Paul Ryan Floating Change To Medicare Age

At this point it must be said that Obama’s insistence on making SocialSecurity a budget deficit issue shows that he has always intended to make drastic cuts to the program. One of the reasons SocialSecurity has long been thought of as “untouchable” is because PresidentFranklinRoosevelt and his NewDealDemocrats purposely insulated it from the conventional budget process. However, PresidentObama has largely neutered SocialSecurity’s traditional congressional defenders, who know perfectly well what their president is up to, but will not directly oppose him. That’s why we at BlackAgendaReport call Obama “the more effective evil”; he can accomplish what Republicans only dream about.

Obama’s scheme to cripple SocialSecurity is to change the way inflation is measured, resulting in a drastic scale-back in cost-of-living increases in recipients. According to DeanBaker, of the CenterForEconomicAndPolicyResearch, the cuts would amount to 3 percent over 10 years, 6 percent over 20 years, and 9 percent over 30 years. In dollar terms, BlackMinneapolisCongressmanKeithEllison says retirees would lose $6,000 in the first 15 years of cuts and $16,000 over 25 years.

And that’s just the beginning. Once the untouchability of SocialSecurity has been breached, it becomes just another social program to be carved up on austerity chopping blocks. PresidentObama’s true legacy will be to have begun the destruction of the crown jewel of what’s left of the nation’s social safety net.

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Paul Ryan Floating Change To Medicare Age

Actually, Obama is the more effective of the two evils, which makes him the greater of the two evils.

Obama’s Historic Assault on Social Security


“He can accomplish what Republicans only dream about.”


President Obama and his Republican partners in austerity have choreographed a kind of bi-partisan ballet, in which the dancers reach out to each other in slow motion, their fingers almost touching, teasing the audience. These cheap and transparent theatrics are designed to transmit a soap opera-like sense of drama: “Can the two parties come to a compromise for the sake of the country?” But, the fact is, Obama and the Republicans reached most of their grand bargain more than a year ago, when they slashed $1.7 trillion out of domestic spending over a decade. As liberal Obamite RobertKuttner, of Demos, points out, there’s very little left to cut except Medicare and SocialSecurity.

SocialSecurity has always been Obama’s Great White Whale; he’s conspired with Republicans and rightwing Democrats to harpoon the mother of all NewDeal programs since the very start of his presidency. But SocialSecurity is not an easy mark. GeorgeBush found that out in his second term, when he suffered his worst domestic defeat in attempting to privatize the program.

It would take a BlackDemocrat, fresh from a near-landslide election, to put SocialSecurity on the chopping block, as Obama did in January of 2009. But before he could move in for the kill, Obama and his allies had to convince the public that SocialSecurity is a major contributor to the federal budget deficit – which is a lie. SocialSecurity runs on its own stream of revenues that go into the SocialSecurityTrustFund, totally separate from general taxation and debt. However, by endless repetition of the Big Lie – that SocialSecurity adds to the federal deficit – Obama and other corporate Democrats and Republicans succeeded in maneuvering the program into the austerity debate, where it does not belong.

“SocialSecurity runs on its own stream of revenues.”

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