The first thing I thought of when I heard about the tax deal was that it’s the beginning of the end of Social Security as we know it—and another commitment I thought Obama had made that he’s reneging on. I wonder what he says to Malia and Sasha when he breaks a promise. Does he just tell them to stop whining and think about how many other things he’s done? I mean, we’ve been talking about a potential shortfall in Social Security for years, so what do we do? Guarantee a bigger shortfall by lowering the influx of funds. Why couldn’t we have given the rich their tax cut and then taken a teensy bit of it back by eliminating the cap on income subject to the Social Security tax (it’s now a really paltry first $106,000) and expanding it to include all income, including (gasp!) CEO bonuses??? That would satisfy the billionaires AND fully fund Social Security. Win-win, no?
Unless there really isn’t a shortfall at all, and the goal is to eliminate Social Security by whatever means are available, and Obama’s going along with it. If so, I wish him a poverty-stricken old age, and his co-conspirators too.
I’m always amazed when I encounter the fanatical hatred for Social Security and its recipients that exists in some quarters. It’s shocking. A lot of it is from young free-marketeers, who (a) resent the idea that there’s some money that can’t be accessed to prop up the markets; (b) are convinced that they’re personally going to be so wildly successful in life that they won’t ever need to augment their stock profits and CEO salaries; (c) choose to ignore the fact that those collecting Social Security paid into it during their entire working lives; and (d) have no problem with the idea of “death panels for Granny” so long as they’re run by and for the rich.
Seriously, the blogosphere is vicious on this subject. So is Senator Simpson. The Right is campaigning against Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, and its poster child is Ebeneezer Scrooge. This year, whatever version of Christmas Carol you watch or read, listen carefully to Scrooge’s cold-blooded rant about the “surplus population” to the charities soliciting his largesse. I suspect it’s the Republican policy statement of the future, maybe as soon as campaign 2012.
beat pot and sing 