AARP Wants Permission To Ask For Benefit Cuts

AARP's repeated efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits demonstrates that they have little understanding of the issues involved. Not only have they bought into conservative's lies, they are acting contrary to the interests of the people they claim to represent.

There are a few changes that Medicare needs. One such change is permission for drug price negotiations, rather than having to pay whatever prices the pharmaceutical industry asks. The Medicare payroll tax is very low, and could be bumped up a bit with little impact on paychecks. What we really need is Medicare for all. Private health insurance has administrative costs that are usually 20% or higher, and deductibles, co-pays, benefit limits, and doughnut holes make that insurance more like a very costly limited value coupon.

As for Social Security, the only change which should be made is to raise the cap at which payroll taxes are taken out (the cap should not be fixed, but should be indexed or removed), and that is only to insure full benefits past the next 25 years. It is also worth noting that very little of the income of the wealthy is subjected to payroll taxes, while most if not all of the income of middle and lower income workers is.

Raise the retirement age? You have got to be kidding. Social Security is fully funded for 25 years at current retirement ages. Will you penalize future retirees because of lies? And get rid of the payroll tax holiday and stop mixing our retirement insurance payments with general revenues.

Social Security accounting is separate by law, and in fact is counted as an off-budget item. The trust fund holds special Treasury Bonds, bought whenever there is more collected in Social Security payroll taxes than is paid out in Social Security benefits. Those bonds fund part of the national debt, to the tune of $2.6 trillion. (Yes, those paper IOU's in the Trust Fund are actually U.S. Treasury Bonds, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.)

When Social Security pays more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes, it cashes in some of those treasury bonds. The Treasury Department is able to pay for those special Treasury Bonds by selling regular Treasury Bonds (say, to China).

Treasury Bonds are what fund the national debt (and have since the 1917 sale of Liberty Bonds). Since Social Security's special Treasury Bonds are only redeemed at the same time that new regular Treasury Bonds are sold, and money given to Social Security for redeeming the special bonds is offset by money from the sale of regular bonds, there is no change in the national debt. Thus, even if Social Security is running a deficit for the current year, there is no impact on the National Debt (and no change in how close or how far that actual debt is from the current debt ceiling).

Furthermore, even though Social Security is projected to have deficits for the forseeable future, the $2.6 trillion Trust Fund will insure that Social Security is able to pay out 100% in benefits for the next 26 years, and is able to do so with no changes in retirement ages and no changes to benefits. (The upcoming retirement of Baby Boomers was foreseen, and is the reason the Trust Fund was built up to such a large amount.) In fact, any changes to retirement ages or benefits would have absolutely no impact on the National Debt. Raising retirement ages or cutting benefits will only have an impact 26 years from now, and would still only affect Social Security benefit payouts, not the National Debt.

For more on AARP's current activities, and links to register your opinions on these issues, check out FDL (firedoglake.com).

The XL Pipeline and Other Progressive Rumblings; A Letter to the President

The Keystone XL pipeline is touted as necessary, even though it will lead to only 50 permanent jobs, and any output will be sold abroad, not here in the U.S. And there is a reason that Canada does not want the pipeline to be built to their seaports. It is called the environment.

The price of crude oil is set on the world markets, and speculation in oil future's markets has increased dramatically, yet we are told that somehow gasoline prices can be lowered by the actions of the president, and in particular, by allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to be built. Those gas prices rise or fall world-wide, and the major difference in gasoline prices across the globe is due to taxes.

Support for the pipeline sounds like a purely political move at the expense of the environment.

We want the progressive president that we elected in 2008, not someone who continually caves in to the uncompromising demands of the opposition party. We need someone who understands that the GOP wants low revenues in order to cut social programs. We need someone who understands that individual responsibility without social responsibility is just selfishness and greed.

We need someone who will stop mixing general revenues with the payroll tax revenues in the Social Security Trust Fund; general funds in the Trust Fund gives the GOP the excuse they want in order to cut expenses by cutting Social Security. We need someone who will fight for allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices rather than paying whatever the pharmaceutical companies demand.

We need someone who will refuse, absolutely refuse, to allow the Bush tax cuts to continue. We need someone who demands an end to preferential tax treatment for income from working money over income from working people; end the 15% capital gains tax and treat capital gains (and special dividend income) the same as regular income. Anything else is a slap in the face to blue-collar workers.

End the saddling of expenses on companies in the form of employee health care insurance. American companies which employ American workers have to compete with overseas companies which have employees with national health care. Fight for health insurance which is not dependent on the type and longevity of employment as well as the size of the company. That alone would help small businesses attract quality employees.

Again, please stand up for the principles of candidate Obama, and become the great president we so desperately need.

On the Road Again to 1929 - The JOBS Act

Copy of Letter to Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN):

I am writing about your YES vote on the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, HR3606 (JOBS, or Jumpstart Only Big Scams Act).

Thank you for voting to end protections that were put in place after the stock market crash of 1929. And thank you for making the raising of capital more difficult and expensive because of the increased risk of fraud.

Exempting some types of transactions from SEC disclosure requirements as well as getting rid of penalties for lying will definitely make raising capital easier.

Getting rid of many parts of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law will facilitate the return to the era of innovative accounting such as those practiced by Enron and WorldCom.

We have already eliminated the Glass-Steagall Act which kept commercial and investment banking separate, allowing bad investments to endanger commercial financing. With taxpayer financed bail-outs available, what danger could there really be?

So let's say good-bye to investor protections and give more jobs to people like Bernie Madoff and others who benefit from laws promoting economic self-destruction.

And by the way, how much did those securities industry special interests have to contribute to get you to vote yes on this bill? I bet you sold out real cheap.

This is yet another bill whose purpose is at odds with the title, unless the title only refers to the jobs of our representatives in Congress. I have also written my other representatives, President Obama, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) to let them know my opinion of this bill.