Category: Social Security (Page 4 of 5)

The $17 Trillion Delusion

January 11, 2014 / MCDC

The Absurdity of Cutting Social Security to Reduce the Debt

Shortly after the ceiling on federal debt was raised on October 17, 2013, the conservative Heritage Foundation notified its readers that the outstanding debt of the United States had “rocketed past $17 trillion,” and that “entitlement spending—the key driver of spending and debt—remains unaddressed.” The three assumptions in that statement—that the true measure of our debt is $17 trillion, that the cause of the buildup of debt is entitlement spending, and that therefore the appropriate policy to “address” this problem is to cut Social Security benefits and other “entitlements”—are endorsed by many politicians and policy pundits in Washington. But they’re all wrong as economic analysis and disastrous as policy recommendations.

the real issue is whether or not society will keep its commitment to retirees. The agenda of those who say we have to cut benefits is really that they don’t want to meet this commitment. We should recognize that this is their agenda, and not let them hide behind the smokescreen of supposedly out-of-control federal debt.

Seventeen trillion dollars certainly sounds like a big, scary number, especially when national debt clocks tell us that this translates into more than $53,000 for every person in the United States. But we shouldn’t be focusing on that number.

The $17 trillion figure is a measure of “gross debt,” which means that it includes debt owed by the U.S. Treasury to more than 230 other U.S. government agencies and trust funds. On the consolidated financial statements of the federal government, this intragovernmental debt is, in effect, canceled out. Basically, this is money the government owes itself. What is left is termed “debt held by the public.” It is this measure of debt that is relevant to a possible increase in interest rates due to competition for funding between the private and public sectors.

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The Assault on The Pursuit of Happiness

January 4, 2014 / MCDC

extracts from Wikipedia and PoliticsUSA

The Second Bill of Rights was a list of rights proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944. In his address Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second “bill of rights”. Roosevelt’s argument was that the “political rights” guaranteed by the constitution and the Bill of Rights had “proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.” Roosevelt’s remedy was to declare an “economic bill of rights” which would guarantee:

Employment, with a living wage
Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
Housing
Medical care
Education
Social security

Roosevelt stated that having these rights would guarantee American security, and that America’s place in the world depended upon how far these and similar rights had been carried into practice.

Roosevelt’s argument was that “political rights” guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were “inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness,” particularly after toiling to build America over a lifetime of labor; labor that enriched the privileged few who never had to face poverty when their bodies could no longer work. Republicans have spent the past seventy years attempting to force Americans to work until they drop dead and their efforts are bearing fruit according to “The Oxford Handbook of Retirement 2013.”

It is becoming a common concern amongst blue-collar baby boomers, the 78-million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, that they will have to “do like my father did; I’ll work ’til I die.”

Coupled with low wages, and their stated intent to eliminate Americans’ Social Security and pensions, Republicans, the Koch brothers, and Wall Street will be successful in guaranteeing an entire generation will never enjoy FDR’s basic “right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment” borne of work-worn bodies.