This is a serious problem

Biden just made a massive bone-headed move.

Via the lever:

Last month, President Joe Biden nominated a longtime advocate of Social Security privatization and benefit cuts to a key board overseeing the Social Security system. The move comes as Republicans get ready to push cuts to Social Security and Medicare, if they end up winning control of Congress during the November’s midterms, as expected.

The development suggests that there could soon be a coordinated push in Washington to cut the Social Security program, which provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to 66 million Americans.

more:

On May 13, Biden chose to nominate Andrew Biggs, a fellow at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute think tank, for a Republican seat on the bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board, which was created in 1994 to consult the president and Congress about the Social Security system.

For years, Biggs has been a vocal critic of expanded Social Security and workers’ right to a secure, stable retirement free from the vagaries of the stock market. He has dismissed the retirement crisis as a non-issue and as recently as 2020 blamed problems with the Social Security system on “older Americans’ game of chicken.” And two decades ago, Biggs worked on a Bush administration commission that pushed to privatize Social Security.

Now he claims:

In response to questions from The Lever, Biggs suggested he no longer favors privatizing Social Security. Instead, he said he now believes that nations’ Social Security-like programs should be “more focused on guaranteeing against poverty in old age while middle and high-income individuals take on greater responsibility for saving for retirement on their own, such as by the government establishing universal retirement savings accounts for every worker.”

Establishing such savings accounts would be a solution in search of a problem. Social Security is incredibly successful at delivering retirement benefits, and raising taxes on the wealthy would be a straightforward way to expand the program. Alternatively, creating retirement accounts invested in the stock market would involve a much more unwieldy and risky expansion of government programs — and would be a huge boon to Wall Street.

More about this rat fucker:

In 2001, Biggs was a staff analyst on George W. Bush’s commission on Social Security that advocated privatizing the government program by shifting the programs’ trust fund investments from U.S. Treasury bills to high-fee, high-risk “personal accounts” that  seniors could use to invest Social Security assets in the stock and bond markets, like employees do with their 401(k) plans.

After that, Biggs spent four years working as an associate commissioner of the Social Security Administration, which administers the Social Security program, while Bush unsuccessfully pushed the unprecedented privatization efforts recommended by the 2001 commission.

A sample of Biggs’ writings on Social Security over the years shows that he:

  • Hand-waved away retirement insecurity for millions of Americans, saying that “only” 23 percent of seniors will have retirement incomes equal to or less than 75 percent of their average pre-retirement earnings.

  • Was concerned by Social Security taxes being raised on “upper-middle class Americans making as little as $140,000,” even though such a tax hike would massively increase long-term Social Security funding.
  • Endorsed cuts to Social Security, saying: “Most middle and upper-income retirees could survive just fine with slightly lower initial Social Security benefits and lower Cost of Living Adjustments after retirement.”
  • Argued that Social Security privatization would make Americans “not only richer, but also happier, healthier, more familial, smarter, and more active citizens.”
  • In 2013, Biggs justified the idea of raising the retirement age for Social Security benefits by saying that Americans’ “biggest on the job risk is, you know, carpal tunnel syndrome from your mouse or something like that.”.

My Mother is on Social Security, as was my Dad. This rat fucker wants to take it away.

Media elite push for cuts in Social Security

Normally as a rule, I do not agree with most of what is found on progressive blogs. However, as you all know, I am a Paleoconservative or a Pat Buchanan type of conservative. Which basically means that I am a populist on stuff like free trade, Wall Street, and yes, even things like Social Security.

So, when I do see stuff like the below, I do have to speak out on it.

The Video:

The Story:

From this Sunday’s Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer wants the audience to believe that those on the left who are opposed to cuts to “entitlements” a.k.a. our earned benefits and social safety nets, are just as “extreme” as these TeaBirchers in the Congress who have been obstructing everything President Obama has tried to do purely for the sake of obstruction.

Because we all know that wanting to protect Americans from becoming impoverished and to have access to affordable medical care is just like shutting down the government, right? Good god.

And unfortunately he got no push back from Gov. Martin O’Malley, who did counter the notion that the problem with our economy is that seniors are getting too many Social Security benefits, but he let the false equivalency stand.

via Bob Schieffer Calls Americans Who Don’t Want Cuts to Our Social Safety Nets Extremists | Crooks and Liars.

I believe that this Nation’s financial situation was caused by the blatant incompetence of BOTH Parties and not just one or the other. I believe that there must be measures taken to correct the problem. However, I do NOT believe that the solutions to the problems should be put on the back of the Nation’s disabled, elderly or retired. If anything at all, it ought to come off the backs of those who led this Nation down the path that it is on now.

As Patrick J. Buchanan has rightly said, the proper why to pay down the debt of this Country is to impose tariffs on imports into this Country and get rid of these idiotic trade agreements. This would totally fund our social safety net and pay down our Nation’s debt. Instead the elites in Washington D.C. would rather cut programs that actually help poor Americans and keep our Nation’s elderly and disabled as paupers. This includes my Father, who gave 31 years of his life to the General Motors Corporation.

It is a pity that we have people in D.C. who would rather reward the corrupt elites and punish the real, hard working Americans, who played by the rules and actually contributed to this Country —- people like my Father. 😡

 

AFL-CIO says hands off Social Security and Medicare

I hate to say it; but I happen to agree with this man’s statement. The solution to our crisis is not gutting social security and medicare. The solution is to stop with the pork barrel spending and stop the flow of imports into this Country. If we imposed tariffs again in this Country and got rid of these idiot trade agreements, we could, in fact, pay down our debt and fund our social safety net.

But, the idiots in congress will not even consider that; on the left or the right.

(Via CBNC)