RE: Hensarling's fix for the budget deficit from "Hardball" .

I posted this originally as a response on another thread. As I reread it this morning, I decided that I wanted to post it in a thread on its own with some tweaking here and there.

Cutting SS was Hensarlings fix for the budget deficit. And it is the heart of the fix of the Republican Party for the economic woes of the nation. There is only something like 14% of the budget that is considered "cuttable." Noticed that the Rs never go for cutting corporate entitlements or defense spending. Instead they look for the Holy Grail of Norquist--eliminating the benefits to workers and the poor brought to them under the New Deal while eliminating all responsibilities of the wealthy and business in the social contract. Now, if they are successful at privatizing retirement further, then people will become further enslaved to a predatory financial sector in which retirement funds will never be anywhere close to secure for them. Earlier on one of the MSNBC programs, one of the Rs was on trying to reframe the middle class as the "investor class" in an attempt to circumvent putting any brakes on the financial sector.

Now, I don't consider myself a financial whiz, but I know when something smells rotten, and this downright stinks putridly. Old Hensarling needs to be invited on yet again and nailed to this statement. Tweety did almost get him to own that this is the Republican plan for cutting spending. Not to eliminate bad programs but to create poverty through reducing or eliminating SS for the -55 age group. Now, the younger set here may not have such a problem with this. However, as a certified member of the 55+ set, I have seen friends and family lose private sector retirement funds because of the stock market. As an unemployed member of this age group, I can attest to how hard it is to find employment, especially in rural areas, for this age group. Do people really believe that Big Bidness will step up to provide retirement plans for people when they are doing everything in their power to get rid of them? Do you think you can save your way to retirement when your bank does not reward saving? When you are being tapped out to spend, spend, spend, how much will you actually be able to save and where? Oh, yeah, I forgot. We get to "invest" by playing the roulette wheel on Wall Street. Step up and place your bets. The safest bet you can place now is that you will be working for the man until the day you die and then they will come after your children and grandchildren. Greed has no bounds.

Do the Dems want something to start running on? Start hammering here. Start hitting on corporate welfare. Do we want Rs again overseeing the financial sector and big bidness putting money in your back pocket with one hand and taking it out with the other while telling you to your face that you are a valued consumer, citizen, and investor?

Dammit, I am pissed off.

PS. And another thing...this is why I won't go down the road that Hamsher took in sucking up to Norquist in the vain hope of getting traction on progressive policy. Norquist is not a friend. He is the enemy of the poor and working class and I will not give support to any endeavor that increases his power and furthers his agenda.

Is owed. If the fund looks like it is depleting the salary caps need to be removed. It really needs to be seen as a social program and not a piggy bank you put money in to.

Funny how nobody ever brings that up. Social Security would be fine if Congress just paid them back all the money they "borrowed" over the past three or four decades.

Did I hear correctly that Henserling was also calling for investing SS money in the stock market, even after the huge dive the market took during 2007-8?

Same old shit just another day...

run with this. Nothing is a vote killer more than messing with social security.

in their stupid heads is TAX CUTS-----TAX CUTS--- FOR THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS. They just can't get rid of that trickle down effect they love. And folks we all know the only trickle down effect went to cheney. When he gave his buddies over at Halliburton and it's subsidies all those no bid contracts and then got scads of money back on his stock in those companies. Which he held illegally. Because I thought when you took political office who had to get rid of stock in companies especially that which you would have some interest in.

would privatize Medicare as well and shift the cost of it to seniors as well. See Klein's commentary at this link.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/rep_paul_ryans_daring_budget_p.html

Now, you do the math. How do seniors who are being pushed out of the workforce, having their retirement funds stolen from them, and SS stripped away survive and pay for all of this? We just can't die fast enough for them.

And you younger folks will not benefit either because you are being asked to commit to a lifetime of serfdom with no assurances of even the job assurance of the meanest of serfs.