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Alice Rivlin reports from inside the Cat Food Commission’s war room:
A key Democrat on President Obama’s deficit commission predicted on Wednesday that the bipartisan panel would come up with recommendations to shore up Social Security. “The stars are aligned,’’ said Alice Rivlin, a former budget director under President Clinton and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“I do expect that some long-run changes in Social Security, both on the benefit side and on the revenue side, are likely to be part of a package,” she continued, speaking at a forum hosted by AARP, the lobbying group for senior citizens. “This is a convenient moment to do this. The only better time to fix Social Security than this year is last year or the year before.”
Rivlin has waited for much of her professional life for this moment to cut Social Security benefits. Imagine if that was your life’s goal. You’d want to do or say anything to reach an agreement, too.
The problem is that we have no independent assessment of Rivlin’s claims. We cannot possibly have one. The Cat Food Commission’s meeting rooms have been hermetically sealed, with no access for the public, who will have to live with the consequences of the recommendations. But we did learn in this article that Rivlin co-chairs the working group on Social Security and Medicare, along with Judd Gregg. And given what we know about these two, I’d say her claim that benefit and revenue solutions would be included in the recommendation is spurious. Judd Gregg wouldn’t raise taxes in a million years. And Rivlin clearly cares more for cuts than revenue increases.
About the only positive I can see from Rivlin’s comments is that she has been so wrong about political predictions before, that a vote of confidence from her on the Cat Food Commission’s progress could easily be its death knell. The other positive? No way that post-Tea Republicans will vote for any kind of tax increase, lowering the bar for progressives to kill the recommendations in a lame-duck session.
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[Self-moderating to save the mods the trouble of removing my comment were I to state what should happen to Rivlin, Gregg, and the rest of the Sovereign Default Commission]
Just spitballing, but I think it fair to say that anyone with a “life’s goal” like that probably has something wrong with their life.
Hey Alice: Since you’re all fired up to make changes, here are a few suggestions:
Remove the income cap.
Lower the retirement age.
Increase the benefits.
AARP sold out retired people in 2003. I would not join them.
As for stopping the Catfood commission see a letter that you can send to the Wyoming chamber of commerce to demand they get Sen. Simpson to help shut down the catfood comission.
See the email at http://democratz.org
Alice Rivlin should be in prison.
Time to go listen to the Beatles’ Revolution again….
Alice Rivlin in 1980, kneeling next to Molly Ivins, third from the left. And, no, we didn’t talk about SS on that trip, and I haven’t been in touch with her for decades, so I can’t ask her about it now.
The AARP (AMerican Association of Retired People) is wholly owned by a private insurance company.
Social Security will be solvent by just raising the cap limit of Social Security taxes on incomes. Raise it to $200,000; what the heck, just eliminate any cap, let the wealthy start paying the same rates as everyone else.
And, which one is you? You knew I’d have to ask.
We could really use her voice these days…
When obama said that he was fine being a one-term president, it was one of the few honest things that he said during his campaign. But what he lied about … one of the plethora of things he lied about … was who he was willing to govern for to endanger his re-election prospects.
Z
Rivlin is lying whenever her mouth is moving. I concur with David Dayen. There will be no cap increase.
One may be “proposed”, but like the Public Option, it will be traded away for nothing. The recommendations will be:
Increased retirement age.
Reduced benefits.
“Portional” redirection of some funds to private accounts as a gift to Wall Street.
Wall Street has stolen everything except Social Security.
They want it so bad thay can taste it.
Robber Barons all around. Wall Street, The MIC, Congress, the exec and the judicial.
Rs have – despite all claims to the contrary – repeatedly shown a willingness to raise regressive taxes.
Witness Reagan’s Greenspan committee – which raised taxes.
Witness the largest tax increase in history. All regressive and all Reagan.
Not to mention Mr. “read my lips.”
Then they blame the Dems.
Social security isn’t the only cuts the catfood commission wants. They want to cut taxes for the rich too.
thats the whole point
Thanks Clinton(s)/Obama for propeling this terds career.
obama’s chosen pond scum.
Pardon me for not getting “the whole point”, despite the fact that nowhere in the piece are corporate and capitol gains tax cuts mentioned. I must be really crappy at reading between the lines. Silly me. I thought it was about cuts to Social Security, not more rich people tax cuts.
Dear Alice, memo to you and the A..hole who picked you and Alan Simpson to be part of the republican wet dream of turning SS over to the tender mercies of Wall St.:
The stars aligned for a bit more than starting the process of gutting Social Security:
How about you and Barack Obama, and the rest of the people so diligently sucking up to the right wing (after we gave you that big win…) check back with us on Nov. 3rd, and let’s do an alignment-assessment?
Fair description.
Then Dems extend their hand to the Rs in the name of “bipartisanship.” You can see how they lost a lot of people right there…
Obama: the perfect trojan horse candidate. Most citizens are completely unaware of the Catfood Commission. When I bring it up and point out that Obama created it and stacked it with hard-right Republics, most citizens (esp if trad Dem voters) have their breath taken away.
I agree that we *might* hear words to the effect that the “income cap could be raised,” but then there’ll be some kind of revolving villains Kabuki show, and Obama will show up and say: “Aw shucks, folks, I tried so hard…” blah blah blah blah…
Selling the proles down the river one step at a time.
If Obama pushes through cuts in Social Security, he is toast in 2012. I don’t really get why the Congressional Democrats and the White House are burning their ardent supporters of 2008 in this way.
There is come kind of cognitive dissonance going on.
Agree! Which one is eCAHN in that amusing photo??? Inquiring minds must know!
I can’t wait to watch the punditry and talking heads in December spin around explaining a lame duck session of Congress that votes to extend the tax cuts for ALL, including the rich, thus growing the deficit while the same session votes to cut Social Security because of, you know, the deficit.
Not enough popcorn in the world. THAT’s entertainment!
Maybe she was holding the camera?????
It’s a fair question. I believe the SCOTUS decision, “Citizen United,” was a game-changer and a pardigm shift. Almost none of the politicians work for “we the people” anymore; their sole focus is on the Oligarchy, the corporations & the Military Industrial Complex.
Wall Street wants its grubby greedy gluttonous mits on your soc sec, and Obamaco is doing his best to give it to Wall St. Watch out!
heh – good point. but eCAHN is either being shy or headed back to the bees…
Sadly, most citizens won’t “get it,” and you wait: RushGlenn will go into hyper-spin to brainwash the conservatives that this is the bestest most wonderfulist thing ever. And Doug Coe’s C Street “Family” will get their churches (many across the nation) to inform their parishoners that Jeebus won’t smile on you unless you: 1) keep taxes insanely low for rich, and 2) reduce what you get from Soc Sec.
You wait and see. The Kochs & Rupert Murdoch & Doug Coe’s “boys” have been working on this mighty brainwashing already… and it’s working. Mark my words: don’t count on conservatives to get mad about this. They will clap and cheer and call for less Soc Sec bc it’s dreaded welfare, you know.
Hope I’m wrong; don’t think I will be.
Actually, the stars might not aligned when they want to make a decision…
There will be another Mercury retrograde in December, with a shadow period both before and after it.
I doubt they’ll get to it much before Thanksgiving, and by then the shadow period will have begun, which means whatever they “decide” may not be what really happens.
I heard today on CNBC that John Chambers, CEO of Cisco and some of his cohorts are proposing to bring back cash from overseas to help “stimulate” the economy. Excepting, of course, they don’t want to pay the high 35% tax rate (less foreign taxes paid usually). What rate do they want to pay? 5.25%. Now how in hell did they get that .25%? As I recall most everyone agreed that was a sterling idea (probably came from Koch himself)>
We should not buy into any “raising the cap” proposal. The Kochs will have none of it.
Taxes are going to do down just that way. I still hold out hope they will not cut SS, but I’m fading fast.
On the left, standing, holding the oar.
I was in the midst of a cooking project (chicken a la king, and chicken broth from the bones), so went to finish that.
Ooww I loved the Bee picture eCHAN..
Thanks! Good photo (amusing, too); looks like a fun trip. Is this from your college days, or what?
Scare tactics from the Heritage Foundation:
Guaranteed 22 Percent Benefit Cuts If Social Security Is Taken off the Table
Interesting perspective from both “right and left” and the hysteria accruing from both parties and the terror this is producing in anyone who hears about it.
We needed FDR and we get Hoover.
The country is collapsing under the weight of the rich and the banks
Clutching at straws as the Titanic goes down. Maybe we’ll have another impeachment by BJ….whop knows?
Republicans On Obama Debt Commission Push For Corporate And Capital Gains Tax Cuts
TPM
They need 14 hardliners of the 18 Catfoodies, and they’ve got them.
Typical. ReThugs want to get to the day where this country is “run” like Somalia or Pakistan: no taxes, no regulations, the graft is outrageous, and baksheesh for the big boyz. Ugly ugly ugly….
Where is my FUCKING [Edited by Moderator]? If I find it I’m going to [Edited by Moderator. Not even as a rhetorical device] going to think she’s a popsickle.
Don’t want to get anybody’s hopes up, but I wonder if there might be a tiny silver lining to the current situation. Now that the Dems have suddenly awakened to how much damage backing a piece of shit foux HRC bill has done to them, is there a chance that after the election:
a) Recently defeated Dems might be out for a little revenge against ObamaCo and Dem congressional leadership? (And thus not vote for the Kittyfood recommendations.)
b) Surviving Dems learned a lesson and will be afraid of casting a vote to cut SS and Medicare that would expose them to the same kind of voter backlash in 2 years?
I realize that both of these scenarios run up against the fact that losing candidates become highly rewarded lobbyists. But maybe for enough of them, the prestige of elected office outweighs the lure of a lobbying career.
I wrote to PBS and NPR to ask for coverage of the CC and related issues. Got form letters back, something about writing to the wrong department. If Public TV, so called, does not come out of its corporate closet and addrss these issues, I’ve sent them my last dime and they’ve sent me their last damn coffee mug.
SS cuts are on the horizon mostly because the DC elites are loath to actually have to pay back to SS what they’ve given to the elites for tax cuts, bailouts, and the war on terror cash trough.
THis is a complete betrayal of the Democratic party, and the American people.
If Obama pushes SS cuts (so far all signs are go) then he will be a transformational President. He’ll be the one finally totally forgets that it all starts with We, the people rather than We, the corporations, and in so doing wreck both the country and the Democratic party.
Remember the old saying that you never tick off a guy who buys newsprint by the ton?
Dissing Colbert may not have been a brilliant strategy.
I expect we can count on at least one network to explain the work of the catfood commission in clear, simple sentences.
Ah you guys worry too much. If Bush couldn’t get it done as the centerpiece of his second term, it ain’t gonna happen. We don’t call it the third rail of American Politics for nothing. A government commission is just a way to make a lot of noise and then do nothing, it was ever thus and will ever be.
It really does seem like only Democrats can cut welfare programs since it would be too much expected from the Republicans. That is how the elites use both parties. One deregulates, the other gets rid of welfare.
Well they could lift the SS $106k wage cap, that’d add about $200 billion a year, they could tack onto the new 3.8% unearned income Medicare tax (for income above $250k) the 12.4% Social Security portion of FICA (that’d add $100 billion or so annually). They could add unrealized capital gains to the “unearned income” tax base and net more than the other two combined. Do all three and you could make a revenue-neutral cut in the FICA rates by half to two-thirds for income under $106,000 (or combine a smaller FICA tax cut with a Social benefit hike).
I’m scratching my head, why would a Democratic President think it a good idea to use a fast track system to pass benefits cuts unpopular with Democratic interests instead of using it to impose taxes on high income wages and capital income unpopular with Republican interests? Dance with the one that brung ya and for Democrats that means, in Harold Ickes Sr. apt phrase, tax tax, spend spend, elect elect.
I do get that discretion is the better part of valor and all that, so its understandable why any politician would shy away from raising taxes on the rich or anyone else. But to actively strive to knife one’s own supporters, neither ignorance, incompetence nor corruption alone can explain it. The White House appears to be multitasking all three at once.
What Stars. Which planet is she talking from or did she make those comments at this meeting after eating Hors d oeuvres and sipping wine Social Security Commission sponsors provided.
Right now people are really upset about Health Care bill with Mandates and add this in the mix President approval ratings will beat lowest ratings of GWB and Pres. Nixon who have the records for the lowest ever.
Social Security is fully solvent till 2036 and I am sure if nothing done with their tweaks it will be good for century or more. Just get Democrats off this commission and I am sure neither Republican congress or Senate will do anything to touch it since nobody wants to lose majority. In the meantime of next 3 to 4 decades I am sure we will get a FDR or LBJ or TR or Ike with similar minded congress to put changes to enable it survive till the time we can forsee.
We needed FDR.
And we got worse than Hoover.
I don’t think we should assume that DINO POTUS has the same goals and agenda as we do. He is not of the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party. And Obama probably became a Democrat because it was the best way to win an election as a black man, especially in Chicago.
He did tell us in 2008 (via his sitdown with Pittsbugh newspaper editors) that he thought the best ideas had come from the Repubs in the prior 10-15 years. So, that’s 1992 at the earliest, maybe 1993, but he included BushBoy’s years in that Best Ideas category. Perhaps Poppy. Maybe Newt as well?
That might explain why he so enthusiatically has accepted BushCo’s executive power grabs and civil liberties atrocities, even going beyond what Bush and Cheney.
Yikes.
He worried me back then; he scares the hell out of me now.
But, I shouldn’t be whining, right VPOTUS?
Yes, because DINO POTUS stacked the commission with deficit hawks and SocSec (and any “entitlements”) slashers.