www.strengthensocialsecurity.org

See more about the campaign below.

Social Security is once again under attack.
By Dave Johnson

Time after time Social Security has come under attack. Do you remember the Bush “privatization” campaign a few years ago? Each time the attack uses a different myth, repeated over and over. Then, in between attacks, the myths continue circulating. This time they’re trying to make people think that Social Security contributes to the budget deficit. It doesn’t. They say this because so many people are worried about budget deficits. If polling showed that people were worried that their arms are going to turn into green cheese, they would be repeating and repeating that Social Security is the reason your arms are turning into green cheese. Sheesh!

In response to the latest attack a coalition of groups has formed to fight back and protect Social Security, demanding that Congress not make any benefit cuts. The coalition represents 30 million members, who are asked to remind elected officials that Social Security remains the “third rail” of American politics and that any sort of benefit cuts are opposed by wide majorities, from liberals to Tea Partiers.

The coalition is saying Strengthen Social Security, Don’t Cut It. Their website is strengthensocialsecurity.org and its blog is at strengthensocialsecurity.org/blog.

Most important, its petition is available to sign here.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility is trying to cut Social Security benefits. We can’t let that happen.

Can you sign our urgent petition to the Commission?

Social Security belongs to the people who have worked hard all their lives and contributed to it. Social Security is a promise that must not be broken. If you pay in, then you earn the right to benefits for yourself, your spouse and your dependent children when you retire, experience a severe disability, or die.We need to strengthen Social Security, not cut it. That is why I oppose any cuts to Social Security benefits, including increasing the retirement age. I also oppose any effort to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part.

Meet Billy Bankster! Please watch this video from the coalition:

Here are videos from the launch event. First is Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW):

Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington Bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP):

Richard L. Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO:

Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org:

Gerald W. McEntee, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME):

Ed Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans:

Dennis Van Roekel, President of the National Education Association (NEA):

Eliseo Medina, International Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU):

Memo to Pete Peterson: Americans don’t want cuts Social Security – and here’s the proof.

Deficit-hawk and investment banker Pete Peterson has devoted a substantial part of his $2.8 billion fortune to pushing for cuts in entitlements like Social Security, in the name of deficit reduction. His Foundation lavishly funded the AmericaSpeaks “town hall” forums held on Saturday, the results of which will be presented to the national Deficit Commission this week — purporting to tell what the American public thinks about various deficit-reduction options.
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As Obama’s Fiscal Commission prepares for its June 30 hearing, New Deal 2.0 invited leading thinkers to participate in our Social Security’s Fiscal Fitness series, which examines the soundness of the program, its relationship to the federal deficit, and the vital role it plays in America’s economic future.

Former Senator Alan Simpson, the co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, was on a tear when he declared that the traditional defenders of Social Security “don’t care a whit about their grandchildren…not a whit.” Besides being disrespectful, the logic of his assertion is all wrong. The nation’s children have a huge stake in the preservation of Social Security. Even more than their parents and grandparents, they stand to gain the most from the organized efforts of older Americans to strengthen the program, not cut it.
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By RJ Eskow also posted at Daily Kos

A video of retired Sen. Alan Simpson’s foulmouthed rant toward activist Alex Lawson is making the Internet rounds, as well it should: The sheer audacity and rudeness of the guy makes this clip “must-see TV.” It’s a political bloopers reel.

But, while Simpson’s outrageousness makes the video entertaining, here’s what make it important: Alan Simpson is one of two chairs of a bipartisan commission created by President Obama to study the Federal deficit. His comments reveal a number of very important things about his biases, his tendency to distort and mislead, and his ideological extremism. These traits are likely to taint the Commission’s work – work which has great implications for the future.

Your future.

Simpson is the former Republican Senator from Wyoming, but those who hope that Simpson’s biases will be offset by his Democratic counterpart are probably in for a big disappointment. As Robert Kuttner reports, Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles was finalizing a deal with New Gingrich to cut Social Security when the Monica Lewinsky scandal derailed their agreement.

Alan’s one of the Wyoming Simpsons, although on this video he sounds more like one of the Springfield Simpsons. (D’oh!) Here’s what his comments reveal, besides an irascible personality: That he wants to create a sense of crisis around Social Security, that raiding Social Security to pay for other government expenditures is perfectly fine with him … even though he’s supposedly a “small government” conservative, that he’s entered an Orwellian world where cutting Social Security isn’t really “cutting” it, and that he’ll use absurd rhetorical games to defend his position. Jane Hamsher has the whole transcript, but here are the highlights.

The Shock Doctrine Without the Shock

Naomi Klein described the “shock doctrine,” where conservatives use a crisis to force unpopular ideas on the public. There is no crisis where Social Security’s concerned, but Simpson and other Commission members want us to think there is. That explains exchanges like this:

SIMPSON (regarding Social Security): It’ll go broke in 2037.

LAWSON: What do you mean by ‘broke’? Do you mean the surplus will go out and then it will only be able to pay 75% of its benefits.

SIMPSON: Just listen to me instead of babbling …

Simpson then goes on to affirm Lawson’s statement (without apology, of course.) But he resumes the fearmongering a minute later:

SIMPSON: … There is not enough in the system by the month … to pay out what comes in. In other words there is more going out than coming in. That happened 3 or 4 weeks ago.

And, a few minutes later:

LAWSON: … Social Security is separate, though, from the general budget, right? It’s totally in the green.

SIMPSON: But it wasn’t. Just four weeks ago, there wasn’t as much coming in as going out.

LAWSON: Except you’re not calculating the interest paid on the bonds, because, if you do include that, it’s still in the green this year.

SIMPSON: Well you can go through all the sophistry of babbling that you want to.

LAWSON: It’s not sophistry. It’s just what the SSA says. So I’m just going on the numbers.

Alex is absolutely right, and Simpson’s the one engaging in sophistry (if by “sophistry” you mean, to use Simpson’s word, “bulls**t.”) If the interest is paid as agreed on those bonds, Social Security is still in the black. And if the government pays back what’s it has taken out of the Social Security coffers, benefits can be paid in full until at least 2037. But about that borrowed money …

Big Government Alan

It’s fascinating to watch Simpson suddenly defend big government expenditures, even when (make that only when people’s own insurance payments – money they’ve paid to cover their retirement is borrowed and then left unpaid:

LAWSON: … (W)hat about the $180 billion in surplus that (Social Security) brings in every year?

SIMPSON: There is no surplus in there. It’s a bunch of IOUs.

LAWSON: That’s what I wanted to actually get at.

SIMPSON: Listen. Listen. It’s 2.5 trillion bucks in IOUs which have been used to build the interstate highway system and all of the things people have enjoyed since it has been setup.

LAWSON: Two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy.

SIMPSON: Whatever, whatever. You pick your crap and I’ll pick the real stuff. It has to do with the highway system, it was to run America. And those are IOUs in there. And now there is not enough coming in every month …

Simpson’s capable of mustering an eloquent defense of government spending when it suits his argument (although he opposes it when it’s actually being proposed). And welching on an IOU sounds just fine to him, too.

We didn’t cut your benefits! Now be quiet and eat your cat food!

SIMPSON: In the year 2037, instead of getting 100% of your check, you are going to get about 75% of your check. That’s if you touch nothing. If you like that, fine. You’ll be picking with the chickens yourself when you’re 65.

So we want to take care, we’re not cutting, we’re not balancing the budget on the backs of senior citizens. That’s bullshit. So you’ve got that one down. So as long as you’ve got those two things down, you can’t play with anymore, that we’re not balancing the budget of the United States on the backs of poor old seniors and we’re not cutting anything, we’re stabilizing the system.

LAWSON: Thanks for being so frank. My question is: raising the retirement age, is actually an across-the-board benefit cut?

SIMPSON: There are 15 different options being discussed in here today, and why nail one of them…[inaudible]…if you would like to get one of them that pisses your people off.

LAWSON: Alice Rivlin was just on CNBC saying that that was one of the favorite methods.

SIMPSON: There are 15 of them in there.

I like the folksy “cutting with the chickens” line (although I don’t know what the hell it means.) But this is the thinking: “we’re not cutting , we’re stabilizing.” Expect to hear the word “stabilizing” used to mean “cutting” many times in the month to come – and expect your Social Security to be “stabilized” when it’s time for you to retire if this ideology prevails.

Run that by me one more time?

Simpson asserts that Social Security wasn’t originally intended to pay for people so far into retirement because life expectancy was low in 1935, when SSI was created. That’s true … but the program’s been modified since then to adjust for increased life expectancy. That leads to this whopper:

LAWSON: —(I)t’s my understanding from actually looking at the 1983 commission (which revamped Social Security), they actually started prefunding the retirement of the baby boom by building up that huge surplus.

SIMPSON: They never knew there was a baby boom in ’83.

Really? They didn’t there was a baby boom … in 1983?? They didn’t know how many babies had been born in the years 1948-1964? Here’s the real reason Alan Simpson says outrageously false things like that:

Read my lips: We’re cutting your benefits so that we don’t have to pay new taxes!

Here’s the bottom line. Simpson doesn’t want to force the government to pay those bonds back, because it will probably require new taxes to pay for them. The Commission’s likely to recommend some new taxes, but the Simpson crowd wants those increases to be a small as possible. Here’s an example of that ideology in action:

LAWSON: The government doesn’t actually own the bonds, it’s the government owing…

SIMPSON: Let me say things in a way so your fans will understand this, so you can go and be a hero. There is not enough in the system … So, what do they do? They go to that trust fund and say, ‘We need the IOUs out of it.’ And they say, ‘You can have them, but you have to pay for them’ …

Paying for them … which means more taxes … is exactly what Simpson and his comrades don’t want.

There’s more, and you should read/watch the whole thing, but that’s the gist of it. It’s frightening to consider the implications of Simpson’s reaction – the fierceness, the ideological drive, and the closed-mindedness. Remember, his Commission has been entrusted with determining your financial future. That means your economic fate is in the hands of an angry ideologue … and, for “balance,” he’s been partnered with somebody who worked with Newt Gingrich to try cutting Social Security.

As Alan Simpson might say, “@#)(@#*)(*@#)!!!!”

As Obama’s Fiscal Commission prepares for its June 30 hearing, the Roosevelt Institute’s New Deal 2.0 blog invited me to participate in its Social Security’s Fiscal Fitness series, which examines the soundness of the program, its relationship to the federal deficit, and the vital role it plays in America’s economic future.

Deficit hawks plotting to cut Social Security to reduce the deficit are seriously misguided. The truth is that Social Security contributes not a single penny to the deficit. Indeed, it is the poster child for fiscal responsibility.

Social Security has administrative costs strikingly lower than those of private sector retirement plans. Unlike 401(k) plans, for example, whose administrative fees are routinely 15 or 20 percent of plan contributions, Social Security’s administrative costs are less than one percent. It returns in benefits more than 99 cents of every dollar collected.

Moreover, Congress has been scrupulous about paying for every Social Security benefit it has ever enacted. To meet the anticipated higher retirement costs of the baby boom, workers and their employers have contributed more over the past few decades than has been needed to meet current costs. These higher contributions have, as intended, resulted in an accumulated surplus in 2009 of $2.6 trillion, a surplus which is projected to grow to $4.3 trillion by 2023.

To ensure that all benefits will always be paid in full and on time, Social Security’s Board of Trustees annually reports to Congress on how the program is projected to do over the next three-quarters of a century. Obviously, projections extending so far out in the future will sometimes show deficits or, for that matter, unintended surpluses. The simple, mundane truth is that the actuaries refined some of their assumptions and methodologies in the 1990s and began, as a consequence, forecasting a manageable deficit over the 75-year valuation period. These constantly-evolving long-run projections, part of the program’s prudent, conservative management, demonstrate that Social Security is closely monitored, a fact which could and should reassure the American people about Social Security’s reliability. Instead, the fact of a projected manageable shortfall, still decades away, has been used in exactly the opposite way, to convince the American people, against all evidence, that Social Security will not be there in the future.

The shaken confidence produced by hyperbolic rhetoric surrounding every release of quite ordinary trustees reports has been exacerbated by the cavalier tone of today’s deficit hawks toward the legal requirement that Social Security’s revenue be used exclusively for paying benefits and related expenses. Today, there is talk about cutting Social Security to reassure the bond market. Indeed, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, among others, has explicitly invoked the name of the notorious bank robber, Willie Sutton, to assert that Social Security should be cut “because that’s where the money is.”

These arguments are stunning. Reassure bond holders by defaulting on government obligations purchased with funds deducted from the pay of workers and backed by the full faith and credit of the United States? Act like a bank robber and take money that is paid by, and is held in trust for, hardworking Americans and their families?

Today’s effort by policy elites in Washington to raid Social Security will simply result in greater anger by the electorate against Washington – as well it should. Poll after poll has made clear that a large majority of Americans — Democrats, Republicans, Independents, young, old, tea partiers, and union members alike — are united in support of Social Security. The American people overwhelmingly want the deficit hawks to keep their hands off Social Security. They want policymakers who value Social Security to restore it to actuarial balance without benefit cuts and without raising the retirement age, as a number of policy experts have advocated. The deficit hawks should listen to the people they have been elected to serve. On the subject of Social Security, they just might discover that it is the people, not the politicians, who know best.

Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0.

As Obama’s Fiscal Commission prepares for its June 30 hearing, the Roosevelt Institute’s New Deal 2.0 blog invited me to participate in its Social Security’s Fiscal Fitness series, which examines the soundness of the program, its relationship to the federal deficit, and the vital role it plays in America’s economic future.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform set up by President Obama claims both that reducing the projected federal deficit should be a major national objective and that Social Security should be considered as one potential source of relief either through reducing benefits or enhancing revenues or some of both. That much is simply a fact.

But this commentary is about ideology. It is to remind readers that the same attacks on Social Security have been going on — in different guises — for at least four decades. The stagflation of the 1970s, precipitated by the oil crisis of 1973-74, provided long-term, ideological critics of social insurance an opportunity to argue that such programs — retirement, survivors’ insurance, Medicare, disability coverage, unemployment — were unaffordable. Critics from the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and increasingly, in the 1980s, in publications financed by the Wall Street financier Peter Peterson, were not prepared to attack the desirability of social insurance programs directly. Instead, claims varied from how ungovernable such programs seemed during the 70s to the follow-up charge of affordability.

What is crucial to understand is how devious and misleading such lines of argument are. They are best understood as an ideological remedy searching for plausible occasions to celebrate what was presumed. This strategic ploy is obvious in the case of Social Security pensions. Currently, Social Security is not suffering worrisome fiscal imbalances. The worry of the worriers is about 2035 or 2042 when, according to forecasts of the actuaries and CBO, there might well be some shortfall in revenues against predicted claims. To the extent the worriers worry about 2016, they must focus on an aspect of the program never before considered in history — whether payments from the general fund to the trust funds for interest payments are in excess of payments from the trust funds to the general fund for the purchase of bonds. But why go decades into the future or invent a new concern when the deficit in the nearer term is the issue at hand?

The answer has two components. Specters raise present fears, the more so if exaggerated by demographic forecasts with some plausibility. So the aging of baby boomers is the first premise, and the falling ratio of workers to retirees is the second. Together, these two premises suggest that there will be a need for cutbacks or increased contributory taxes. But if the baby boomers are growing in numbers and if Social Security is the ‘ third rail of American politics”, then critics had better scare citizens into accepting cuts now because it will be harder later on. Note, however, the deceits. The ratio of workers to non-workers, for example, is a much more relevant measure than simply the ratio of workers to retirees. More older Americans means more for pensions and medical care and less for youngsters and their diminished numbers at schools. This ratio hit its height in 1965 and has generally been decreasing since that time. The ratio also ignores increasing productivity. As productivity increases, as it has and is projected to continue to do, the burden on workers falls. Finally, there is every reason to believe that relatively small adjustments on the revenue and outlay side can take care of any shortfall. The genius of social insurance is that small adjustments add up to huge long-term changes in fiscal balance. But there is precious little discussion among the deficit hawks about this point.

What we have is a case of ideology masked as fiscal prudence. There is every reason to believe that Peter Peterson and the personnel of his foundation believe profoundly in the virtues of a smaller public sector, a robust means-tested conception of social welfare policy, and the importance of not providing most citizens with a collectively financed system of income protection against major losses in family income from recognized and understood risks. So they are advancing their cause as prudent, fiscal watchdogs.

But the distortion of this longstanding approach is evident in the concentration on Social Security rather than the most important threat to America’s fiscal future, the continuing, disproportionate rates of increase in medical care spending, both private and public. The health reform legislation of 2010 was celebrated as insurance expansion for millions of uninsured Americans, but it did not seriously take on medical inflation. There is a big problem in this policy space, but the Fiscal Commission meetings of late June 2010 are not focused there. Instead, they are locked on the one sphere of American domestic policy that has been a substantial success over its history since 1935.

It is ironic — and infuriating — to have a debate in 2010 about Social Security when that program had nothing to do with the transformation of the nation’s fiscal policy from surplus to deficit since 2000. Two wars, Bush tax cuts, and the fiscal consequences of the economic crash of 2008-9 explain the size of the deficit. Why are we even talking about reducing Social Security at this time? It is not because there is a good rationale, but because of the money behind the rationalizers of a smaller government.

For a review of the same arguments two decades ago, see Marmor, Mashaw and Harvey, America’s Misunderstood Welfare State, (Basic Books, 1990, 1992).

Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0.

Dear Mr. Bowles and Senator Simpson:

President Obama and many others have advocated both government in the sunshine and the participatory engagement of those affected by government decisions. They recognize that conducting work in these ways promotes accountability and improves the quality of decisions. We share those values. Accordingly, as advocates for the American people — working families, seniors, women, people with disabilities, children, people of color, veterans, young adults, those in poverty, and communities of faith – we urge that:

• All Commission meetings and, if you have them, subcommittee meetings be open and accessible to the public, that C-Span be invited to televise them, and that the proceedings be streamed live over the Internet.

• The Commission show the distributional impact of its proposals on different subgroups of Americans (including, for example, by income, race/ethnicity, gender, region, those with and without disability, age) and also the impact on investments in such essential assets as jobs, education, energy, and infrastructure.

• The Commission confer with experts reflecting the full range of views on the issues before it.

• The Commission hold hearings not simply to educate the public, as you have stated as a goal, but also to listen and learn from the public directly affected by changes you may propose.

We note that Members of Congress who span the political spectrum have made requests similar to those in this letter. Like those members, we believe that these actions will best serve the American people.

Sincerely,

AARP
American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations  (AFL-CIO)
Alliance for Retired Americans
American Association of University Women (AAUW)
American Federation of Government Employees
American Federation of State, County  and Municipal Employees
American Network of Community  Options and Resources
APSE (formerly, Association for Persons in Supported Employment)
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Blinded Veterans Association
B’nai B’rith International
Brave New Foundation
Business & Professional Women of  Florida
Business and Professional Women’s Foundation
California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA)
Campaign for America’s Future
Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc
Change to Win
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Common Cause
Communications Workers of America
DC Fights Back
Dēmos
Disability Rights Education and DefenseFund
Disabled American Veterans
Economic Policy Institute
Family Voices
Feminist Majority
Feminist Majority Foundation
Food Research and Action Center
Frances Perkins Center
Generations United
Global Policy Solutions
Independent Living Resource Center
Indiana Office of the Long Term Care Ombudsman
Insight Center for Community Economic Development’s Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative
Inter-National Association of Business, Industry and Rehabilitation
Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR)
Mental Health America
Mildred and Claude Pepper Foundation
Military Officers Association of America
NAACP
National Association for Hispanic Elderly
National Association of Disability Representatives
National Association of Social Workers
National Association of State Long-Term Care Ombudsman Programs
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
National Council of La Raza
National Council of Women’s Organizations
National Council on Aging
National Council on Independent Living
National Disability Rights Network
National Hispanic Council on Aging
National Gay and Lesbian Task  Force
National Organization for Women
National Organization of Mothers’ Centers
National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives
National Senior Citizens Law Center
National Treasury Employees Union
National Women’s Law Center
NISH-Creating Employment Opportunities for People with Severe Disabilities
Older Women’s League of California
OMB Watch
OWL-National Older Women’s League
Paralyzed Veterans of America
Pension Rights Center
People For the American Way
Public Justice Center
Roosevelt Institute Campus Network
Social Security Works
Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees
TASH Equity, Opportunity and Inclusion for People with Disabilities since 1975
The Arc of the United States
The Century Foundation
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
United Cerebral Palsy
United Steelworkers (USW)
Veteran Feminists of America
VetsFirst
Vietnam Veterans of America
Voices for America’s Children
Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND)
Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW)

President Obama and the leadership in Congress have delegated enormous, unaccountable authority to 18 unrepresentative, inordinately wealthy individuals. The 18 individuals are meeting regularly, in secret, behind closed doors, until safely beyond this year’s mid-term election. If they reach agreement, their proposal will be voted on in December by a lame duck Congress, without the benefit of open hearings and deliberations in the pertinent committees and without the opportunity for open debate and amendment on the floors of the House and Senate. Despite the speed and lack of accountability, the legislation will affect, in substantial ways, every man, woman, and child in this nation.
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In setting up his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Barack Obama is again playing coy in public, but his intentions are widely understood among Washington insiders. The president intends to offer Social Security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks into a grand bipartisan compromise in which Democrats agree to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees while Republicans accede to significant tax increases to reduce government red ink.

Obama’s commission is the vehicle created to achieve this deal. He ducks questions about his preferences, saying only that “everything has to be on the table.” But White House lieutenants are privately talking up a bargain along those lines. They are telling anxious liberals to trust the president to make only moderate cuts. Better to have Democrats cut Social Security, Obama advisers say, than leave the task to bloodthirsty Republicans.
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