Losing the war on poverty?

Public domain photo.

It's not exactly breaking news: America, the richest nation in the world, has 46 million people living at a subsistence level income or less. Annie Lowery at the NY Times updates us 50 years after Lyndon Johnson launched the war on poverty:

WASHINGTON — To many Americans, the war on poverty declared 50 years ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson has largely failed. The poverty rate has fallen only to 15 percent from 19 percent in two generations, and 46 million Americans live in households where the government considers their income scarcely adequate. 

But looked at a different way, the federal government has succeeded in preventing the poverty rate from climbing far higher. There is broad consensus that the social welfare programs created since the New Deal have hugely improved living conditions for low-income Americans. At the same time, in recent decades, most of the gains from the private economy have gone to those at the top of the income ladder. 

Half a century after Mr. Johnson’s now-famed State of the Union address, the debate over the government’s role in creating opportunity and ending deprivation has flared anew, with inequality as acute as it was in the Roaring Twenties and the ranks of the poor and near-poor at record highs. Programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps are keeping millions of families afloat. Republicans have sought to cut both programs, an illustration of the intense disagreement between the two political parties over the best solutions for bringing down the poverty rate as quickly as possible, or eliminating it.

For poverty to decrease, “the low-wage labor market needs to improve,” James P. Ziliak of the University of Kentucky said. “We need strong economic growth with gains widely distributed. If the private labor market won’t step up to the plate, we’re going to have to strengthen programs to help these people get by and survive.”

Read more:

 

Social Security and Medicare cuts threatened again

Signing of the Social Security Act.

It's my understanding that Ronald Reagan was the first to use the term "entitlements" in reference to Social Security and Medicare. Since then political leaders have chosen to use "entitlements" to cover their suggestions to gut programs to aid the poor and the elderly. Well, yes, Democrats toss the term around as well, including President Obama. Guess what? Those "entitlements" are on the precipice again as Congress considers a new budget.

In response to Zach Carter at the Huffington Post, yes, it's legitimate for the public to worry whether the Democrats will cave on Social Security and Medicare:

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday opened the door to Social Security cuts as part of a budget deal with congressional Republicans. But Durbin pushed back against GOP calls for entitlement cuts as the negotiating price to curb or extinguish the economically damaging sequester cuts.
"If this is the bargain that the Republicans are now pushing for, that we have to cut Medicare to avoid cuts at the Department of Defense, they need to take a step back," Durbin said on "Fox News Sunday."
Congress is currently negotiating a new budget, with a December deadline. The talks were mandated by last week's deal to raise the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown. 

Also speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) explicitly offered up trading some of the short-term cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act, known as the sequester, for long-term Social Security and Medicare cuts. He argued that Republicans had the tactical advantage on such an exchange.

"If you're in a divided government and you're arguing against the law, you're at a disadvantage," Blunt said, noting the failed GOP effort to defund Obamacare that resulted in a government shutdown. "The Budget Control Act is the only thing we've found that actually controls spending."

Blunt said that if Democrats aren't willing to negotiate over "entitlement savings versus some additional spending," to ease the sequester, then Democrats will have to live with the sequester cuts.

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VP candidate Paul Ryan fails math

Mathematically challenged Paul Ryan, official portrait.

I studied basic math as an eighth-grader in the public school system decades ago. We were taught how to balance a budget and given other useful training prior to entering high school. So it’s a little shocking to read Paul Krugman’s latest post at the Conscience of a Liberal (NY Times) and discover that House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan, recently appointed VP candidate on the Republican ticket, is worse than mathematically challenged. The man obviously skipped eighth grade math and hasn’t paid much attention since as to how numbers add up – or not. Unfortunately, the beltway media seems to be as oblivious to financial reality as Ryan.

In an effort to wake up our delusional media, Krugman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, responds to Ryan’s “fantasy” budget proposals here:

Look, Ryan hasn’t “crunched the numbers”; he has just scribbled some stuff down, without checking at all to see if it makes sense. He asserts that he can cut taxes without net loss of revenue by closing unspecified loopholes; he asserts that he can cut discretionary spending to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge, without saying how; he asserts that he can convert Medicare to a voucher system, with much lower spending than now projected, without even a hint of how this is supposed to work. This is just a fantasy, not a serious policy proposal.

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U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley speaks out on behalf of veterans, seniors, and women

Rep. Shelley Berkley

Democrat Rochelle “Shelley” Berkley has served as U.S. Representative for Nevada's 1st congressional district since 1999. Berkley is currently opposing Republican Sen. Dean Heller in the Nevada Senate race. According to Shelley’s Facebook page, she’s running to create jobs in Nevada, protect Medicare, build clean energy infrastructure, and make sure we keep the promises we've made to our veterans. Shelley is also speaking out on major women’s issues.

As a United States Air Force veteran and an advocate for women's rights, I’m happy to post this email from Shelley:

Virginia,

Do you know what today is?

April 17th is National Equal Pay Day. Women had to work from January 1, 2011 to April 17, 2012 to match what men earned in 2011 alone.

On average, women still earn less than men across the board. And even though women make up 51% of the population in the United States, we hold only 17% of the seats in Congress.

This is just one of the many reasons that we need to keep fighting. 

There’s a simple way for you to stay involved. Just click here to join me on Facebook or here to follow me on Twitter, and keep up with everything going on in our campaign.

Middle class families are hurting. We need to create jobs, protect Medicare and Social Security, and continue to develop our renewable energy economy. That’s why I’m in this race, and I would love to keep you up to date.

So make sure you’re following our work! Join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter today.

Thank you so much for your help. I’ll be in touch.

Shelley

P.S: If you’ve already followed us on Facebook and Twitter, thank you! There’s more you can do to help. Click here to pitch in a few dollars to our campaign today.

Paid for by Berkley for Senate

Contributions or gifts to Berkley for Senate are not tax deductible

It’s morning at the NY Times: the budget crisis “is all obfuscating nonsense”

Morning in NYC, photo public domain

A surprising editorial in the NY Times appears this morning titled “The Hollow Cry of Broke,” which suggests that John Boehner, Scott Walker, and company are exaggerating the nation’s so-called financial crisis in order “to break unions and kill programs they never liked in the first place.”

Keep in mind that in recent weeks, NY Times op-ed writers have railed time and again at those “entitlements” as the source of the nation’s scary budget deficit and more specifically, said pundits have blamed Social Security, a self-funding program, and Medicare for our current economic woes.

I’ve yet to see David Brooks or any of his colleagues at the Times mention that the government has violated federal law in raiding the Social Security Trust fund to pay for its two wars of choice and avoid taxing the wealthy or closing tax loopholes for major corporations. And they’ve certainly not mentioned that the nation’s seniors paid into the Social Security Trust Fund throughout their working lives with high payroll taxes.

So what’s with this Times editorial that begins:

“We’re broke! We’re broke!” Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday. “We’re broke in this state,” Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said a few days ago. “New Jersey’s broke,” Gov. Chris Christie has said repeatedly. The United States faces a “looming bankruptcy,” Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

It’s all obfuscating nonsense, of course, a scare tactic employed for political ends. A country with a deficit is not necessarily any more “broke” than a family with a mortgage or a college loan. And states have to balance their budgets. Though it may disappoint many conservatives, there will be no federal or state bankruptcies. 

The federal deficit is too large for comfort, and most states are struggling to balance their books. Some of that is because of excessive spending, and much is because the recession has driven down tax revenues. But a substantial part was caused by deliberate decisions by state and federal lawmakers to drain government of resources by handing out huge tax cuts, mostly to the rich. As governments begin to stagger from the self-induced hemorrhaging, Republican politicians like Mr. Boehner and Mr. Walker cry poverty and use it as an excuse to break unions and kill programs they never liked in flush years.

Those programs "they never liked in flush years" included Social Security and Medicare. Anyway, it’s good to see the Times editorial board is waking up. I’m resisting the temptation to say, “Good morning, fellas.”

Read the rest of this on target editorial here.

 

Call to action: America’s seniors should sue the federal government for raiding the Social Security trust fund

President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, 1935
(Source:Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

Given the increasing frequency of bipartisan attacks on Social Security and Medicare and threats to gut these programs to balance the federal budget, it’s time for seniors to get organized and fight back. The fact of the matter is that today’s seniors have ample grounds to sue the federal government for violating the law by raiding the Social Security trust fund created in 1983.

Social Security’s critics seldom mention that the program is self-funded through mandatory payroll taxes and that President Reagan, under the recommendation of Alan Greenspan, signed into law amendments authorizing the creation of a Social Security trust fund to be kept separate from the federal budget and protected in a “lockbox.”

As the NewsHour’s Paul Solman pointed out last November, “the lockbox has indeed been raided, in the sense that the money in the trust fund was never really set aside or meaningfully protected.”

Last Friday night on the NewsHour, Mark Shields finally responded to yet another slur against America’s seniors by David Brooks by saying, “Social Security is self-funding, it’s solvent, and in fact, it’s been bankrolling the rest of the government.”

In addition to suing the government for violating the law and raiding Social Security funds, it’s high time our seniors demanded from politicians and media reps like Brooks the respect they deserve by protesting the use of the derogatory expression “entitlement programs,” to describe Social Security and Medicare.

  

Obama’s budget for 2011: expect cuts to Medicare beyond curtailing waste, fraud and abuse

The other day I wrote to PBS ombudsman Mike Getler about use of the term “entitlement programs” to describe Social Security and Medicare in the rants of NewsHour regulars, David Brooks, et al, insisting that the Federal deficit could only be resolved by gutting programs that serve the elderly and those suffering from disabilities.

I noticed that in his most recent column, Brooks used the term “entitlement programs” repeatedly as if to get even with anyone who dared challenge him. As I’ve said before, the usage of “entitlement” is derogatory and implies that Social Security and Medicare recipients are receiving handouts without ever having paid into the system.

This evening during the NewsHour’s weekly analysis of Shields and Brooks, Brooks delivered his usual rant and again with obvious contempt mentioned the necessity for cutting those “entitlement” programs.

However, this time Mark Shields called him on it. Shields noted that “Social Security is self-funding, it’s solvent, and in fact, it’s been bankrolling the rest of the government.”

My satisfaction was short-lived, however. Minutes ago, I read Politico’s item headlined, Medicare cuts likely in W.H. budget:

As President Barack Obama unveils his budget Monday, multiple sources say to expect cuts to Medicare beyond just curtailing waste, fraud and abuse.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. has for years served its clients without asking whether or not they carried insurance. A close friend, whose late husband was a leading Mayo physician, told me recently that Mayo had always lost money on their Medicare patients.

If Obama’s 2011 budget is passed as is, our seniors may have difficulty finding a doctor who will even see them and if David Brooks get his way, they’ll lose their meager Social Security income as well – never mind that they paid into it with high payroll taxes throughout their working lives.

What to do about those selfish old people living high on Social Security?

“For $200 you can feed a low income senior citizen for one year....” Courtesy of the Foodbank of Eastern Michigan

It’s the question on everyone’s mind these days: what are we going to do about these “entitlement” folks who are draining the national budget?

Entitlement is the term of choice the majority of politicians and members of the media now use to refer to Social Security and Medicare. It’s a derogatory term that implies that elderly or disabled beneficiaries of these programs are selfish, undeserving people who subsist on government handouts without ever having contributed anything useful to society. And what’s more they’re living high on the hog at the expense of worthy taxpayers even as the nation’s economy goes down the drain.

Said politicians and media reps never mention that throughout their working lives, today’s seniors paid high Social Security and Medicare taxes. And have you ever heard any politician or news reporter note that the government continues to deduct hefty Medicare fees from the minimal monthly Social Security payments of even low income seniors?  

Pay a visit sometime to a local apartment building for low income seniors and take a look at the residents. Notice how many of these “entitlement” folks are hard of hearing, but can’t afford hearing aids; wear eyeglasses that are at least five years old; and have lost all or most of their teeth, but can’t afford dentures. Then tell me again about the superior quality of life this population enjoys on the backs of taxpayers.

And while you’re visiting one of these establishments for the elderly and/or disabled, remind yourselves that the majority of the residents paid into the system while working hard throughout their adult lives, and many of them served in the military.

There is no doubt a percentage of  independently wealthy seniors who could live very well without Social Security or Medicare. But why must our government and the media continuously denigrate the rest of the nation’s elderly and/or disabled population by referring to them as “entitlement” recipients, thus shaming them for barely meeting their basic needs for food, shelter, and medical care.
 

Obamacare: Nudging Granny Toward End-of-Life Decisions

Maybe it's because I'm one of those adults in the population conveniently classified as seniors, but I've been nervous about Obamacare ever since I learned about the proposal to incorporate end-of-life counseling in the treatment of Medicare recipients.

Obama's smooth denials given at AARP town hall gatherings haven't reassured me in the least, nor have the irrational screechings of extremists on either the far left or far right.

Lee Siegel's post at the Daily Beast titled Obama's Euthanasia Mistake has the effect that one typically experiences in at last confronting the reality of a situation. At least you know what you're dealing with and are thus better equipped to either support or protest what's happening.

Before turning to Siegel this morning, however, let me clarify something that has been bothering me since this discussion began. Obama and others have repeatedly referred to Social Security and Medicare as "entitlement" programs, making it sound as if seniors are getting handouts from the government in their retirement years. Wrong. We paid a Social Security tax throughout our working years, and we've also been taxed for Medicare. Post-retirment, the government deducts substantial monthly contributions to Medicare from our measley Social Security benefits. I just calculated it: my Medicare deduction equals about 11% of my monthly benefits.

On that note, let's go to Siegel. After introducing us to a couple of influential people in Obama's University of Chicago background, Siegel zeroes in on the issues at stake for seniors in Obamacare:

The section, on page 425 of the bill, offers to pay once every five years for a voluntary, not mandatory, consultation with a doctor, who will not blatantly tell the patient how to end his or her life sooner, but will explain to the patient the set of options available at the end of life, including living wills, palliative care and hospice, life sustaining treatment, and all aspects of advance care planning, including, presumably, the decision to end one’s life.

The shading in of human particulars is what makes this so unsettling. A doctor guided by a panel of experts who have decided that some treatments are futile will, in subtle ways, advance that point of view. Cass Sunstein calls this “nudging,” which he characterizes as using various types of reinforcement techniques to “nudge” people’s behavior in one direction or another. An elderly or sick person would be especially vulnerable to the sophisticated nudging of an authority figure like a doctor.

Bad enough for such people who are lucky enough to be supported by family and friends. But what about the dying person who is all alone in the world and who has only the “consultant” to turn to and rely on? The heartlessness of such a scene is chilling.

Yet many liberals seem drawn to such fantasies of power and control. We live in a highly quantified society, entertained on all sides by divertissements that reduce human life to cute little anecdotes illustrating the morality of statistical, utilitarian analysis, from Malcolm Gladwell to Freakonomics and beyond.

To read Siegel's post in its entirety - it's well worth it - go here.