Obama Plan Won't Include Changes to Social Security

[kpete]

Source: Wall Street Journal

BY CAROL E. LEE AND LAURA MECKLER

President Barack Obama's new deficit-reduction proposal will leave out changes to Social Security, and may exclude any increase in the Medicare eligibility age, people familiar with the discussions said Wednesday.

"As the president has consistently said, he does not believe that Social Security is a driver of our near- and medium-term deficits," White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in a statement.

Changing the inflation formula so Social Security benefits grow more slowly and raising the Medicare eligibility age were ideas Mr. Obama had been willing to accept this summer, when he was trying to strike a deficit-reduction deal with House ...

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904491704576571154004082570.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I hope this is good news! Time will tell, of course.

[Pirate Smile]

2. No shit. He's always said Social Security is easy to fix re any long term issues -just raise the cap

[Javaman]

14. +1 nt

[SnoopDog]

3. You mean, except for the payroll reduction that will defund SS?

This is pure evil, this payroll tax reduction to SS.

All you would have to do is lower taxes on those making, what, $106k and under....

Obama is paving the path to destroy SS...

[creeksneakers2]

8. The SS fund will be made whole out of the general fund

SS is not in any danger. Worries to the contrary are based on paranoia and conspiracy theories and plain falsehoods.

You couldn't get money to those at the bottom of the ladder by cutting income taxes because most of those people pay little or no income taxes. You can't do any kind of tax credit, refund or rebate because the Republicans refuse to go along. People at the bottom do pay SS taxes and can benefit from having those temporarily cut.

Its the best way to keep consumer demand from dropping, which it would, if ordinary people went back to paying 2% more of their pay in taxes. Lack of consumer demand is the cause of high unemployment.

[brentspeak]

9. Dean Baker: The Payroll Tax Cut: A Stimulus That Progressives Should Oppose

The Payroll Tax Cut: A Stimulus That Progressives Should Oppose

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&...

Dean Baker
Truthout, July 25, 2011

President Obama is proud of the fact that he was willing to bargain away the core of the country’s social safety net to reach an agreement with the Republicans on the debt ceiling. According to accounts of the negotiations, he had agreed to raise the eligibility age for Medicare to 67. He had also agreed to a change in the cost-of-living adjustment formula for Social Security that would reduce benefits by an average of more than 3 percent. This is in addition to the cuts in Medicaid and other programs that would also have been part of the deal.

snip

However, there is a serious political problem with tying the tax cut to Social Security. While the deal is that the trust fund will be unaffected by the tax cut, the question is what happens when the extension ends. Several Republicans in Congress have already publicly said that they would oppose restoring the payroll tax to its former level, since that would be a tax increase. And increasing taxes is the most deadly sin for many Republicans.

This raises the possibility that Republicans will try to keep the lower Social Security tax rate in place indefinitely. If there was a commitment to permanently replace the program’s shortfall with general revenue, the loss of the payroll tax revenue would not matter. However, there is no such commitment.

snip

The economy desperately needs stimulus and we should find every possible way to boost employment. It is not fair that millions of workers are unemployed or underemployed because of the incompetence of people who make economic policy. But risking the future of Social Security to temporarily bring about a modest reduction in the unemployment rate is not good policy.

[creeksneakers2]

10. Several things wrong with that, without going to the link

I did read this a couple of days ago though.

President Obama is not bargaining away the core of the country's safety net. That's a wild exaggeration. He put cuts on the table as bargaining chips toward other necessary goals. He didn't agree to anything. He certainly wasn't proud of doing that, other than his pride in being flexible as opposed to GOP inflexibility. The cuts offered did not remove the core of the programs.

Republicans are not in favor of SS tax cuts. They say any tax relief should go to the rich, who they now seem to be under orders to call "job creators." About half of the GOP would go along with a plan to cut the SS taxes out of fear of being accused of wanting to raise taxes on the middle class while giving tax cuts to the rich. The other half don't care what they are accused of and will brave through any threat to get money excursively to the rich.

Raising SS taxes on those at the bottom of the ladder while cutting taxes for those at the top was a scam started out by Ronald Reagan. The current system, without the cuts, works in favor of the rich.

[sofa king]

15. I think he's dangled SS cuts before every major negotiation....

...Then once the doors close, the cuts magically disappear and the Republicans wind up backing some or all of the President's plan, without Social Security cuts.

It's just like a nice Rat-L-Trap fishing lure. The President casts it out, pops it around in the water, and then when the GOP bites, he sets the hook and drags them into his boat, where they "negotiate."

Once the negotiations are complete, the fish gets tossed back in the water, and so does the lure. Someday soon, the fish may go in the cooler instead, but the lure remains intact for future use.

[bluestateguy]

4. This is good news, but it will not slay the "Obama wants to 'cut' SS and Medicare" bogeyman

The usual suspects will keep pimping that meme.

[frazzled]

11. You can say that again ...

In fact, they're already at it upthread.

[Eric J in MN]

5. I hope Obama sticks with that.

We shouldn't cut Social Security benefits & we shouldn't raise the Medicare eligibility age.

Social Security makes our society more equal, & Medicare lowers medical costs.

[PSPS]

6. "he does not believe that Social Security is a driver..."

"As the president has consistently said, he does not believe that Social Security is a driver of our near- and medium-term deficits," White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in a statement.

Hey, I've got news for you, Amy. Social Security isn't "a driver of deficits" at all. It never has been and never will be. In fact, it plays no role whatsoever in the federal general budget, has almost $3 trillion in surplus and will never be "bankrupt."

It's too bad your boss keeps adopting this caustic framing but, well, we all sadly know by now where he stands on these things.

[WhiteTara]

7. old saying

believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you read. Good work on finding truth!

[patrice]

12. That's the way that I read what was going on this summer. He was turning the fact that House Repubs

had signed a pledge to his advantage with Independents, but not with DU "Progressives" who want to pretend that everything in politics should be taken at face value.

[MannyGoldstein]

13. And it has zero to do with long-term deficits, too.

By law it has zero to do with deficits. Zero.

[FlyByNight]

16. Encouraging...

...but we'll see. Good news though.

[Unvanguard]

17. He'd better not push for an increase in Medicare's eligibility age.

Awful, awful idea.

[Vinca]

18. Considering Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, that would make sense.

[jannyk]

19. Finally got the f'ing message did he?

[lark]

20. Don't trust this at all

Notice no quotes, no attributions, just a few sentences. Think WSJ is trying to set up Dems & people on SSI to be a little hopeful so that they get REALLY mad when SSI & Medicare cuts are exactly what comes out of this catfood commission on steroids.

[Blasphemer]

21. I take this as a sign that the administration is not completely tone deaf

and out of touch with what is happening on Main Street. What he has said and what he has done in an effort to effect bipartisanship solutions (a.k.a. avoid being seen as a do nothing president) has differed too frequently for my liking. If he governs based on the common sense solutions he has expressed in the past, it will mean that they have finally turned the page and are ready to write a new chapter for his second term. That I can get behind.