My blood boils at the thought.

It used to be Social Security was considered untouchable by both parties, but was especially protected by the Democrats. I don't recognize my party anymore at times.

Why not let private entrepreneurs 'strengthen' SS and Medicare into 'robust' and 'affordable' programs for Teh American People™ ?

what the second step will be and how long do we wait.

Time to vote those that support it out.

K and R

And that goes for a couple of Presidents and way too freakin' many Congresscritters.

Soooo freaking sick of DINOs, DLCers, Third Wayers, Trojan Horses (or Gore Vidal's term"wolves&quot ,Blue Dogs, corporatists or whatever you wanna call 'em.

will be called "strengthening" social security. Chained CPI - ladies and gentlemen, that is not a CUT, doncha know!
There will be word salads wafting around, dangling from trial balloons, floating through the internet.
The bullshit about "protecting the bottom third of very poor"? That just sets up a number to whittle away at in further "negotiations". SS will go the way of food stamps - means-tested and vulnerable to cuts.

do something about also, not if history is precedent. This is not the first time SS has come under attack. It may be the first time Dems were so blatantly on board with the attack, I can't say, I haven't researched it yet. But if they think they have 'softened up' the public on SS, they could not be more wrong.

Anyone, right or left, who touches this fund, who tries, no matter how decpetively, to cut SS benefits, will be facing a coalition of Orgs, formed right before the last election, and probably even a bi-partisan response, because SS is one of the most popular programs ever, that should get their attention.

This is not the first attack on SS. And in a way, this may end up being a good thing. They have been subtly chipping away at SS without the Public being too aware. The 'tax holiday' eg, slowly raising the retirement age. All slipping past the public's attention.

But THIS blatant attempt to steal more from the people's fund, this may be the straw that broke the camel's back.

To me, voting to cut Social Security is worse than voting for the Iraq War Resolution. Many more lives are at stake here. If the majority of the party supports it, The Democratic Party will be done. They could go down the drain with the GOP, for all I care.

...promoted the privatization of Social Security through "Private Accounts".
They weren't shy about it either.
It was prominently featured on their Web Site,
and touted as major goal.

Since the crash of 2007, they have been less vocal,
but the same people are STILL in positions of power,
as are their Wall Street backers.

If however, I have to vote between a Democrat willing to cut Social Security or a Republican who will go out of their way to cut SS, I'd vote for the Democrat every single time.

Barring a rational Independent alternative that is.

What you do in that election is what matters. Would you work hard for some cutter candidate?

Still, since I am a registered Independent, it kinda limits what I can do.
I donate to whomever I like, I am usually fine with the ones I get in State and Local government. Presidential primaries though, I am not too lucky, but I won't change any of my votes circa 2004. Votes before that, yes I have some votes that I regret.

that made a damn difference. the candidate has already been ordained by the time the primary comes to California.

try and stay on topic.

i'm 48, and have never missed a vote. perhaps you can remind me of my choices in the presidential primary of 2008? as I recall, I had a choice between the centrist Obama, and the hawkish centrist, Clinton, both of whom were at the bottom of my list of preferred Democratic candidates, just above Lyndon LaRouche. sure, there were others still clinging to the ballot, but they never had a realistic chance of getting any play from the MSM, and therefore were never going to be proclaimed as "electable." fwiw, I voted for Edwards on my absentee. mailed it in the night before he dropped out.

we in California have no say whatsoever who we get to vote for president. ever. full stop.

California has the 9th largest economy by the way, not 12th.

he dropped out the very next day.

that primary was on Super Tuesday, that's too late?

as stated, I voted absentee, or mail in if you will, for John Edwards, who dropped out on 1/30. my point is that by the time we get to vote in a primary here, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and SC, aided by the MSM, have pretty much already decided who we get to "choose" to vote for in the primary.

If I have to leave that line on my ballot blank then so be it.

My husband and I and millions of other Americans rely on Social Security for our income.

Cutting Social Security or adopting the chained CPI would mean making all of us pay for debts that we did not run up. Debts like the money owed for the Wars in Iraq and Croatia, money owed on military equipment and the huge amounts spent on our way out of bounds intelligence businesses.

No. If Democrats abandon me and leave me without so much as Social Security, why should I support them?

Savings? Have you checked the bank rates recently. They are less than 1% if most cases. The interest that seniors are getting from their savings will just about buy burgers and milkshakes fo the grandkids. That's about all you get.

Because that is who you are passing the buck onto. You claim to want to buy more than burgers and shakes for the kids, but want to do so with THEIR money.

Sorry, but SS is an INSURANCE program and not a retirement program. It should be means tested.

Eg, if somone dies should their heirs' financial situation determine how much they should get from the Policy, or should they get what was promised regardless of their financial situation?

See, the problem with your logic is one would ALWAYS get a payout commensurate with what they paid in. Unfortunately, with demographic trends such that they are, this will weigh on the sustainability of the program. When faced with a choice between the two, YES, I support means testing it.

is what the govt considers "rich" for ordinary people is usually just getting by....look at how the aca is paid for....people making 50 to 95 grand are being charged 26% of their income (if they actually use the plan)

We should be taxing people to pay for education. People should not use consumer credit to buy their cars, winter coats, Christmas presents, etc. if they don't want to pay interest.

We should raise the minimum wage. Other wages will rise accordingly.

The problem for you and your wife and your kids is that the top 1% has taken virtually all of the increase in profits that productivity has brought the world and left you behind.

That is the problem that we all need to focus on.

Never before has so little labor been able to produce so much. How do we allocate the benefits, the profits, the money and goods produced by the increased productivity and the decreased need for human labor?

I have never been a socialist, but as I look at our economy today, I am asking myself the same question everyone else is asking. In an age in which labor has less and less value, how do we value goods and other property? How do we value human life? How do we value the rights to health care (which requires labor but even it takes less and less as computers can check basic functions like blood pressure and temperature from the distance), food, clothing, housing, etc., if labor is no longer the means for determining who gets the wealth? How do we allocate the basic things we need.

Social Security is an insurance program. If you reach the age of say 65 or 68, depending on when you were born, you are entitled to your benefit based in part on what you paid in premiums. Social Security insures your right to continue to live once you reach retirement age. If you pay in, you are to get the benefit, and it is to be what a person can live on. That was the original idea. And we still need it today. If you think you can trust the banks or Wall Street to insure your retirement, it does not work. They will cheat you at every turn. It's reality. There are no ethics in business today. And the law -- they have bought it.

And there is not enough demand for work to enable every seniors or even most seniors to work. And most of us have physical problems that you can't see on the internet that make us slow and less desirable employees in the workplace. After a certain age, you really do slow down. You don't see many 70-year-olds playing football with people in their 20s.

So, unless you are a multimillionaire, unless you invent some technological thing-a-ma-jig that changes the world, you, too, will be relying on Social Security if you live so long. And your family could rely on it before you retire if you have less than the best luck.

Social Security is the best thing that ever happened to this country after the railroads crossed the West. And by the way, neither the railroads nor Social Security would exist without the government.

Read the history of the railroads. They came into being because of huge government land grants to them.

We just have a difference of opinion of what we are insuring against. I believe it is against elderly having to live in poverty. You believe it is against dying before you reach a certain age.

It should not be means tested.

In addition, please note that baby boomers were a huge generation. We and they paid in extra beginning in 1985 to cover the cost of our retirement.

When we bought a house in the late 1980s, interest rates were 9.5 to 10%. Yes. They really were. In the 1990s, interest rates on private student loans were 7.5 -8.5% in many cases. We and the baby boomers paid through the nose on interest rates for things that people justifiably buy on credit. The rates are much lower now.

We built up a huge surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund and yes, regardless of what your ignorant right-wing politicians and their think tanks and Fox News tell you, there is a Social Security Trust Fund. It it is specifically provided for in the statute on Social Security.

The Sec. of the Treasury is the guardian of the Social Security Trust Fund. That fund has been loaned to the general fund. If you remember, Al Gore wanted to build a wall for that fund. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court stupidly appointed George Bush (who got fewer votes and in my opinion based on my reading of the polling results that the independent newspapers association did and that came out about Sept. 11, 2001 lost the election) to be president.

George Bush and his Congress spent our trust fund on two unnecessary wars and tax cuts. Bush never raised taxes to cover his war costs although presidents have historically always done so. Instead, a crisis was declared. Apparently the Clinton administration had been paying off our debts too rapidly. That would not do. Spending money on war and killing people were the answers. Remember. Back then and under Reagan, Republicans favored a national debt. It was no problem Cheney and Reagan and their advisers said.

The answer to the Social Security fears are to raise the minimum wages. Other wages will rise also. Then raise the cap on income subject to Social Security. Raise taxes on the 1% and maybe the upper 5%.

If you raise taxes on the rich, including the elderly rich, then you achieve the same result as if you means tested Social Security. The very wealthy pay their Social Security (which is far less than they pay in taxes annually) right back. What is more it is basically a transfer of Social Security from the wealthy into the general fund.

Means testing Social Security is rather meaningless when you have a fair tax system that taxes wealthier people so that they pay a fair share of the benefits they get from government contracts and a stable society.

People not now on Social Security should forget about whether they will get their due from that program and worry about jobs. If you have high unemployment among your generation, you will have a smaller base to pay into Social Security for your generation. That should be your big concern, not whether baby boomers are actually cashing in the surplus they built up.

Just do it through removal of the cap.

The purpose of raising the taxes is not to means-test Social Security, but it would result in the fact that the Social Security paid to the very rich would be deposited into the general fund. That would not be the purpose. That would be a side-effect.

No. I do not believe in means-testing.

You never know when someone is going to lose huge amounts of money. It happens. We all need to know that Social Security is something that belongs to us. The baby boomer and older generations worked extremely hard. I started at 7. By the time I was 10, I had quite a baby-sitting clientele for pay. Then I got a job as soon as I was legal to get a Social Security card. That's the way it was then. The McDonalds-type jobs went to teenagers, not to immigrants.

And there was a lot of demand for workers.

The problem for young people today is that workers are not needed. That is why people with college degrees are waiting tables in restaurants and mopping floors.

Focus on the employment and on the fair wage situation and Social Security will take care of itself.

checking account and I just checked my last statement. I made $.03 in interest last month.

However, I never feel at ease doing such a thing, since I wonder how close a race can be.

I base my vote in many different things. If I feel safe enough that the worse candidate won't win, I might leave it blank. I'd still feel off though.

I too, will leave the candidacy blank if I have to. Voting for the lesser of two evils has gotten me exactly what I was voting against in the first place. Next time some dem asks me, "Who else you gonna vote for?" I'm going to answer, "Maybe the Greens!"

most Democrats consider themselves independent thinkers and voters. We do not march to a party pied piper but we are realistic enough to know that we are currently tied to a two party system and therefore vote accordingly. We also hold our parties feet to the fire the best that we can by voting in primaries for a Democrat we think will stick to our values. To do so effectively, we need all the primary votes we can get.

was dangerous and conditions were unpredictable if they left?

Let me share with you the words of Malcom X. A black nationalist, after several years he spent some time in Europe and came to understand that white people were living in the same boat as the black people he was trying to free, and he publicly stated it before he was murdered.

This is from a speech he gave decades ago, and it is in the public domain. It's very insightful and easy to understand, and the words ring as true today as they did then.

Several decades ago (I believe it was during Reagan), the SS witholding was increased. The thought was when the Boomers retired, that their numbers collecting SS would place an undue burden on the following generations. So the Boomers actually paid some of their own SS, the excess being borrowed by Government. Now it is time to pay that debt back....Boomers are beginning to retire, and have paid that extra in. To now cut SS, is going back on the deal made with Boomers, and leads one to believe the Govt has no intention of paying that money back. Any Dem even considering SS cuts is deserving of my highest contempt.

That explains it well. And I couldn't agree more with that last sentence. Bravo!

how they changed the age of receiving full Social Security for us boomers, too! I believe that was during Reagan, wasn't it? I was saying back then, "You watch. Us boomers are going to be screwed ten ways to Sunday just because we are a large generation."

So instead of 65 like prior generations were, we have to be 66 in order to get our full benefit. But of course, if you lose your job before then, you won't be able to find full time employment with benefits, so you'll be forced to apply "early" and get a reduced benefit.

Can't win for losing.

This may be farfetched, but . . . . The first-born of the boomer generation entered the world in 1945. If they were desperate enough to accept lower benefits, they could start receiving Social Security when they were 63. Guess what! That was 2008, the year the housing bubble broke and Wall Street crashed. I'm sure it was a coincidence, but . . . . it has hurt a lot of Baby Boomers.

And the increases in the stock market are no consolation because when you retire, you try to protect the tiny nest egg you have saved just in case you get really sick and need more health care than Medicare covers. Plus, Medicare does not pay for glasses or most dental work or hearing aids. Those are all very expensive items for seniors. Life is pretty lonely if you can't see or hear. But that is the reality for some seniors, for more of them than is admitted.

they consider those born in 1946 to be the beginning of the baby boom, but like you, I think it should be defined as starting in 1945. Regardless, you are correct and you don't have to tell me, because that's where I'm at. I get so sick and tired of all the articles/media telling us that we should wait until we're 70 to collect and then we get more! I took mine at 63 because, well, I do like to buy groceries and have heat on in the winter and you know, "luxuries" like that.

I have a nest egg so to speak, but yeah, you are right. I don't want to start withdrawing from that until I'm forced to at 70. Then it will get taxed and don't get me started on paying taxes on my $1000 monthly Social Security check. Then next year I'll get Medicare and they'll deduct over $100 from my SS check leaving me with even less.

I still feel fortunate that I have my health (so far) and that I can stay away from doctors, take no meds, but I know way too many people who aren't as lucky.

We should be screaming it from the roof tops! We paid our way and the then some.

And as to living longer, women sure aren't. It is basically the wealthy that are. Hopefully, the ACA will give more of us (or at least our offspring) a chance at enjoying that statistic but for now our odds are a crapshoot.

women started entering the workforce en masse beginning in the 1970's which means there were even more contributions into the SS fund and that just escalated over the years.

Loath as I am to link to Huffpo, this is a good article, worth saving for the facts you need to counter right wing lies, which, by the way, even some of our dem leadership are spreading.

Looks like more than all of Asia.
Reps and Dems talking SS cuts quite obviously have no intention of ever paying SS money back they borrowed. Almost all of that money was paid by boomers as increased withholding, to cover the anticipated costs of our benefits. Now they're going back on the deal.

Fuckers.

Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, Sen. Mark Warner said: "We all know at the end of the day...Democrats are going to have to give on entitlement reform."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3901264

Try Erskin Bowles



He's the guy one the left, but that doesn't make him a liberal.

Another one is the guy on the right, Alan Simpson.

Also the happy guy in the center, a Centrist we're told, is rumored to have proposed the chained-CPI.

K & R

Told all three, both Senators and my Representative that it has to be taken off the table, not even acceptable.

Everyone needs to do so, today.

Tarred and feathered to boot! We need to strengthen it, not gut it! Lower the age from 65 to 55.

Though I don't know how a retirement age of 55 and funding their pension would work.

My idea of strengthening Social Security is to give individuals the option to pay a higher rate of social security tax in return for larger payments in retirement. Maybe expand and re-define the component parts of Soc. Sec. with specific names? Call the core Soc. Sec. part the Federal Basic Pension ... SSDI call it Federal Disability Insurance ... and add in voluntary components ... the Federal Second Pension? Additional Disability Insurance?

I suppose the retirement age of 55 could work if someone has worked 30 years and paid additional Soc. Sec. tax... and would be willing to receive a payment that someone at age 63 who didn't pay any additional contribution. Or keep on working and paying contributions (including the additional ones) until age 72 and receive a generous pension ... without worrying about the stock market?

These are ideas that would never see the light of day here..... people will scream out "Socialized 401k's!" and talk about government meddling with retirement ... those that have the $$$$s will be worrying whether people will contribute to a 401k and this idea would never come to be. I don't think the likes of a Second government pension will come to be.

... that many people believe that they will have to work till the day they die? Pensions? Now there's a joke. Want to take a stab at how many pensions ($) have been gobbled up because the banksters got hold of them and gambled them all away on Wall Street? I don't know the answer, but I know pensions are pretty much a thing of the past. We're living in end times, alright. Not because Jesus is coming back, either. It's because the money-grubbers took the money from the people's pockets and put it in theirs. And raped the earth's environment. And filled us full of junk meds that slowly take our lives. And they are itching awful and frothing at the mouth to get their hands on Social Security and Medicare.

Look it... people can't work till they are 65 anymore. Employers kick them to the curb long before they get there. And by the time they get to 65, they've had to work so hard and pay all their money on insurance to try to stay alive until then. Tell me... how many folks do you know who drop dead in the first year after they retire? I've seen that happen more times than I can count. They have their retirement parties, and then they're gone.

NT

K&R!!!!

And I hope it is still here when my kids and grand kids need it.

Maybe even an Obama-camp (let's use a chained-CPI) Democrats.

priorities screwed up in Washington.

People that favor cutting SS are not Democrats but some hybrid something or other. Pols who masquerade as Dems but advocate cutting SS are poseurs who want Dem votes while catering to repugs with anti-dem stances and votes.

You're right. We don't need them and they should be exposed as the repugs in disguise that they are.

We need to expand SS, not cut it.

Furthermore, if there are "leaks" to the media that claim PBO or some Senator or high-ranking Representative wants one of those programs on the table, it needs to be immediately challenged by PBO, the Senator or Representative. If there is no challenge to the media, then it's more likely to assume that someone in the Democratic Party is in favor of using a program as a bargaining chip.

Totally agree with you, Trumad.

It's in PBO's 2014 Budget.

of a person who is patient and able to deal with difficult political adversary or a situation without becoming angry. Especially, with this particular social issue the social security system.

The primary theme always seems to be cut, reduce, or make this safety feature called Social Security a public privately operated business in the American system via the cockeyed stock market that grows profiteering scam artists annually. If Americans let that happen we should rename the planet stupido, instead of the planet earth.

From my view it is impossible to believe just about anything that the one percent, that so called free market system currently running by some so called secret trillion dollar derivative profiteers that the American tax payer is required to bail out for stupid mistakes or just out right shenanigans the Wall Street guys screw up then with the help of the Bloomberg connection, and Federal Reserve get secret easy money. Currently what is called the economic WTF moment for the tax payer.

It is all beyond amazing in that money market that the citizen will be at the mercy of shams, scams, scumbags, and screw ups till finally the American tax payer likely will wind up paying for all the blunders of the so called one percent free market that wants to run the Social Security system. Then the American tax payer essentially gets doubled taxed just like we did for the Bush economy. That was a neat economy called free fall, here its all yours president Obama, by the way bend over while we stick it to you and all those white people who voted for you.

If there was ever a time for the Republicans to act white pure and honest they sure will try very hard to convince the public that our black President is dark evil and everyone should be afraid to even consider Social Security done through the government because President Obama is dark and evil. Or, even consider getting healthcare because of the prejudice that wreak like a broken nuclear reactor meltdown. From my view President Obama is in a difficult position but being able to flush out these free market profiteering scumbags.

No cuts in Social Security please. On the contrary, Americans, alias we the people here declare Social Security is planned in the future for what America will need as a living wage at retirement, with living benefits in healthcare for all American’s. This basic concept is the core national interest the American people want. Please tell that to the house speaker. This is somewhat of a niggle, it will cause slight but persistent annoyance although for the good of the middle class. This has to be what the Democratic Party needs to stand on as a platform for the new millennium.

Thanks

program that helps the 99%. I'll be doing my due diligence this coming election and not just voting and financially supporting those who talk the talk, but they also must walk the walk.

or even not voting if that is what is required.

The words "conservative" and "Democrat" should never be linked.