Trumka: Latest Deficit Commission Proposal Tells Workers ‘Drop Dead’—Again
With 800,000 workers losing their unemployment benefits last night, the deficit commission’s proposal “once again tells working Americans to ‘Drop Dead,’” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. All the commission members should vote against the latest blueprint presented by commission co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, which calls for keeping the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy while cutting Social Security and Medicare, Trumka said. And all members of Congress should oppose these “job-killing policies” if they are raised in future legislation or budgets, he said.
We need to focus now on the jobs deficit, Trumka said.
Fifteen million people are out of work, and another 11 million have given up looking or are working part-time involuntarily. We need to end tax breaks that send American jobs overseas and invest in jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and green technologies.
Report: Deficit Commission Proposals Would Cost 4 Million Jobs
The deficit reduction plan released last week by the co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility shows that this so-called budget deficit commission shows the commission has run severely off course.
The recommendations issued by co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles would cost 4 million jobs over three years and reduce economic growth by 0.7 percent in 2012, 1.4 percent in 2013 and 1.9 percent in 2014, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
The Simpson-Bowles approach calls for job-killing budget austerity to begin in October 2011, even though most economic forecasters expect unemployment to remain as high as it is today or even increase by then.
Simpson and Bowles also call for deep cuts in Social Security benefits, even though Social Security is not responsible for our long-term budget problem and the public is overwhelmingly opposed to benefit cuts.
Could Simpson or Boehner Pass the Social Security Test?
AFSCME President Gerald McEntee has a great idea for a reality television show. He suggested it as part of a conference call today where participants outlined efforts to strengthen Social Security and combat attempts by the federal budget deficit commission and others to raise the retirement age, cut benefits or even privatize Social Security.
The show would star three people: Deficit Commission co-chair Alan Simpson, who has called seniors “greedy geezers”; House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) who wants to raise the retirement age to 70; and former Lehman Brothers chief executive Peter Peterson, who has bankrolled a major PR campaign to convince the public Social Security is on the brink of disaster. But McEntee admits it might be short-lived.
Give each of these guys the average annual Social Security benefit of $14,000 and make them live on it for a year. But deduct $100 a month for Medicare part B premium and $200 a month for Medigap insurance. When do you think they will stop calling for benefit cuts? Probably after the first episode. Read the rest of this entry »
Social Security’s a Vital Lifeline for Older Women
The Alan Simpsons and John Boehners of the world talk about raising the retirement age and cutting Social Security benefits for “greedy geezers.” If they have their way and the federal budget deficit commission—of which Simpson is co-chairman—ends up recommending raising the retirement age, cutting benefits or even privatizing Social Security, women will be the hardest hit.
Here are some sobering statistics from Retirement USA and the Social Security Administration (SSA) that show just how vital Social Security is to older women.
The estimated income that older Americans need to meet basic needs, depending on homeowner status, is between $16,163 and $20,869, according to the Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index.
But half the women ages 65 and older have an annual income of less than $14,429 (men’s median income is $25,344). On top of that, 11 percent of women 65 years and older live below the federal poverty line of $10,326 for single persons ages 65 and older. That is well below what is necessary to meet basic needs.
Raising Retirement Age Is Deal Breaker and Back Breaker
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It’s a sure bet that none of the members of the federal budget deficit commission has spent his or her career lifting, carrying, digging or otherwise doing hard physical work for a paycheck.
Because if they had, it’s another sure bet they wouldn’t even be considering raising the Social Security retirement age, as committee co-chair Alan Simpson and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) support. In an eye-opening piece in The New York Times, John Leland profiles 58-year-old Jack Hartley who works at a Cooper Tire plant in Findlay, Ohio. Here’s his typical workday.
A 12-hour shift assembling tires: pulling piles of rubber and lining over a drum, cutting the material with a hot knife, lifting the half-finished tire, which weighs 10 to 20 pounds, and throwing it onto a rack.
Mr. Hartley performs these steps nearly 30 times an hour, or 300 times in a shift. “The pain started about the time I was 50” he said. “Dessert with lunch is ibuprofen. Your knees start going bad, your lower back, your elbows, your shoulders.”
Imagine doing that until you’re 70 years old as Boehner suggests? Hartley is not alone Leland points out.
68 Percent of Voters Frown on ‘Phasing Out’ Social Security
Attention, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Joe Miller in Alaska, Sharron Angle in Nevada and all you other Republican congressional candidates flopping around on the far right banks of the mainstream! Phasing out, privatizing or otherwise eliminating Social Security does not sit well with the vast majority of the voting public.
The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 68 percent of voters are “uncomfortable” with candidates who espouse such notions. Uncomfortable is putting it nicely. It’s downright painful to listen to U.S. Senate wannabes and other Republican hopefuls “babble into the vapors” about phasing out Social Security (turnabout’s fair play, Alan Simpson!).
Alliance Renews Call for Simpson’s Ouster
If Social Security was on trial, says Edward F. Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, “There is not a judge in this country that would allow Alan Simpson to serve on the jury.”
Simpson, who has called Social Security recipients “greedy geezers,” co-chairs the federal budget deficit commission–even though he is a long-time advocate of making cuts to Social Security, such as raising the Social Security retirement age. Last week, he ramped up his attack on proponents of strengthening Social Security by accusing them of “babbling in the vapors…and all that crap,” and said Social Security, “is like a milk cow with 310 million tits.”
The Alliance and many women’s and senior groups called for Simpson’s resignation or firing last week. Coyle urged President Obama to reconsider the White House decision to allow Simpson to remain on the panel, following Simpson’s apology for his remarks. Says Coyle: Read the rest of this entry »
Deficit Chair Simpson Rants Against Seniors Again. Time to Go
Maybe when he’s back on some Wyoming ranch, Alan Simpson can avoid stepping in it. But the co-chairman of the federal budget deficit commission seems to squish deep into it, every time he opens his apparently out-of-control mouth about Social Security.
After the latest loose-lip flap, leaders of seniors’ organizations say it’s time for Simpson to head back to the ranch and resign from the commission.
In a nasty e-mail to Ashley Carson, executive director of the Older Women’s League (OWL), Simpson berates her for an April blog she wrote on Huffington Post in which she takes him to task for distorting the opposition to the Social Security cuts. Raising the retirement age is one such potential cut, one that Simpson supports.
Social Security Cuts Eyed by Deficit Commission ‘Especially Painful,’ Report Finds
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Next month, Social Security, one of the nation’s most successful and important government programs, turns 75. It is the cornerstone of retirement security for tens of millions of Americans.
(Today, the U.S. House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security will examine the success of Social Security 75 years after President Franklin Roosevelt signed it into law. We’ll be covering the hearing.)
