffferent wants to be fooled

[glitch]

16. Agreed, but even so. This guy is an idiot.

If you were trying to pull a fast one like privatizing social security wouldn't you pick slicker players?

[inna]

9. KR, and... thank god for FDL

:kick:

[inna]

10. For those who missed this - an absolute must read: "Whacking the Old Folks":

http://www.thenation.com/article/whacking-old-folks


:grr: :mad: :nuke:

[DJ13]

12. Thank you for the link, thats a good article!

:hi:

[Laelth]

14. That essay makes me furious.

Clinton tried to cut social security. Monica Lewinsky saved the system (Clinton's deal with Gingrich blew up because of the scandal). Bush tried, but could not, privatize social security. So now Obama is trying to do it again. And what does the left get out of this? Higher taxes to balance the budget? And who, do you think, will pay the lion's share of those higher taxes? The working class, of course.

The left is being told that it's better to have a Democrat cutting social security than a cold-hearted Republican as if it is a foregone conclusion that social security will be cut.

This whole thing turns my stomach. We elect Democrats to fight for the working class, not to accomplish all the policy goals that the Republicans tried but couldn't accomplish when they were in power.

btw, thanks for posting the essay. I needed to know all of that, even if I don't like it.

:dem:

-Laelth

[mmonk]

11. The answer is yes.

Recommended.

[gratuitous]

13. So they have a commission . . .

Made up of people not dependent on Social Security to decide what to do about Social Security. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. In fairness, why don't we have a commission of people on SSI meet and decide what sort of pension benefits dessicated fuckers like Alan Simpson deserve?

[glitch]

15. Why on earth would Obama choose this guy? He's frightenly obtuse and belligerent.

Were there absolutely no smarter options?

Unless he filled the commission with dim cranky idealogues in order to smack their recommendations down easier? The Strawman Commission?

Because if he actually feels this guy is the best man for the job of "fixing entitlements" we are in worse trouble than we think, and that says a lot after the BP fiasco.

[Kip Humphrey]

17. WHAT? You want those IOUs paid bacK??? Socialist, Commie, Anti-American!

:sarcasm:

:banghead: :grr: :nuke:

[Fumesucker]

18. That's because, as a group, we are incredibly stupid.. or at least ignorant..

My family knows *nothing* of any of this and will get upset if I try to clue them in. None of them are stupid but they are willfully and aggressively ignorant when it comes to anything even remotely political. Not freepers or teabaggers, they just do.not.want.to.know.

[Subdivisions]

19. My s/o becomes very upset if I even talk to someone else in the room

about what is going on in this country and the world, much less trying to speak to her. She just does not want to hear it.

I should really ditch her ass.

[Fumesucker]

20. My brother's wife is that way..

He and I can't discuss world events at all anywhere that she can hear, she gets extremely upset about it.

But she can carry on about her granddaughter's softball game or other personal trivia for hours on end while my eyes glaze over.

[Subdivisions]

21. That's my s/o to the core. If it ain't about the kids or the grandkids or

other close family and friends, she doesn't want to hear or talk about it.

It's her way, she says, of managing and being in control of stress. She says the only news that ever gets disucssed is bad news and she doesn't want it in her life. She says since she has me to keep track if things she doesn't have to. So frustrating because I have no one to talk to about things. Exasperating because I just can't register it in my mind that even just conversating about things to others is enough to piss her off.

It's really screwed up too because I often fantasize what it would be like to have a partner who is interested in something more than manipulating yet another grandchild out of one of her kids in order to give her life meaning. It's like a broken record pregnancy parade around here! A parade of new and hand-me-down baby clothes, ultra-sound images, and baby showers, and birthdays.

Nothing else matters. Period.

[nichomachus]

22. +100