However, there is one step that President Obama can take to boost the economy without going through Congress: He can reaffirm his support for Social Security and assure the baby boomers nearing retirement that he will not allow their benefits to be cut. Snip
Workers are likely to be especially fearful about the prospects of getting their Social Security benefits now, due to an all out assault on the program financed by billionaire banker Peter Peterson. Peterson has spent much of the last two decades trying to cut Social Security, Medicare, and other benefits for the elderly. He recently contributed a billion dollars to a foundation bearing his name that is primarily committed to this goal.
Peterson's investment has paid off both in exposure from the media and, more importantly, attention from many members of Congress and their staffers. There are now dozens of senators, members of Congress and staffers running all around Capitol Hill crafting creative new ways to cut Social Security. Baby boomers are right to fear that Peterson and his crew will take away their benefits. (My emphasis)
Good post, good article by Dean Baker.
Hey, Josh Marshall, when you gonna get your SocSec anti-bamboozlement thing going again? Time is running out.
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The benefits shouldn't be cut
for anybody. Back in 2000 Al Gore proposed that half the projected surplus be used to shore up Soc Sec forever. Well, I'm thinking, what happened to that surplus? Oh yea, it went towards the balance sheets of the top one percent. When I was a young adult we had it in our minds to go to Washington and levitate the Pentagon, lift the entire building six inches off the ground, so that the generals would get an idea how we felt about their little excursion in SE Asia. If the O'man thinks he's going to cut Soc Sec benefits without first taking back that surplus and applying it to Sec Sec, then we may have to go to Washington to levitate the White House to show "Our Esteemed President" how we feel about his latest half-ass 'brilliant idea'.
Michael Lind writes Repubs could use populism to attack Dems
and undermine New Deal programs -- how's that for an oxymoron? But, says Lind, the Repubs have done this preciously and could do it again.
Great catch by Susie Madrack.
That's why the Republicans picked Palin...
... and Joe the Plumber.
Every time the creative class trashes either one, it brings right wing populism another inch closer.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi