CONNECT
Published: Tuesday 21 August 2012
“However, Biden also lives in a city where calling for cuts to Social Security is the way to demonstrate your manhood. The bigger the cuts and the more frequent the calls, the higher your status.”
Courage in Washington Doesn’t Have the Same Meaning
Last week Vice President Joe Biden did a courageous thing, he promised an audience in southern Virginia that there will be no cuts whatsoever to Social Security in a second Obama Administration. He used the strongest possible language, telling customers at a local diner: “I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security. I flat guarantee you.”
That was good to hear from the Vice President. Since the Obama Administration had several times indicated that it would be willing to cut Social Security as part of a “Grand Bargain” on the budget, it was encouraging to hear Mr. Biden make such an unambiguous commitment. While nothing in politics can be taken as 100 percent certain, this is about as good as you get.
On the one hand, Biden’s commitment may not seem very courageous. After all, he is running for office and Social Security is the most popular program on the table. It draws approval ratings close to 80 percent from Republicans, conservatives, and even Tea Party supporters. Backing Social Security in this context might just seem like cheap politics, which it may well be.
However, Biden also lives in a city where calling for cuts to Social Security is the way to demonstrate your manhood. The bigger the cuts and the more frequent the calls, the higher your status. And, there are plenty of rewards for those politicians who go down fighting for Social Security cuts. Just check out the salaries for the lobbying jobs of the Blue Dog Democrats who have left office in recent years.
The Washington Post immediately got on the job of applying the peer group pressure to Mr. Biden, running an editorial denouncing his lack of “courage.” The editorial repeated the usual points – the trust fund will go broke in just 21 years. Of course this means that we would only be able to pay 80 percent of scheduled benefits rather than 100 percent, if Congress did nothing.
And the amount needed to pay full scheduled benefits is considerably less than the annual cost of the war with Iraq. Did we need more than two decades to figure out where the money is going to come from to pay for that war? To put it another way, if the shortfall was made up entirely through higher payroll taxes, the increase would be a bit more than 5 percent of projected wage growth over the next three decades. Are you terrified yet?
Actually the best part of the editorial was when the Post gave its preferred fixes to the projected Social Security shortfall. One of the items it listed was “tweak the inflation calculator,” which it assured us could be done “with no harm to the safety net.”
Hey, who could object to tweaking the inflation calculator if that would save Social Security? In case you missed it, “tweaking the inflation calculator” means reducing the annual cost-of-living adjustment by 0.3 percent. That might seem small, but it adds up over time. After 10 years retirees will see a 3 percent decline in benefits, after 20 years the reduction is 6 percent, and those who live to collect benefits for 30 years would see roughly a 9 percent drop in benefits. This isn’t doing harm to the safety net?
The amazing part of the story is that the Post did not have the courage to tell readers that it is proposing a cut in benefits. Instead this editorial on courage used a euphemism whose meaning would likely not be apparent to many of its readers.
We could all just laugh at the incompetence and hypocrisy of the Washington Posteditorial board, but this is important. Social Security accounts for more than half of the income for two-thirds of retirees and more than 90 percent of the income for one-third. The average check is just over $1,200 a month, so we are not talking about people living the good life, but for tens of millions of people Social Security is what makes their retirement possible.
It’s also important to remember that retirees and near-retirees are so heavily dependent on Social Security because of the incredible incompetence of the folks running economic policy over the last 15 years. If the highly paid people who design economic policy knew what they were doing, so many seniors wouldn’t have seen savings in the stock market vanish or their home equity disappear. Nor would so many near-retirees have experienced years of unemployment or underemployment.
In this amazing city, the people who want to take a hatchet to the Social Security and Medicare benefits that tens of millions of ordinary workers will need in retirement are considered courageous. The people who want to tax Wall Street speculation, who want to crack down on multi-billion dollar abuses by the pharmaceutical industry, and who want to go after CEOs who rip off their companies for tens of millions of dollars a year – well, they’re just crazy. After all, no one gets paid big bucks for going after people with money.
Get Email Alerts from NationofChange
ABOUT Dean Baker
Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He previously worked as a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor at Bucknell University. He is the author of several books, including Plunder & Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy, The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer and The United States Since 1980. He was the editor of Getting Prices Right: The Debate Over the Consumer Price Index, which was a winner of a Choice Book Award as one of the outstanding academic books of the year. He appears frequently on TV and radio programs, including CNN, CBS News, PBS NewsHour, and National Public Radio. His blog, Beat the Press, features commentary on economic reporting. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.
Top Stories
By Tara Culp- Ressler
13 comments on "Courage in Washington Doesn’t Have the Same Meaning"
August 21, 2012 8:00pm
My synical side tells me that Biden's "no change" may correspond to "change you can believe in," or a campaign promise. Once elected all bets are off on what the politicians will do as "new circumstance" are trotted out to explain the change from electioneering rehtoric. The actuallity of federal politics is that the government is responding to agenda other than to the majority of American's priorities. Both main federal political parties are just about bankrupt as far as morallity and having any trust. Ask yourself this question, if there was a viable third party not in the paybook of special interests such as Wall street, which presented a workable program of reforms but at the cost of greatly reducing U.S. military/corporate aggression out in the world (from which only the elites profit but commoners suffer fighting war) would you vote for that party's candidate? This election is a non starter for the average American. A facade. The people are not setting the parameters of disccussion in this election it is plain to see by what the polls say Americans want and what the topics in this election are. Notice we're not even talking about advancing quality of life in the richest country in the world but instead having an election disccussion on perhaps a reduction in quality of life for millions of average people. Things are much worse than they appear....no more comments for me on this masquerade or until the topics change to something truly meaningfull.
August 21, 2012 3:12pm
I want to hear the president say the very same thing. You'll will remember he is the very person to put it on the negotiation table in the first place when the democrats and republicans were arguing about the debt ceiling debate. Social Security is NOT even in the budget yet he put it on the table to chop up. I want to hear the very same words come out of his mouth.
August 21, 2012 8:09pm
Butch, ask yourself, and what if Obama did say "no changes to social security" would you believe he would stand by it absolutely when re elected?
The American people are on their own now...
August 21, 2012 2:13pm
Of course the Repub rightwing attack on SS is evil in my book, but I expect that from rightwing Repubs. What I want to know is why Obama put cuts to SS on the table!
The fix for a distant prospective shortfall is to raise the income ceiling after which no SS tax is witheld, as has been done in the past. It is currently $106,800. A person earning one million pays no SS tax whatsoever on $893,200 of his or her income. Whose side is Obama on?
August 21, 2012 1:43pm
The writer called Social Security recipients "retirees" and I guess in the strictest sense of the word this is true but I always thought of retiring as not needing to work any longer. Most of the people I know who are collecting Social Security would continue to work but are no longer able to work and only barely subsist on that income. I know that there are those out there who do not need their Social Security income and perhaps they are the majority but the people I know are are not looking forward to having to live off such a small amount. they thought that their homes, which they paid off, would be worth more than they are but at least they don't have an underwater mortgage. It is a shame that this country has lost it's sense of community and wanting to take care of the less fortunate among us. So many of us believe that people who need assistance are just freeloaders, perhaps what they see in the freeloader is what they fear about themselves!
August 21, 2012 2:26pm
TRUBLU, Here's a Social Security shocker many are oblivious to:
Self-employed people -- including the millions who perform service jobs at for the equivalent of minimum wage without benefits -- cannot collect ANY of their meager Social Security retirement earnings if they continue to work just 15 hrs or more per MONTH. Because they could not get by on SS without continuing to work that many hours per WEEK, many have no choice but to keep working fulltime into their late sixties or seventies.
August 21, 2012 1:34pm
ALL AMERICAN PARTY
Can anyone name ten for Republican Country Club Party
Credit for this “most” of this information goes to my friend, a great mind, and his terrific site
(Rev.Ray Dubuque—www. Liberals like Christ.org)
Republicans fought most of these plus WWII Draft
A good Fun Test-List ones Country Club Party fought tooth and nail
And wanted to drown in a bathtub
If it was good for Middle Class and Poor Conservatives fought most of them
Thanks to: Since 1980-- 20 years of three Conservative presidents—18 years of Conservative Senate-12 years of Conservative House-6 years of Total Conservative Control= 2 unneeded wars—destruction of Wall Street-- Housing Industry--and collapse of Economy to deep recession
Country Club Party got what they wanted—
Redistribution of Income-Wealth
1% own 21% of national wealth—10% own 71%
Viva Third World Nation
2009 Health Care Reform—70% want it per polls—Kill it say GOP
1. social security act
2. medicare
3. gi bill of rights
4.national industrial recovery act
5.national housing act
6.federal communications act
7.national labor relations act-wagner act of 1935
8.fair labor standards act (min wage & max hours laws)
9.public works adm-works progress adm
10.civilian conservation act
11.Tennessee Valley (power) Authority (TVA)
12.rural electrification act (REA)
13.full employment act
14.permanent school lunch program
15. Truman ended segregation in armed forces
16.veterans emergency housing act
17.public health service act
18.marshall plan
19.peace corps
20.aid to dependent children program (schip)
21.small business investment act
22.establishment of arms control and disarmament agency
23.consumer drug protection laws
24.equal pay act
25.manpower development and retraining act
August 21, 2012 1:18pm
Now Mr. Biden, add 6 more tax brackets to the existing 6 we already have. Tax incomes of $1Million, $2Million, $3Million, $4Million, $5Million, and $6Million, and you can get this Recession over in months. You'll be able to pay down the debt, and get unemployment way down by building on the infrastructure that deffinitely needs it. Get this country back in black, Mr. Vice President. You can do it.
August 21, 2012 1:17pm
Ron, it was no accident!
Republicans in the past gave voice to just such a strategy. They called it "starve the beast".
What they did during the Bush Administration was nothing more than a direct attack on seniors and as such, an act of treason. But because our media has such a tight control on messaging you will never hear the truth of this.
The truth of it is, the right wing Republicans and their blue dog Democrat allies have been a far greater threat to the security of the United States, the true security, than any fanciful terrorist in some far off cave some where.
August 21, 2012 12:50pm
The author ignores what Biden says and instead rephrases to something different, of which he can then legitimately approve. This is not responsible journalism. Biden didn't say there would be no cuts. He said there would be no changes. This is a very significant difference.
While the Post's suggested steps may be inadvisable, the Post is correct in stating that no changes is just not an option. Something has to be done in order to continue to pay benefits without cuts in the long range. So Biden's statement was ignorant or pandering, or both. My suggestion would be that the dollar limit on how much salary is taxed be increased. That would allow Social Security benefits to continue without cuts while maintaining the longterm viability of the trust fund.
August 21, 2012 2:46pm
BILL::
None of us can read Biden's mind, or know why he said what he did, but your argument seems to be a question of semantics. I, for one, cannot ever see a cut in Social Security benefits as "no change," and I'm a fairly language-conscious person. So I really don't see any "significant difference," as you suggest. True, he could have been more specific, but again, I have to say that I don't think there's a retiree in America who would consider a cut as "no change." To us, that would mean it would stay as it is presently structured.
Maybe someday you may be proven right about this, so I freely admit I might be wrong. With politicians today, you often have to be wary of the language they choose. I remember W's argument that we had to go to war with Iraq to ensure the "peace, " when they posed absolutely no threat to us.
Anyway, until future evidence suggests otherwise, I'll take Joe at his word and believe that "no change" also means no cuts. (If an employer told you there would be "no change" in your compensation when he transferred you to another unit, you would expect no cuts in your salary.)
August 21, 2012 12:18pm
The courage to lead starts with defeating Citizens United. Right now everything is at stake unless we stop corruption in Washington. We must have tax reform, campaign reform, regulation of Wall Street, the banking industry, and international trade agreements that protect our markets.
Military spending has to be curtailed also if we are to survive the present crisis.
August 21, 2012 9:57am
Maybe it would have been more "courageous," in Washington terms, to speak of tinkering with Social Security, but it would have seemed a betrayal of a long tradition, and incredibly stupid, since it would virtually hand the election to their rivals, who might do a lot more than "tinker."
There are many ways Social Security could be strengthened, and they wouldn't involve cutting benefits or raising the retirement age so drastically that few would live long enough to collect it (especially if they had to work at minimum wage manual jobs just to stay afloat).
I think George W. Bush, and his cohorts, hoped to launch their two expensive wars without paying for them, just so the deficits would balloon and give the Republicans a chance, under the unfortunate heir of the Bush tax disasters, to cry for a "smaller government" and bemoan our "entitlement society." Yep, the environment's ripe for the party with no heart to take control of the whole government and give themselves further benefits and privileges.
And that Bush Medicare drug program has severely crippled the future of Medicare, and most seniors hate it. Was this just by accident? Or just another step on the path to letting the plebes do without?
Does make you wonder, doesn't it? All those Republicans, for 8 years, spending taxpayer dollars "like drunken sailors," in McCain's words, and now those same ideologues are screaming, "the deficit, the deficit!" and blaming it all on Obama.
And then Bush appointing conservative judges for the Supreme Court, who now gave us the Citizens United decision that puts our government up for sale to the highest bidders, and the meanest smearers, who sit in the shadows and laugh at the people who believe the lies they dish out.
Was it all by accident?