Social Security News 7-31-12

SSW/SSSC mention **

Huffington Post (NAT)

Yes -- Protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Is a Political Winner

7-31-12

David Shuster

This week, in honor of Medicare's birthday, a coalition of 300 national and state organizations known as the Strengthen Social Security campaign announced the release of a new series of reports, "Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid Work for America." The reports show the clear value and benefits these programs provide in every state, as well as the raw numbers and demographics of people whose lives have literally been saved thanks to America's social safety net.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-shuster/yes-protecting-the-social-safety-net-is-a-political-winner_b_1721812.html

 

PBS News (NAT)

What Impact Would Eliminating the Payroll Cap Have on Social Security?

7-31-12

Paul Solman

Question: How much revenue would come into the Social Security Trust Fund each year and how far out would Social Security solvency be extended if the payroll cap were to be eliminated?

 

Paul Solman: I've just gone back to a story we did on this very subject back in 2005 with Columbia finance professor Stephen Zeldes, "Raising Tax Cap Explored as Way to Close Social Security Gap," and here's what I reported at the time:

"Removing the cap entirely, thereby imposing a flat tax of 12.4 percent on all earnings -- essentially a $100 billion a year tax increase on the wealthy -- would more than completely close the funding gap."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/07/what-impact-would-eliminating-the-payroll-cap-have-on-social-security.html

 

Wall Street Journal (NAT)

Secondary Sources: Entitlement Spending, Corporate Investment, Trade Barriers

7-31-12

Phil Izzo

“If you want to protect low and middle-income elderlies … you’re not going to find the revenue you need to make a difference by just lowering the benefits of high income households.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/07/31/secondary-sources-entitlement-spending-corporate-investment-trade-barriers/

 

New America Media (NAT)

"People's Pension" Author: Social Security Cuts Would Hurt Ethnic Families Most

7-31-12

Staff

Eric Laursen: Social Security is not in crisis. We can deal with any of the program’s long-range fiscal problems for decades to come by raising the portion of income subject to payroll tax, which would tax affluent workers a bit more heavily. In 2012, the payroll tax only applies up to $110,200 in earning. Or the payroll tax could be raised very gradually across the board – over a period of decades, so no one's purchasing power would be eroded. This is how Social Security has been “fixed” in the past, and there's no reason it couldn't be done again.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=7573a256c3d7b759e93e11452932a0e7

 

New York Times (NAT)

The Entitled Generation

7-30-12

Bill Keller

But the traditional liberal alternatives — raise taxes on the well-to-do, cut military spending — are not nearly enough by themselves. The arithmetic simply doesn’t work, unless we face the fact that entitlements are a bargain we can’t afford to keep, not in full.

So the question is not whether entitlements have to be brought under control, but how. The Republican plan espoused by Mitt Romney and his fiscal lodestar Paul Ryan would cut the cost of entitlements largely by moving toward privatization: personal investment accounts for Social Security, vouchers for Medicare. And it’s not at all clear the Republicans would assign any of the savings to investing in our future.

At least the Republicans have a plan…

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/keller-the-entitled-generation.html?pagewanted=all

 

Business Insider (NAT)

The Cut Social Security Gang

7-31-12

Barkley Rosser

Let me add two more points particularly to Dean's justified screed against Keller's pompous silliness. One is that he left out the matter of economic growth. We know how the surplus that Clinton left got turned into the current massive budget deficit. There were the tax cuts, vaguely recognized by Keller. There were those two wars, not quite fully finished, which Keller did not name but did also vaguely note defense spending. But then there was the recession, which has been the biggest souce of the problem.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cut-social-security-gang-2012-7

 

The Tallgrass Activist (Blog)

Bashing “Baby Boomers” In Another Push for Cuts in Social Security and Medicare: In the “Liberal” New York Times

7-30-12

David Kingsley

What did Keller have to say?  He launched his smear by borrowing several quotes from pundits and politicians.  For instance, he uses the following pearl of wisdom from former Clinton staffer Paul Begala’s Esquire article entitled “The Worst Generation:” “The Baby Boomers are the most self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing generation in American history.” Knowing what I know about the Clinton “West Wing” crowd, this is most certainly a mere projection of one personality onto an entire mass of people.  At any rate, the quotes presented run in this vein throughout the column.

http://tallgrassactivist.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/another-push-for-cuts-in-social-security-medicare-in-the-liberal-new-york-times/

 

Business Insider (NAT)

A Social Security Ditty: "If Privatization is Necessary---"

7-29-12

Staff

So in our first sum-up we have 'Social Security crisis' = 'Trust Fund Depletion' = '25% benefit cut'. In these straightforward terms the solution to 'crisis' is to prevent 'benefit cuts' and this can be done only with some combination of the following three methods: a direct increase in contributions (i.e. tax increase), an improvement in those economic numbers that contribute to solvency (mostly employment and Real Wage), or a better return on contributions than the current combination of Pay/Go and Trust Fund investments provide.

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-social-security-ditty-if-privatization-is-necessary--2012-7

 

Think Progress (DC)

A History Of Paul Ryan’s Attempts To Dismantle Social Security

7-30-12

Travis Waldron

That House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) supports the privatization of Social Security is well known. Ryan proposed $1.2 trillion in cuts and the partial privatization of Social Security upon taking control of the Budget Committee in 2011, and he has constantly warned about the supposed doom facing the program if major reforms aren’t enacted immediately.

But Ryan’s attempts to gut the most popular entitlement program in America go back quite a few years, as Ryan Lizza’s New Yorker profile of the conservative hero makes clear. Ryan’s fight against Social Security has been ongoing since he pushed President George W. Bush to privatize the program in 2005:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/30/609001/paul-ryanhistory-social-securit/

 

Think Progress (DC)

Meet Mitt Romney’s Economic Advisers

7-30-12

Travis Waldron & Steven Perlberg

In April, a Republican National Committee spokesperson said the Republican Party’s 2012 platform would focus on the same policies pushed by former President George W. Bush, “just updated.” In case anyone needs a reminder, Bush’s policies included massive tax cuts that led to exploding deficits and debt and a weak decade of job growth, the attempted privatization of Social Security, and deregulation of the financial industry that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/31/604891/meet-mitt-romneys-economic-advisers/

 

Fremont Tribune (NE)

Kerrey proposes Social Security reform plan

7-31-12

Democratic Senate nominee Bob Kerrey on Monday unveiled a Social Security reform proposal that he said would preserve the program and “put our country on a sustainable path to balance our budget.”

Major components of Kerrey’s plan include:

* Gradually increase the eligibility age for full retirement benefits, slowly moving to 69 by 2075.

* Apply the Social Security payroll tax to more wages above the current $106,800 cap, gradually reaching a level of 90 percent of wages by 2050.

http://fremonttribune.com/news/local/kerrey-proposes-social-security-reform-plan/article_ed79adee-db1a-11e1-9aea-001a4bcf887a.html

 

Newbury Port News (MA)

Longevity risk and Social Security

7-31-12

Donald E. Askey

But the best deal in longevity insurance comes from the public market in the form of Social Security. And how and when you elect to initiate those benefits will have an impact on the rest of your life.

Everybody’s situation is different, and everybody who has earned income credited to Social Security qualifies for three age-based levels of benefits and options. The first is at age 62, the second is at “full retirement age” (between 66 and 67 based on your year of birth) and the third is at age 70, when delayed retirement credits cease.

http://www.newburyportnews.com/business/x2068758334/Longevity-risk-and-Social-Security

 

Erie Times-News (PA)

Social Security card fees add up

7-28-12

The paper Social Security check will go the way of the Pink Princess rotary-dial phone, the typewriter and yes, sadly, Elvis in roughly seven months. Nearly 6 million people throughout the country still need to decide how they're going to get their money.

People can sign up for direct deposit to a bank or credit union account; or they could opt to have money deposited electronically via the Direct Express Debit MasterCard.

http://www.goerie.com/article/20120729/BUSINESS05/307299963/Social-Security-card-fees-add-up

 

 

Politics

 

Politico (DC)

Mitt Romney aide's gaffe exposes rift

7-31-12

Dylan Byers

In one week abroad, Mitt Romney has managed to enrage both the Brits and the Palestinians. Now add to that roster his own press corps.

Over seven days in the UK, Israel and Poland, Romney held just one media availability for the U.S. traveling press — and even then, standing outside 10 Downing St. in London, he answered only three questions. While he gave a series of interviews to the major television networks, he granted no interviews to other U.S. outlets.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/79200.html?hp=t1

 

The Hill (DC)

McConnell: Obama wants to hide defense job cuts to aid reelection

7-31-12

Pete Kasperowicz

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused President Obama of trying to hide the effects of next year's so-called "sequester" spending cuts on jobs in order to avoid alerting workers that they could be laid off just before the election.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/241257-mcconnell-obama-trying-to-keep-sequester-cuts-secret-to-help-his-election-chances

 

The New Yorker (NAT)

Obama’s Unfinished Judicial Legacy

7-31-12

Jeffrey Toobin

Republicans in the Senate staged a successful filibuster on Monday to prevent a vote on President Obama’s nomination of Robert Bacharach to serve on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Bacharach, a magistrate judge in Tulsa, had been endorsed by Oklahoma’s two senators—both Republicans—and the Senate Judiciary Committee had approved him with bipartisan support. Bacharach was in no way controversial, but his nomination was stymied because Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, invoked the “Thurmond rule.”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/07/why-judges-matter.html

 

Atlantic (NAT)

Statistical Probability That Mitt Romney's New Twitter Followers Are Just Normal Users: 0%

7-31-12

Alexander Furnas & Devin Gaffney

Last week Zach Green of 140Elect, noticed some strange goings-on with Mitt Romney's Twitter account (@MittRomney). Romney's account, which had been averaging around 2,000 to 5,000 new followers a day, gained 141,000 followers in two days.

This observation prompted speculation - from Green, Slate,The Huffington Post, CNN, and many others - that the Romney Campaign was buying robot followers, or perhaps (conspiratorially) someone else was buying them to make Romney look bad.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/statistical-probability-that-mitt-romneys-new-twitter-followers-are-just-normal-users-0/260539/

 

Politico (DC)

Government funding deal reached

Manu Raju

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced a sixth-month deal to continue funding the federal government through March of next year.

“It will provide stability for the coming months … This is very good,” Reid told reporters Tuesday afternoon. The deal was reached by Reid (D-Nev.), Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and President barack Obama.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/79197.html?hp=l1