social security

Dave Zweifel in the Capital Times:

When Social Security was enacted as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms in 1935, about half of U.S. senior citizens lived in poverty. Many had to live out their lives in shameful places that people at the time called the “poor farm.” It was forever a family’s shame when during the Depression, grandma and grandpa had to go off to live in one of the county’s makeshift homes for the elderly because they couldn’t afford their own places and their children couldn’t afford to help them.

Today, fewer than 10 percent of America’s elderly live in poverty. More than 53 million Americans receive Social Security benefits to at least cover the basics of life. And as Bernie Sanders said, in the more than 75 years since, the program has never failed to pay out every nickel it owed.

Now Ryan and his compatriots want to mess with that success story.

Maybe Paul Ryan really does want to be the vice presidential candidate.  What else explains this lunacy?

On Laura Ingraham’s radio show, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) agreed with Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) that Social Security resembles a Ponzi scheme. “It’s not a criminal enterprise, but it is a pay as you go system where earlier investors, or say taxpayers, get a positive rate of return and the most recent investors, or taxpayers, get a negative rate of return,” said Ryan. “That’s how those schemes work." -- Washington Post.

Taking your Social Security money and investing it in the stock market doesn'trt seem quite so appealing this week.

Capper and Lou Kaye double team Paul Ryan's brilliant Social Security plan at The Paul Ryan Watch.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi today:

"Any discussion of Medicare or Social Security should be on its own table,  Do not consider Social Security a piggy bank for giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country...." 

Oh, my, has there been a lot of news since we spoke last about the Potential Impending Death Of Medicare: obviously we’re going to have to talk about the implications of Osama Bin Laden’s death (but we’ll do that another day), President Obama very publicly congratulated Donald Trump for having the leadership skills to know that Gary Busey was the one who needed to be fired after the way he ran the men’s cooking team on “The Apprentice”, and, of course, there was that “extreme ironing incident” on the M1 near London’s Mill Hill.

But what you may not have noticed is that in the past two weeks the Grim Weeper himself, Speaker of the House John Boehner, has gone from saying “I fully support Paul Ryan’s budget, including on Medicare” to saying that the Paul Ryan “Let’s Kill Medicare” plan is “an idea … worthy of consideration”—and when that happens that quickly you know somebody applied what we might politely describe as being at least “an equal and opposite force”.

And what I’m here to suggest today is that the opposite force in question…is you.

When I left for college, I was determined never to be a victim again. I would take my lead from the Hollywood tough guys I had always looked up to: Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Ned Beatty. So on Day One of my freshman year at Dartmouth, I walked into class and punched the first person I saw—my Ethics professor, Dr. Buneta.

--From the book “I Am America (And So Can You!)”, by Stephen Colbert

If your view of politics is filtered by a lens marked “Progressive” or “Liberal”, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve been gnashing your teeth and pulling your hair in frustration over the “give away the store, then negotiate” approach professional Democrats have used when facing the challenges from the Tea Party last year, and all that’s come after.

Over and over and over people like me have written stories wondering why Democrats, starting with this President, don’t get out in a very public way and slam Republican policies, over and over and over—especially when most Americans hate the things Republicans seem to love to support.

Turning over Government to the highest bidder? Not so popular.

Going back to a heathcare system run by, for, and of the insurance industry? Again, not so much.

Jacking up taxes and healthcare costs for you and me in order to provide another trillion in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires? So unpopular pollsters hardly believe it.

But there is another way, and today’s story is in two parts: we’re going to talk about how hard it is to get Democrats, as a group, to get loud and get aggressive—and then we’re going to talk about Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who is out there showing any reluctant Democrat just exactly how you can “grow the brand”.