Gang of Six Social Security Proposal is Unprecedented

Besides the Chained CPI off the bat (immediate cuts) the Gang of Six proposal, amazingly, has a strange legislative clause that makes Social Security hostage to larger deficit reduction bills. This is unprecedented and probably the biggest assault to SS in recent years except Bush privatization attempt. Except this time it could pass...

From Daily Kos:

The plan is based on the Simpson-Bowles discussion, the deficit commission plan that was never official. It would include an "immediate" $500 billion in cuts. It would be two bills, one that implements an immediate $500 billion in cuts and would raise the debt ceiling, and a second that would implement larger reforms. While the executive summary goes to great lengths to say that Social Security should be dealt with on a separate track, it does keep Social Security in the mix with a strange proposal that would hold the larger deficit plan until a Social Security fix is found, but if that fix does not get the 60 votes required, the rest of the deficit plan is voided. That would hold both Social Security and further deficit reduction hostage. Guess which would lose.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/19/996313/-Gang-of-Six-plan-largely-punts-on-key-details,-but-targets-Social-Security

Here is the Executive Summary to the entire plan: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/July/19/executive-summary-gang-of-six-plan.aspx

x(

It is an aggressive assault on the New Deal that even Republicans in the past have shied away from.

oh but this is "bipartisan..." excuse me while I vomit

RW agenda eos. :patriot:

Said on Morning Joe Scum this a.m. Think about this: "Most sweeping overhaul since Ronald Reagan..."

Something very dishonest about that guy.

Truly revolting. When Bush tried privatising SS, he was shot down even in his own party. At least the GOP shot Bush down on Meirs, Dubai Ports deal, and some other stuff.

We have not shot Obama down on anything! Even this!

This is getting worse and worse and worse by the day.

The only reason SS is in "the debt" is b/c Congress removed the money that you and I had taken out of our salaries, that was supposed to be invested and protected, and used that money to pay gaps in prior budgets -- and left a beat-up IOU note in the lock box.

Congress doesn't want to pay back the money it took.

It's that easy. They'll pay interest and principle on Treasuries, but they won't give you your SS money back.

Paper the height of more than 18 inches, no time to read it (less than 24 hours) before voting for it, because, hey, who would vote against anything called the PATRIOT Act after 9/11?

CRISIS, CAN'T WAIT, MOMENT IS NOW, BLAH BLAH BLAH


Same fear mongering - different issue!

Obama did it on the Stim Bill, Health Care Bill, and now this.

B O H I C A

we all go :nuke: crowd.


:evilgrin:

Pure theft.

Hope & Change my A$%^^!

Thank you.

speaking as an ex public employee of both federal,state and municipal the only ones interested in freeing up tax money was the businessman. because dedicated funds are harder to get in their greedy pockets!
The new deal repukes have managed to shift most of their tax burden on to the working stiff. and as you can see between fighting two underfunded wars and letting the superstructure of the country rot we are in a hell of a mess! and I'm not so sure but this time we may not be able to fix it!(in the long run)

tax deductions on middle class, force SS to be held hostage to future deficit reduction plan, should I go on?

and it's coupling reduction in taxes with closed loopholes that at least in theory will *increase* revenue from the wealthiest.

Is it preferable to hit the rich with 90% taxes that they get out of paying or 30% taxes that they actually have to pay?

on the middle class:

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/July/19/executive-summary-gang-of-six-plan.aspx

It also makes an unprecedented leap forcing SS cuts hostage to future deficit reduction plans. How is this reasonable by any stretch of the imagination?

of the middle class.

but look at the details:
Reform, not eliminate, tax expenditures for health, charitable giving, homeownership, and retirement, and retain support for low-income workers and families.
Retain the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, or provide at least the same level of support for qualified beneficiaries.
Maintain or improve the progressivity of the tax code.



Seems like that is not the "gangrape" of the middle class some are claiming. Now it may pass (if at all) as something completely different, fine. But the plan as it stands now is not the hyperbole inducing genocide of the middle class so many are calling it.

/and I said I did not approve of SS cuts.

Ok, well this is pointless then. You're just repeating what you've been told to say.

What is going on here is simple. The governing elite, whether in office or in the board-room, wants to welsh on its markers. It is getting to the point where the Treasury bonds held by the Social Security Trust Fund will need to be redeemed in cash. To do so, there will need to be either some reduction in spending on other items, or some increase in taxes. Neither politicians nor those who purchase politicians in wholesale lots want to do either thing. What they do want to do is continue to use the regressive pay-roll tax as a principal source of general revenue, as they have in effect been doing with the amounts collected by this levy in excess of immediate pay-outs for many decades. The F.I.C.A. tax already amounts to over a third of taxes collected against income by the Federal government. Keep the F.I.C.A. rates going up, as rates on income and capital gains are cut further for the wealthy, and as benefits for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are reduced, and this proportion will only increase. The aim is to produce a Federal tax system sufficiently regressive as to shock even a medieval cleric.

raising tax rates without eliminating loopholes is pointless.

200% of $0 is what? You've doubled the rates, so what?

It doesn't make sense. It is cruel and immoral. That's why we're so pissed.

Bachmann has headaches. "Who else you going to vote for?"

BARF!

We need to end this nonsense right away. End the wars, stop the empire, stop devaluing the dollar, etc.

Ending loopholes for mortgage is going to hit the wealthier types (most poor and lower middle class have lost their homes or never owned one at this point), highcost healthcare insurance (so poor people have the best healthcare plans?), charitable deductions (it's not the average blue collar worker donating a million to his own charity to get out of paying taxes), and so on.

If you want to say it's hitting the lower classes more you have to provide evdience. Just repeating what you've heard over and over again isn't enough.

But whenever politicians cry up 'lowering rates but closing loopholes' the rates go down and the loopholes remain.

not what some blogger has written about it.

Then tell me exactly what in this plan goes after the poor/middle class (other than ss/medicare/caid cuts which I've already said they should not be doing).

and charitable deductions are primarily a tool to get the rich out of paying taxes.

Do you really think the families just barely skating by paycheck to paycheck are really the ones who depend on getting that million dollar tax credit for their charitable donation to the Red Cross?

People shouldn't be so hostile to reading and researching.

No plan which does not focus on increasing revenue by tapping the top-heavy concentrations of wealth in this country, and on reduction in war spending, can be considered a serious proposal for putting federal spending into better balance with revenue. The real aim of this plan, and similar broadsides, is quite simple. The governing elite, whether in office or in the board-room, wants to welsh on its markers. It is getting to the point where the Treasury bonds held by the Social Security Trust Fund will need to be redeemed in cash. To do so, there will need to be either some reduction in spending on other items, or some increase in taxes. Neither politicians nor those who purchase politicians in wholesale lots want to do either thing. What they do want to do is continue to use the regressive pay-roll tax as a principal source of general revenue, as they have in effect been doing with the amounts collected by this levy in excess of immediate pay-outs for many decades. The F.I.C.A. tax already amounts to over a third of taxes collected against income by the Federal government. Keep the F.I.C.A. rates going up, as rates on income and capital gains are cut further for the wealthy, and as benefits for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are reduced, and this proportion will only increase. The aim is to produce a Federal tax system sufficiently regressive as to shock even a medieval cleric.

by eliminating loopholes.

Again: raising taxes but leaving loopholes is pointless.

Say it with me: raising taxes but leaving loopholes is pointless. Raising taxes but leaving loopholes is pointless. Raising taxes but leaving loopholes is pointless.

What happens is that rates are lowered and loopholes expanded.

What is necessary is raising rates, closing loopholes, and enforcing the tax laws in the same spirit as drug policing is conducted in inner-city communities.

rate. Naff.

Sorry, did that need to be clarified?

so facts are helpful here...

and gives tax relief to the rich. Looking at the deductions being eliminated it seems that is not the case.

So simply repeating "it hurts the poor not the rich" without looking at the details is silly.

Who do you really think benefits the most from the charitable donation deduction?

but if you really get in to it: who do you suppose has the largest amount of money to A) donate and B) hire accountants to wrangle every benefit from that donation?

Are you seriously trying to argue that the middle class is the largest recipient of charitable donation exemptions?

to issue an official report.

Now, here we are with the recommendations from some from that committee being backdoored in on us under the guise of needing to doing this because of the debt ceiling - even though Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. All while the alternate plan from Schakowsky, who as a member of that committee proposed a Democratic alternate plan in line with the values and platform of the Democratic party gets ignored.

And to have it continually tied to the deficit in the way noted in the OP? That's a way to have it perpetually on the table for more cuts and privatization.

This stinks.

and deal which G20 leaders including Obama have already agreed to.
The plan from the Deficit Commission, which could not even make it to an official report by their own bylaws, had to somehow be dredged up from the dead since it is consistent with the Austerity deal.

They are counting on us not to look at the details.

There's no doubt in my mind that this is coming.

McConnell Reid is pretty bad too. Part of the proposal is to form a special legislative deficit reduction committee (stacked with conservatives, of course) that will make cuts to entitlements outside the normal legislative process, thus giving us cuts.

There is a protest scheduled for Oct. 6 I believe. I hope it's not too late.

his little hissy fit a few weeks back.

Well, if it's good enough for Coburn, it's good enough for me! :sarcasm:

K&R.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, DNC head
Phone: 202-225-7931
Fax: 202-226-2052

White House
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

Harry Reid
Phone: 202-224-3542
Fax: 202-224-7327

John Boehner
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-6205
(202) 225-0704 fax

Eric Cantor
P: 202.225-2815
F: 202.225-0011

Mitch McConnell
Phone: (202) 224-2541
Fax: (202) 224-2499

Nancy Pelosi
Phone: (202) 225-4965

On edit:

Here is the Gang of Six to add to the mix:

Tom Coburn
Main: 202-224-5754
Fax: 202-224-6008

Mike Crapo
Phone: (202) 224-6142
Fax: (202) 228-1375

Kent Conrad
Phone: (202) 224-2043
Fax: (202) 224-7776

Saxby Chambliss
Main: 202-224-3521

Mark Warner
Phone: 202-224-2023
Fax: 202-224-6295

Dick Durbin
(202) 224-2152 - phone
(202) 228-0400 - fax