Social Security will be around longer than all of you!

Social Security DOES NOT add to the deficit!!

I don't know why we have to keep talking about this, well yes I do, it's because the hardheaded, mean spirited, social program hating righties keep spewing lies about it!

Social Security, funded separately from rest of the federal budget, quite simply pays benefits to those who have paid in. In order to qualify to draw Social Security, an individual must work and contribute to the program for 10 years. Social Security is not means tested; benefits are paid progressively as a percentage of former earnings and contributions.
The mean Social Security benefit is around $14,000 a year, providing 40 percent of retirement income for the average American.  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Social Security lifts 20 million Americans out of poverty.  And, according to a recent national survey commissioned by the AARP, 85 percent of adults oppose cutting Social Security and half of non-retired adults support paying higher payroll taxes to ensure the systems stays solvent. Younger Americans, while skeptical about the program’s future, are particularly supportive of the program. 90 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 said they believe Social Security is important.
However, while Social Security is popular, many Americans, particularly young Americans, are skeptical about its future. Much of this can be attributed to the misunderstandings and mistruths that are continuously perpetrated by some in Congress and in the media. Here are the truths behind some of the more common Social Security myths.
1. Social Security adds to the deficit.
Social Security, by law, cannot add to the deficit. It is a separate program, paid into through FICA contributions, with benefits paid only from the revenue it raises. If the trust fund were to be exhausted and current contributions were not adequate to pay benefits, Social Security could not borrow from the general budget. Federal law prohibits Social Security from borrowing.
2. Social Security is broke, and there is no “Trust Fund.”
Conventional wisdom among Social Security skeptics is that the program is out of money now and that there is no Social Security Trust Fund. This is fueled largely by the fact that Social Security did begin to pay more in benefits than it received in taxes earlier than was projected due to the depth of the 2008 recession. Regardless of this fact, The Social Security Trust Fund currently runs a $2.5 trillion surplus. The Economic Policy Institute estimates the surplus will peak at $4.2 trillion in 2024.

Trust Fund intact, with no changes to the program, Social Security is projected to be able to pay 100 percent of benefits until the year 2037. After 2037, Social Security will still be able to pay 75 percent of benefits. A program projected to meet costs almost 3 decades into the future with no adjustments is not a system in crisis. Other government programs would be hard pressed to meet such a standard.

GOT IT?? 

Common Dreams.org...
Social programs did not cause the deficit
As Seth Freed Wessler notes for ColorLines, deficit hawks’ emphasis on social programs is at odds with the factors that actually created the deficit. The Bush tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the bank bailouts are the big-ticket items when it comes to government revenues and expenses. Yet deficit hawks in Congress have been refusing to extend paltry unemployment benefits or food stamps to the people hit hardest by the recession. And pretty soon they’re going to go after Social Security too.
In reality, the deficit is only a problem if investors are afraid that the government will default on its debt. Markets measure this worry with interest rates—high rates mean investors are worried, low rates mean they are not. Right now, interest rates on government bonds are at their lowest in decades. With the recession dragging on and the recovery weakening, now would be a great time for the government to spend more money to create jobs and help those knocked out of work.
Instead, the policy debate features cranky old men whining about 310-million-titted cows.

The truth hurts the wingnuts, but if you really want some truth and a SS fix here's what NEEDS TO BE DONE. Make the rich pay their fair share!! SURPRISE!  Right now high earners only pay SS taxes on the first 106,000 of their income! Can you believe that bullshit??! Make the rich pay their fair share, make them pay taxes on ALL their income and SS can be strengthened. All this talk from the deficit commission is crap when it comes to SS. Republicans HATE Social Security and every chance they get they will lie about it but the people aren't buying into their lies...

Europeans are flabbergasted

While the rightwingers are laughing at President Obama and Democrats for their losses in the mid term elections, the Europeans are laughing at THEM!  Well maybe not laughing, more like scared, puzzled, in disbelief Americans are so STUPID as to put Republicans back in power, no matter how slight, but to give those disastrous Republicans a majority after just 2 short years of trying to get past the horrific actions of the Bush administration.....after those destructive policies... it's just too much for the Europeans to grasp...

From Alter Net
  Like the rest of the world, Europe cheered the election of Barack Obama as a change from the economic and foreign policy disasters of his predecessor.  Yet just two years later the US government is returning to Bush-lite.  How could this be, Europeans are wondering? The American electorate is looking like a coyote with its leg caught in a trap, chewing its own leg off to get out of the trap.

Europeans are puzzled by the success of the populist Tea Party movement, which seemingly wants to roll back the last two years and return to how things were at the end of the Bush-Cheney years. Even conservatives in Europe are scratching their heads over their transatlantic allies -- “Americans don’t want health care??? How can these Tea Party people say ‘Get government out of my Medicare -- don’t they know Medicare IS a government program???”

Christian Stoffaes who is chairman of the Center for International Prospective Studies based in Paris, stated the United States is in disarray, extremely polarized. It is practically a civil war there and you can't count on it.

THIS statement by Stoffaes is because of the rightwing extremists takeover,

 There is a widespread view that the US is being consumed by the severity of the Great Recession, brought on by a broken Wall Street capitalism, as well as by the quagmires of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and an inability to change course. Brought on by the Bush administration and because of republican obstructionism, increasingly difficult for President Obama to move forward his agenda. I do take into account this administrations problems when it comes to the wars and the policies the left wants Obama to stand firm on. I don't give the president a free pass, he can change course if he so chooses....

Previously, Obama’s failure at the Copenhagen summit on climate change to deliver a serious commitment to that agenda, and instead to strike a deal with the Chinese to do next to nothing, was a real wakeup call to the Europeans. It was as if they suddenly “got” it, that it wasn't George W. Bush who was the problem, but something more profound about America’s broken political system that prevents any leader, even one as talented as Obama, from delivering.  That political system is marinated in money, is paralyzed by a “filibuster-gone-wild” Senate that has allowed a minority of Senators to obstruct all legislation, and is hamstrung by a sclerotic, winner-take-all, two-party electoral system that has left voters poorly represented and deeply frustrated.

This is what the conservatives of Europe are saying about us! The world is afraid of what America is turning into....

Now, in the aftermath of the recent election, the European media landscape is screaming with headlines like:  “Is the American Dream Over?”, “A Superpower in Decline,” “Deep divisions across political map,” “Power gridlock looms between parties,” “Washington turns into a battleground,” and “Elections tarnish Obama's world image.” The recent move by the Federal Reserve to jumpstart the U.S. economy by taking steps that will result in the devaluing of the dollar has been met with great skepticism in Europe. Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble has said the Fed's action shows U.S. policy makers are "at a loss about what to do."  The American growth model, he said, is stuck in a deep crisis. "The USA lived off credit for too long, inflated its financial sector massively and neglected its industrial base.”

We the people elected Barack Obama  because this country needed desperate change.  And what do we do, we get impatient and wham, the thugs are back in the majority in the House. Not only are the democrats in this country shaking their heads in disbelief but the rest of the world is too. I know some of you will say President Obama is no different than Bush-Cheney, but Obama is no dummy, he knows what needs to be done to change course. The question is, will he do it?

The predictable American reaction has been, "Europe is one to talk. Have they gotten their PIIGS back in the pen yet?” Certainly Europe has its own challenges. But to the extent that the election of Barack Obama represented an American rejuvenation in the eyes of the world, this recent election represents a further loss of American mojo.  Americans may shrug their shoulders and say, "We don't care what the rest of the world thinks"--  but that will only reinforce what the rest of the world thinks.

This "we don't care about the rest of the worlds perception of us" is rightwinger talk. We better start caring about our reputation, and we better start caring about our country and her people before we let the wingnuts take us to a place we will never recover from....

I don't believe the mid term losses for the Democratic Party mean a loss of American mojo either. The voters were not voting out of a love for the republicans, they were voting out of a frustration the democrats were not fighters for the progressive agenda this country wants. You can go right ahead and deceive yourselves into believing otherwise righties. This country wants Obama to be more progressive, to be a fighter against the destructive republicans and what they are gonna try and do in the next 2 years. The world will be watching in disbelief.....

Please leave us your thoughts...

 My new friend Mary posted this last week and I asked her if she wanted to cross-post it to my blog since I tend to get some interesting conservative comments.  

 Mary and I would love to hear from you, please enlighten us and we promise not to be judgemental :-)

Some Conservatives say... Barack Obama is the Worst President In History

In honor of the "Worst President in History" George W. Bush's visit to Milwaukee I thought I would ask a question of the "Conservatives" that come by and tell me in the comments that Pres. Obama is "doing far more damage" than Bush ever did.  All the "Conservatives" that came on over to find out where they could get Ron Johnson's yard signs can answer my question.  Dan Quayle's son who made the commercial calling Pres. O "the worst president EVER!" could pop in and answer my question.     

How has President Barack Obama ruined your country?

I want an honest answer.  I want to know what you are thinking when you say this.  I want to understand how you could totally block out what President Bush did, yet accuse President Obama of ruining the country.  I really want to know.

To anyone answering this question please be honest and very specific, as many reasons as you can enumerate.  I will not attack you or even contradict you, I will just listen.  I want to know were all of this is coming from, where do you get your news from?  Who do you rely on, who do you trust in this world to give you good sound "Political Information".

I want to be schooled here.  I want to be shown why I should stop drinking the Obama Kool-Aid.  Please do not call me an idiot or a moron, just teach me. I want to understand why...

President Obama reads my blog....

SO, I blew a gasket on this tax cut issue. Seems the president read my blog and put out this statement while still in Seoul..... :-)

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- President Barack Obama declared Friday that his "number one priority" is preserving tax cuts for the middle class, and sharply denied that comments by his senior adviser David Axelrod suggest that his administration is about to cave in to Republicans who also want to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
"That is the wrong interpretation because I haven't had a conversation with Democratic and Republican leaders," Obama said of a Huffington Post article suggesting that in advance of negotiations with lawmakers next week, the White House has calculated that giving in on tax cuts for the rich is the only way to get the middle class cuts extended too.
"Here's the right interpretation -- I want to make sure that taxes don't go up for middle class families starting on January 1st," Obama said at a news conference at the conclusion of the G-20 Summit here. "That is my number one priority for those families and for our economy. I also believe that it would be fiscally irresponsible for us to permanently extend the high income tax cuts. I think that would be a mistake, particularly when we've got our Republican friends saying that their number 1 priority is making sure that we are dealing with our debt and our deficit."
Obama would not tip his hand on the discussions coming when Congress returns to work for a lame-duck session next week.

 I'm not apologizing just yet, I'll wait til President Obama gets home and has his meeting with the Democrats and the Republicans on these tax cuts.  I'm having a trust issue and still fear a caving is about to happen. What really upsets me more than the whole idea the Democrats will cave and extend the tax cuts for the rich, is the hypocrisy from the GOP and their hysteria about the national debt. How they can demand the tax cuts be permanent for wealthy Americans who don't need them, and then ask for cuts in middleclass programs because we can't afford all this spending, is unbelievable! It makes me crazy!

Something is terribly wrong in Washington!

In a move away from President Obama’s deadline of July 2011 for the start of an American drawdown from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all cited 2014 this week as the key date for handing over the defense of Afghanistan to the Afghans themselves. Implicit in their message, delivered at a security and diplomatic conference in Australia, was that the United States would be fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan for at least four more years.

I'm not surprised, are you??

By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 11/11/10 8:09 AM EST Updated: 11/11/10 9:28 AM EST

The White House signaled Wednesday that President Barack Obama is ready to cut a deal on the Bush-era tax cuts – accepting a temporary extension of the cuts for the wealthiest Americans to win renewal of tax breaks for middle-class taxpayers.
Such a deal would run counter to one of Obama’s longest-standing and most often-repeated promises from the 2008 campaign – that he would end the tax cuts for wealthier individuals.

The Obama administration must want to know how that will sit with its liberal base -- that could explain why David Axelrod's interview is on the front page of the Huffington Post this morning and not, say, the Washington Post.
You could look at a compromise from President Obama as pragmatic negotiating -- give a little now in order to get a lot of what you want later. Seen in its very best light, the proposal from Democratic Senators Kent Conrad and Evan Bayh can look like that; we'll give you the tax cuts now and you let us overhaul the entire tax code later.
You could also see the compromise as pure caving -- whatever happened to the idea of calling the GOP's bluff, of giving them a whiteboard and a marker and asking them to start finding the $700 billion they'll need to cover the tax cuts for America's wealthiest citizens?

President Barack Obama will agree to Republican demands that Bush-era tax policies benefiting high- income Americans be extended, his top adviser said in an interview with the Huffington Post.
David Axelrod, the adviser, said that will be the only way to ensure lower tax rates for middle-income Americans also are continued. Unless Congress acts, the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 expire on Dec. 31.

BULLSHIT!!

I don't know about you President Obama supporters, BUT for me, right now, I feel like vomiting. How much more do we need to cave to?? How much more disappointment can we handle as Obama supporters? The Dems and the president ARE CAVING! They claim they have to because they don't have the votes, I find that disgusting. Are they wording it right? Are they telling Americans the republicans WON'T agree to extending the tax cuts to the middleclass UNLESS the dems cave to their fuckin demands to extend the cuts to the wealthiest Americans? If so then WE ARE NOT ON BOARD!! I think most of us would even agree to let ALL the cuts expire just so the rich fatcats DON'T get to keep their current tax rate! What happened to the deficit reduction talks?? Those hypocrite thugs don't give a damn about the deficit! All this talk about spending cuts, they ONLY want cuts for entitlements that will affect the middleclass and poor. REPUBLICANS HATE AMERICANS, they hate anyone who lives a life dependent on the government for a less then poverty lifestyle! Let the thugs stand up on the Senate floor and tell us they do not care about cuts for SS and Medicare as long as we can borrow 700 billion for their rich friends.

Cornelius Hurley Boston University law professor :

Obama caving on the high income tax cut issue guarantees that he will attract an intra-party opponent from the progressive wing of the Democratic party. A challenge by a credible candidate, say Howard Dean or Russ Feingold, would ensure his defeat (if nominated) in ’12, see, Kennedy v. Carter in 1980.

I AGREE!!!! I'm really starting to believe Barack Obama wants to be a one term president. How else do you explain such obvious disregard for what the American people are asking of him? Mr. President you ARE NOT LISTENING TO US AT ALL! 


I stole this from fivethirtyeight..

The table below compiles a number of statistics related to prospective G.O.P. candidates in 2012. Moving from left to right, we have their current chance of winning the nomination according to the political futures market Intrade; the candidate’s current “power ranking” according to the National Journal’s Hotline, their average standing in five recent polls of prospective Republican primary voters (I don’t use the recent Zogby Interactive poll — we don’t consider Zogby’s online polls to be scientific), and favorability ratings among Republican adults according to the recent A.P.-G.f.K. survey.


as mad as I get with this president and present Congress, just look at these clowns in the running for 2012. They make Obama look like the best president in our nations history, BAR NONE!!

No explaination needed...

Add caption

This is your GOP, this is their plan for America. Look at it and weep, you can not take back your vote though. Too late now..

Depressed are ya?

How do you like your parties plans teabaggers? How do you like the fact these GOPers want to blow a hole in the national debt, ALL because they are in bed with the rich.....Oh yea, sure we all would love to be rich, we don't fault the rich for being rich. But give this country and her people who kill themselves every day just to get by......oh never mind, you and your party don't give 2 fucks about the middleclass working men and women.....


UPDATE:

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner on Wednesday signaled he isn't willing to budge in negotiations with Democrats on his stance that Bush-era tax cuts on wealthy Americans must be made permanent, saying they are needed to boost investor confidence and create jobs.
"I think extending all of the current tax rates and making them permanent will reduce the uncertainty in America and would help small businesses," the Ohio Republican and the presumed incoming House speaker told reporters at the Capitol. "You can't invest when you don't know what the rules are, when you don't know what the tax rates are going to be next year.
"And that's why making these [tax cuts] permanent would be the most important thing we could do to help create jobs in the country."

But Mr. Bonehead, President Obama has told you over and over, the tax rates will be the same as they were under Bill Clinton. What is it you don't understand? Please sober up and pay attention.. SHEEEEZ!!!

Let the tax cuts to the rich expire.....Mr. President we are talking, are you listening?

Here we go, are ya ready? Got your BP meds?

President Obama is not ready to cave in to Republican demands that Bush-era tax cuts must be extended to wealthy Americans. He said he is open to discussion BUT NOT COMPROMISE.

 Fifty-three percent of Americans agree with Mr. Obama that the tax cuts for the wealthy should be allowed to expire, while 38 percent do not.

Two of three Democrats think it is a good idea, and most independents (55 percent) agree. Most Republicans (57 percent) think it is a bad idea.  Surprised?


After saying the tax rate for wealthy Americans would return to Clinton-era levels, Obama quipped, "Rich people were doing pretty well back then."  Hell Yea! Where are the GOP disputing that FACT?

WE MUST hold our president to the fire. Let him know in no uncertain terms,  let the Americans who voted for the GOP majority takeover because they wanted change know,  let the teabaggers know, THIS tax cut the GOP is fighting for the country's wealthiest 2% is a STIMULUS, there is no other word to describe BORROWING 700 billion to give rich bastards who do everything in their power NOW to deceive the tax man. This country MUST look out for the middleclass and working poor. Those fuckers who make billions are not worried about permanent tax cuts, if they are honest they will tell you they are fine with paying more taxes . Afterall giving rich people tax cuts DOES NOT stimulate the economy, if it did then why are there NO JOBS with these tax cuts being in place for years now?

 Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, says he'll oppose any compromise that fails to make permanent Bush-era tax cuts for the most wealthy Americans.
Issa, in line to head the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that "tax certainty" is probably more important for investors than for other Americans, to give them incentives to make investments that create jobs.  HA! They've had their incentives for years, where is the hiring? Where is the job growth? The Republicans want to kiss the rich bitches ass so they have their continued support, THAT'S WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO. Republican Whoremongering.
definition whoremongering: a dirty suck-up.... I couldn't print the rest, it was nasty!!


 We had been on a decline for years ,but now we have a president who has put this country on the right track, slowly we are coming back, and letting tax cuts to the rich expire will help us even more, NOT HINDER US! Please let your voices be heard, go to the progressive organizations and tell them to tell President Obama, NO COMPROMISING with the whoremonger GOPers!