Obama, how could you give no raise for 2010 for Social Security recipients?

As Warren Buffet stated in the New York Times last week, throwing $700 plus billion into the U.S. economy inevitably generates inflation.

Apparently when the individuals responsible for making the determination of whether or not there should be any increase in Social Security payments they chose to ignore the reality of inflation, and are throwing billions at the administration's pet projects instead.

One of Barack Obama's pet projects is dangling $4.3 billion at the United States public school system if states are willing to pass a law that could destroy the U.S. educational system as we know it.


 

A Seattle Times September 2 article on election 08 and the Republican Convention contained the headline:

WITH EYE ON STORM, DELEGATES SOLIDLY BACK PALIN

NOMINEE ANNOUNCES PREGNANCY OF HER 17 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER

The Seattle Times News Service story written from St. Paul contained the following:

Imagine a nonpartisan presidential candidate who lives in a modest house, walks or bicycles around town, mows his own lawn, travels in a 1990s motorhome, and does without air conditioning and TV. Meet "Average Joe" Schriner. Joe explains that his age (52), his height (5'10"), his weight (180 pounds), his yearly income (five digits), his home state (Ohio) and his overall political outlook represent the average American.

In 2004, the media informed us that there was a social security crisis, that social security will face a serious shortfall in 40 or more years. President Bush's "solution" was privatization, converting a portion of social security to private accounts that would be invested in the stock market. This would, of course, mean enormous profits for stock brokers and investment companies, major contributors to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns.

There's a battle waging today in America that will decide the future of the Middle Class.

On one side are those like Thomas Jefferson who believe that a free people can govern themselves and have the right to organize their government to create a strong middle class - which will, in turn, keep the government democratic. On the other side are those like Thomas Hobbes who believe that only a small elite can and should govern and that the people should be willing to pay the price of poverty in exchange for security.

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Hollywood, CA (O! Online) - "Pirates of the Potomac" re-opens this weekend in movie theatres across the nation. Starring Hollywood newcomer Georgie Inept, it tells the tale of a band of scurvy swashbuckling beltway insiders who mount a renewed quest for the legendary social security lockbox, or "Nearly Dead Man's Chest".

An increase in the minimum wage is once again hovering around the Congressional docket, as Democrats try to wedge it into various bills while Republicans try to sink it.

And once again, as reliable as clockwork, defenders and opponents are snapping into action, dusting off briefs and arguments, updating the analysis for inflation and generally doing the same dance we always do (I'm a defender).

There's got to be a better way.

Facts matter, so I'm not for a second saying that progressives should ignore the superior research, summarized below, that supports an increase. But I think we should also fight this one on basic fairness. It's simply shameful, in an era of sharply increasing economic inequality, for Congress to incessantly cut rich people's taxes yet refuse to help low-wage workers.

This past week, much to everyone's surprise, Democrats in the House of Representatives managed to slip a proposal to increase the minimum wage into a bill funding the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.

Faced with the specter of having to vote against increasing the wage floor from its current embarrassing level of $5.15 to $7.25 by Jan. 1, 2009, Congressional Republicans snapped into action and pulled the bill.

This is what these brave souls do in election season when they don't want to have to go back to their districts and answer questions as to why it's ok to cut hundreds of billions in rich people's taxes but deny the working poor a boost.

Well, I say: "Not so fast, guys.  Let's chat about this for a few minutes."

Not let me get this straight.  Last month, you passed $70 billion worth of new tax cuts, mostly by extending earlier Bush cuts on dividends and capital gains.  When tax cuts target investment income, the benefits flow to the wealthy, and these cuts are exhibit A: they reduce millionaire's tax payments by $43,000, and those of middle-income families by $20.  Sorry, that's not a typo.  It's what you get when you put the YOYOs in charge of fiscal policy.

Wait a second, where you going?  I'm not done.  Set a spell...

The recent failure in the Senate to repeal the estate tax stands as a rare victory for sane fiscal policy.  The NYT editorialized about the event under the heading "What Passes for Good News."

In fact, the Senate vote came alarming close to ending a tax on inheritances of the richest half-a-percent of households, with a majority of Senators (57--but they needed 60 for a repeal) supporting a measure which would have cost the treasury $800 billion over 10 years at a time of ballooning budget deficits and war.

Of course, the politics of the repeal were the focus of most analyses--would the White House be adhered to or get rebuffed on an issue dear to them--but the economics of the tax cut are deeply revealing of the fundamental flaw of economic policy today.

And that flaw is this: we have, over the past three decades, shifted from we're-in-this-together (WITT) economics to you're-on-your-own (YOYO) economics.

With their focus solidly on the gay marriage amendment and estate tax repeal, the conservative movement is busy rearranging deck chairs on...well, not quite the Titanic, but on a rotting ship of state.

Here's a test: name one economic policy, other than tax cuts, associated with outgoing Treasury Secretary John Snow.

Give up?

Now think about this: what is the economic policy of the Bush administration? What about the Congress? What about the Democrats?

The diary below was originally posted earlier today in the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

The conservative shift in American politics undermined the economic security of working people. Increasingly, individuals are absorbing more risks, working longer hours and earning less. Meanwhile, corporations and government benefit from less accountability to tax payers, consumers and employees. Renowned economist Jared Bernstein proposes in his new book, All Together Now: Common Sense For A Fair Economy, (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.) that we're ensnared in a "YOYO economy". The acronym YOYO means, "You're On Your Own." Bernstein's book illustrates how the "YOYOists" have schemed to transfer the burden of economic risk onto individuals and their families.

On Friday afternoon in a small room in Washington DC a Commission that is empaneled as a BI-Partisan Committee voted 11-2 to investigate the effects of totally disabled veterans who receive both VA Compensation and Social Security Disability, some of them receive these payments for the same service connected injuries, and some like myself receive them for totally unrelated reasons.

But the intent of this commission is to find out how much they get and to determine what is "fair". Let's discuss fair, you have 240,000 totally disabled veterans who receive both payments, but remember these are the most disabled of veterans, they can not work at all. Cutting their income will be devastating to the veterans and their families, in some cases probably causing bankruptcy's

I am glad Social Security wasn't in the market.  It is also a reminder that what a congressman does in another state,or how they vote, impacts everyone. I am fighting for a Congressional Seat against Mike Pence who wants to privatize Social Security and give people the illusion of possible great wealth.  That just really makes me angry.  My mother died in September and without Social Security, I hate to think what her quality of life would have been like.  At least she did not have to suffer through the current Medicaid Prescription Drug Debacle.

More below

In the days before GPS, a ship approaching a rocky coast had to be careful.  Navigating toward safe harbor, especially on a dark foggy night, brought with it a very real chance of destruction.  No matter how powerful, graceful, or well-designed the vessel, it could be in a moment rendered into little more than flotsam strewn across the beach.

If the ordinary problems were not enough, ships had to also face a more devious opponent: wreckers.  For centuries, maritime salvage laws gave complete ownership of a wreck to those who discovered it.  The incentive generated by these rules brought the unscrupulous out on foggy nights to try and fool wayward ships.  They would start lights, sometimes several, or order to deceive ships into thinking they were spotting lighthouses, movements of carriages along a seaside road, or other ships in a harbor.  By this means, wreakers lured hundreds of vessels onto the rocks, killed any surviving crew, and made off with the contents of the wrecks.

Forgive me the extended metaphor, and I'm sure many of you can already guess where I'm going with us.  If the ships are legislation, the Republicans are determined to provide the fog in which they can lose their way.  And they're building up the rocks on which legislation can founder.   And they're setting the false lights.