Wanted: A Political Intervention for Alan Simpson
By NCPSSM | May 24, 2012
We wrote yesterday about Fiscal Commission Co-Chairman and former Senator Alan Simpson’s latest diatribe against seniors – this time launched at the Alliance for Retired Americans in California.
For anyone who’s been in Washington for awhile, these rants are really just déjà vu all over again. But even as a “charter member of the Simpson tongue-lashing club” our President/CEO, Max Richtman, found this latest attack simply too much. So he wrote Senator Simpson a letter asking him to cease and desist his hate-filled attacks on seniors:
May 24, 2012
Senator Alan Simpson
1201 Sunshine Avenue
Cody, Wyoming 82414
Dear Senator Simpson,
We’ve both been in this business for a long time and we’ve certainly had our share of fundamental disagreements about America’s priorities and how to protect them. As you well know, I’m a charter member of the Simpson tongue-lashing club going back to my time as Staff Director at the Senate Aging Committee and since. However, after reading your letter to seniors in California, who simply dared to oppose your reforms for Social Security and Medicare, I feel compelled to ask you to refocus this debate where it belongs. Call this a political intervention, if you will.
The American people deserve and expect a true dialogue in which retirees are more than “greedy geezers” and those with opposing world views aren’t treated with the total disrespect you hand out so freely. After thirty years, isn’t it long past time to elevate the conversation beyond personal and profane attacks on those you simply disagree with?
I know this letter is likely an exercise in futility. However, I’m writing to you today with one simple request – please cease and desist with the mean-spirited, denigrating, and hate-filled personal attacks on America’s seniors. Sure, some in the press still love the profanity laden poison-pen letters and insulting sound-bites, but it only denigrates the serious policy work many honest and caring people on both sides of the debate perform each and every day, not to mention the American people who will ultimately be impacted by the reforms being debated.
No doubt you consider all of this “blather and drivel” or even your favorites “horse or bulls**t”. However, that fact has absolutely nothing to do with the serious business at hand. Please refocus your attention to what really matters – your proposed reforms and the American people who will be affected by them.
Sincerely,
Max Richtman
President/CEO
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security
& Medicare
Topics: Max Richtman, Medicare, Social Security, fiscal commission | Comments »
When Name-Calling and Profanity Replace the Truth about Social Security – Alan Simpson’s At it Again
By NCPSSM | May 23, 2012
Politico details yet another nasty tirade launched by Fiscal Commission co-chairman and former Senator Alan Simpson against America’s seniors – who he once again describes as “greedy geezers”. This isn’t the first time he’s written nasty screeds to seniors’ advocates he doesn’t agree with. His latest poison pen letter went to the California Alliance for Retired Americans, who had the audacity to protest the Bowles-Simpson plan, which targets millions of seniors and their families with benefit cuts to balance the budget. The National Committee also opposes Bowles-Simpson – maybe our hate letter is in the mail next!
Clearly former Senator Simpson doesn’t believe that old adage that you can disagree without being disagreeable. Here’s the Politico article and his letter to CARA:
To Whom It May Concern:
Erskine Bowles and I thoroughly enjoyed our time on the West Coast and received an excellent reception from folks — at least those who are using their heads and have given up using emotion, fear, guilt or racism to juice up their troops. Your little flyer entitled “Bowles! Simpson! Stop using the deficit as a phony excuse to gut our Social Security!” is one of the phoniest excuses for a “flyer” I have ever seen. You use the faces of young people, who are the ones who are going to get gutted while you continue to push out your blather and drivel. My suggestion to you — an honest one — read the damn report. The Moment of Truth — 67 pages, and then tell me if we’re not doing the right thing with Social Security. What a wretched group of seniors you must be to use the faces of the very people that we are trying to save, while the “greedy geezers” like you use them as a tool and a front for your nefarious bunch of crap. You must feel some sense of shame for shoveling out this bulls**t. Read the latest news from the Social Security Trustees. The Social Security System will not “hit the skids” in 2033 instead of 2036. If you can’t understand all of this you need a pane of glass in your naval so you can see out during the day! Read the report. Get back to me. My address is below.
If you don’t read the report, — as Ebenezer Scrooge said in the Christmas Carol, “Haunt me no longer!”
Best regards,
Alan Simpson
Topics: Social Security, entitlement reform, fiscal commission | 5 Comments »
Social Security Supports Your Local Economy
By NCPSSM | May 18, 2012
Make no mistake about it; Social Security is vital to our nation’s economic recovery. Not only is it important for seniors, the disabled and children who lose a wage-earning parent, but without it our national economy would suffer in real and tangible ways.
Social Security pumps $725 billion into the national economy each year. That’s a lot of groceries, utilities and other life necessities that keep local businesses and their employees working. Social Security, like unemployment insurance, is typically spent right away because it’s not “extra” for those who receive it. For the average senior, Social Security is essential to their day-to-day survival and it puts real dollars to work in our local and state economies.
Visit our 2012 Campaign Watch page to see how many Social Security dollars are spent in your state.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Billionaires Against Social Security Unite
By NCPSSM | May 15, 2012
It’s that time of year again when all of America’s well-funded fiscal hawks, their lobbyists and political supporters spend the day rubbing elbows in an all-day anti-Social Security and Medicare love fest.
The Pete Peterson Fiscal Summit is one of the multi-billionaire Wall Street financier’s most visible legacies from his commitment to spend $1billion dollars in a campaign to convince America we can’t afford middle-class programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Claiming these programs have led to “generational theft” and “fiscal child abuse”, Peterson kicked off the event with the standard boiler plate calls to cut Social Security and Medicare under the guise of deficit reduction, just as the plan created by Fiscal commission co-chairs Bowles/Simpson proposed. Economist Dean Baker describes it this way:
“This plan includes a wide range of budget cuts, including cuts to Social Security and Medicare. It would reduce the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment by 0.3 percent, which would lower lifetime benefits by an average of more than 3 percent. It would also raise the retirement age for Social Security. To balance these cuts to programs that benefit tens of millions of ordinary workers, Bowles and Simpson would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 28 percent and would lower the tax rate paid by the very wealthy from 40 percent to 28 percent. While these reductions in tax rates are supposed to be offset by the elimination of loopholes that benefit the wealthy, people have good cause for skepticism.”
 Our President/CEO, Max Richtman, expressed his skepticism at a rally of Social Security & Medicare advocates outside the so-called Fiscal summit today. Here are his remarks (which you can be sure won’t be provided in any main stream media coverage of today’s event): |
Statement: Max Richtman, President/CEO
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit Rally
May 15, 1012
“I am so proud to be here today with Senator Bernie Sanders — NOW President Terry O’Neill — Global Policy Solutions CEO and National Committee Incoming Board of Directors Chair — Maya Rockeymoore — and Campaign for America’s Future’s Roger Hickey — to expose the myths and misinformation that are being sold to the American public, right now, inside the Fiscal Summit.
Pete Peterson, the sponsor of this summit, is spending one billion dollars to promote the false and dangerous choice that to save Social Security and Medicare we have to destroy these vital systems through privatization and huge benefit cuts.
Unfortunately, all too many members of Congress believe in the false choice of trading tax increases for cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits.
What is happening behind us today is a cynical attempt at manipulating the American public into believing that the only choices to fix Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are to:
1) Cut benefits, and
2) Repeat choice #1
Middle-class Americans — who have paid all of their working lives for these programs — are struggling with skyrocketing health care costs, diminished home values, unemployment and decimated savings. It is no wonder they feel abandoned when politicians try to undermine two of the remaining systems they can count on — Social Security and Medicare.
In poll after poll, it is clear voters of all ages and political persuasions do not support cutting benefits for middle-class Americans who depend on Social Security and Medicare. There is no other issue that draws this level of nonpartisan support.
In fact, 94 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of independents and 64 percent of Republicans prefer raising taxes on the richest 2 percent of income earners rather than cutting benefits.
So if most Americans oppose cuts to our social insurance safety net, who supports the bill of goods being sold at Pete Peterson’s Fiscal Summit?
Millionaires whose tax loopholes would be paid for by cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
Wall Street bankers who would reap a windfall of commissions and fees if Social Security was replaced by risky private accounts, and
Insurance companies who would make billions more if Medicare was privatized.
The evidence is clear. From what we have learned through polling, town hall meetings and focus groups held across the country, the American people stand with us and not with Pete Peterson, millionaires, Wall Street bankers and insurance companies.
To the elected officials and opinion leaders attending this Summit —- for the sake of the American people —
Distance yourselves from the propaganda being spread;
Stand up for the millions of middle-class Americans;
Fighting for them; and
Protect the Social Security and Medicare benefits they have earned.”
Topics: Budget, Max Richtman, Medicare, Social Security, entitlement reform, fiscal commission | 5 Comments »
It’s Time to Change the Social Security Conversation
By NCPSSM | May 11, 2012
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare Foundation, the National Organization for Women Foundation and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research briefed Congressional staff today on their research examining the challenges facing America’s elderly women and their families. Our report, Breaking the Social Security Glass Ceiling also proposes initiatives to ensure Social Security benefits are adequate for all Americans, particularly for women and women of color.
“The truth is — as our nation ages and retirement income continues to decline for millions of Americans – Congress should be talking about the adequacy of Social Security’s benefits not cutting them. Congress should examine the inequities that have created a poverty rate for senior women and widows that is 50% higher than other retirees 65 and older. We can break this Social Security glass ceiling…in fact, we must do so to preserve the economic security of generations of American women and their families.” Max Richtman, NCPSSM President/CEO
“Our proposals are designed to modernize the Social Security system and recognize particularly the changes that have occurred in women’s lives and in family life, so that women will be rewarded more fairly for the full value of the work they do, both in the labor market and in raising the next generation. We can strengthen the Social Security system to address the gender gap in retirement that reveals many more older women in poverty than older men, while still addressing the financial needs of the program.” Dr. Heidi Hartmann, Institute for Women’s Policy Research President
“If implemented, the recommendations we make in ‘Breaking the Social Security Glass Ceiling’ will go a long way toward creating a retirement and disability insurance program that recognizes the new reality of working women and men and values women’s role in society as both breadwinners and primary caregivers. Crediting women’s years out of the paid labor force is a long overdue feature that NOW strongly supports and urges lawmakers to support as well.” Terry O’Neill, NOW Foundation President
Here are just some of the recommendations in this groundbreaking report:
- Improving Survivor Benefits. Women living alone often are forced into poverty because of benefit reductions stemming from the death of a spouse. Providing a widow or widower with 75 percent of the couple’s combined benefit treats one-earner and two-earner couples more fairly and reduces the likelihood of leaving the survivor in poverty.
- Providing Social Security Credits for Caregivers. We recommend imputed earnings for up to five family service years be granted to a worker who leaves or reduces his/her participation in the work force to provide care to children under the age of six or to elderly family members.
- Equal Benefits for Same-Sex Married Couples and Partners. Gay and lesbian same-sex couples, whether married or not, are denied a host of benefits under state and federal law that are routinely provided to heterosexual married couples. Social Security benefits should not be denied to qualified retirees because of their sexual orientation.
- Restoring Student Benefits. Social Security pays benefits to children until age 18, or 19 if they are still attending high school, if a working parent has died, become disabled or retired. In the past, those benefits continued until age 22 if the child was a full-time student in college or a vocational school. Congress ended post-secondary students’ benefits in 1981 which has disproportionately hurt children of parents in blue-collar jobs, African Americans, and lower income students.
“Social Security is a vital lifeline for all Americans, especially women and people of color. When you consider that Social Security provides 90% of seniors’ income for 58% of unmarried women of color, 53% of Hispanics and 47% of African Americans it’s hard to understand why benefit cuts are always the first answer for fiscal hawks hoping to use Social Security for deficit reduction. Building on what works, ‘Breaking the Social Security Glass Ceiling’ offers a modernization plan for Social Security that would strengthen benefits for women and their families while improving the equity and adequacy for generations of Americans.” Dr. Carroll Estes, NPCSSM Foundation Board Chair
While some suggest we can’t afford to provide even current level benefits to America’s retirees, disabled and their families, we disagree. In fact, we believe our nation can’t afford not to provide fair and adequate benefits for future generations of working Americans. A number of funding options are included in this research, including:
- Eliminate the Cap on Social Security Payroll Contributions.
- Slowly Increase the Contribution Rate by 1/40th of One Percent over 20 years.
- Treat all Salary Reduction Plans like 401K’s.
Together, these proposals provide revenue increases equal to 3.99% of taxable payroll. They would close the actuarial deficit (2.67% of payroll) while also funding the modest program improvements recommended.
Here’s the link to the full report, “Breaking the Social Security Glass Ceiling”.
You can watch the entire briefing here on CSPAN.
Topics: Aging Issues, Disability, Max Richtman, Retirement, Social Security, pensions | 1 Comment »
How to Make Older Americans Month Really Mean Something
By NCPSSM | May 8, 2012
Chances are you may not even realize May is Older Americans Month. Those of us who work in the aging policy community certainly do but we have often wondered if these commemorative months really have any meaning to the communities they’re designed to honor?
One of our favorite bloggers, has an interesting take on the whole issue and we suggest you read her entire post. We couldn’t agree more with “Crabby Old Lady’s” key takeaway point –
Crabby wants inclusion for elders in daily life every day of the year.
There is so much that needs doing for elders that would help them take part in the life of their communities – that would help everyone else too. Such as:
• Improve public transportation
• Enforce age discrimination in the workplace laws
• Encourage better geriatric education for physicians
• Invite elders onto the citizen advisory boards of cities and towns
• Create opportunities to serve that make use of elders’ decades of experience and knowledge
• Teach elders how to effectively lobby government officialsMost of all, stop Congress from scaring the crap out of elders with constant threats to cut or kill Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Working on these issues would be real honoring of elders.
One more recommendation that fits well under our Older Americans month theme…please take a moment to read this terrific post on Huffington which provides a concise and easy to read listing of resources available to America’s seniors.
Topics: Aging Issues, Budget, Medicare, Retirement, Social Security, entitlement reform | Comments »
The Hunger Shame: Seniors are More Food Insecure than Ever
By NCPSSM | May 4, 2012
A recent report from Meals on Wheels shows a 78% spike in seniors at risk for hunger since 2001. Although senior citizens have a vital lifeline in Social Security and Medicare benefits, rising food prices and health care costs continue to eat away at their fixed incomes.
According to a Huffington Post piece, one in seven seniors in America, some 8.3 million people, are having difficulty affording sufficient food. Certain groups are at a higher risk than others. Seniors age 60-69, minorities and women are more likely to face hunger than the general population. Women make up 60 percent of the population facing a hunger risk and African-Americans and Hispanics are nearly twice as likely to face food insecurity.
Senior citizens on Social Security and Medicare aren’t living “high on the hog,” as some in Washington like to claim when supporting benefit cuts. We should remind Alan Simpson, who once complained seniors were well off driving their Lexus to the Perkins restaurants for AARP discounts, his view of the world doesn’t match up with the facts. We should be finding ways to strengthen Social Security and Medicare benefits, not cut them for those that can afford it the least.
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Here’s Some Monday Morning Reading with Actual Fact-based Info on Social Security & Retirement
By NCPSSM | April 30, 2012
Here are two really wonderful pieces on Social Security and Retirement we highly recommend you read.
My Faith-Based Retirement by Joe Nocera at the New York Times describes his all-too common personal experience with 401K’s while economist Jared Bernstein provides some desperately needed myth-busting in his Rolling Stone piece, Straight Talk on Social Security. While we don’t agree with his suggestion to move to a chained-CPI, he’s right about the need to push back on all the lies about Social Security’s fiscal health.
Topics: Retirement, Social Security, entitlement reform, pensions | Comments »
Busting Myths about the 2012 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report
By NCPSSM | April 23, 2012
No doubt you’ve already seen the screaming headlines promising the immediate bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare…it’s an annual Washington tradition tied to the release of the Social Security and Medicare Trustees report. Unfortunately, this tradition seldom stems from factual reporting of what’s actually in the trustees report. This year is no exception.
To help you sort fact from fiction about the true health of Social Security and Medicare, here is our President/CEO Max Richtman’s reaction to the Trustees’ projections and some data you likely won’t see reported in this week’s news coverage:
“Projections in the 2012 Trustees Reports come as no surprise to anyone who understands how Social Security and Medicare work. The trust fund solvency date for Social Security has seen fluctuations many times in recent decades, from a depletion date as distant as 2048 in the 1988 report to as soon as 2029 in the 1994 and 1997 reports. This year’s report is well within that range. Contrary to the crisis myths perpetuated by fiscal conservatives and many in the media, the prevailing facts show once again that Social Security remains among the nation’s most successful and stable programs. The Trustees report there is now $2.7 trillion in the Social Security trust fund, which is $69 billion more than last year, and continues to grow. Payroll contributions and interest will fully cover benefits for decades to come.” Max Richtman, NCPSSM President/CEO
In the 2012 Trustees report:
- Trustees project Social Security will be able to pay full benefits until the year 2033. After that, Social Security will have sufficient revenue to pay about 75% of benefits.
- Social Security is still well funded. In 2012, with the economy showing slow signs of recovery, Social Security’s total income still exceeded its expenses by over $57 billion. In fact, the Trustees estimate that total annual income is expected to exceed program obligations until 2020.
- Beneficiaries will likely see a Cost of Living Allowance increase of 1.8% in 2013.
The 2012 Trustees report also shows Medicare’s Trust Fund solvency projection remains unchanged at 2024. This reflects the success that health care reform has had in improving Medicare’s solvency. If long-term solvency for Medicare is truly Congress’ goal, then repealing health care reform is not an option as it would set back that progress immeasurably.
“The challenges facing Medicare are the same that we see in the broader health care system…the high cost of health care in America. Thanks to health care reform, Medicare will save $200 billion by 2016, but even those savings would be lost if opponents have their way and the Affordable Care Act is repealed. We must allow reform to be fully implemented in order to realize the projected savings.” Max Richtman
The National Committee believes that Congress can also improve the long-term outlook for Social Security with modest and manageable changes in revenue without enacting harmful benefit cuts for current or future retirees. Recent polling has shown that a majority of Americans support lifting the payroll tax cap to ensure Americans contribute at all income levels.
Topics: Budget, Max Richtman, Medicare, Social Security | 4 Comments »
We Can’t Afford Medicare and Social Security but we Can Afford Tax Cuts for Millionaires?
By NCPSSM | April 17, 2012
Last night Senate Republicans voted against the so-called “Buffett Rule” killing this latest hope for tax fairness from Washington, once again. Seniors especially need to remember this vote when their elected leaders tell them that America “can’t afford” Social Security and Medicare. During last night’s vote some GOP Senators even suggested the poor and middle-class aren’t suffering enough:
“The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that 51 percent of all households, which includes both filers and nonfilers, had either zero or negative income tax liability in 2009,” Kyl said, suggesting it was the middle class and poor who were not sacrificing. “People who do not share in the sacrifice of paying taxes have little direct incentive to care whether the government is spending and taxing too much. Maybe that’s why the president has no problem with even more Americans getting a free ride.” Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Most Americans understand that not earning enough income to have to pay income tax (even though they’re still paying plenty of other federal, state and local taxes) doesn’t mean working Americans are getting a free ride it just shows how much average Americans are suffering in this economy where unemployment, underemployment, and stagnant wages remain all-too-common. Nearly three-quarters of the American people support common-sense tax reform that returns some basic fairness to a system that has allows too many millionaires to pay a lower tax rate than middle class workers.
However, conservatives in Washington, in vote after vote, have made it clear they will do whatever it takes to protect tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. In fact, they hope to persuade you that turning Medicare into Couponcare and privatizing Social Security is the kind of “shared sacrifice” needed to preserve (and even expand) these tax cuts for the millionaires and corporations.
Here are some graphs from Think Progress that clearly illustrate what’s at stake:
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Topics: Budget, Medicare, Presidential Politics, Social Security, entitlement reform | Comments »
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