Social Security Roundup for 3/15

I’m writing a series of posts as a blogging fellow for the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of more than 270 national and state organizations.

*Anti-cuts rallies at 75 offices / World / Home – Morning Star: It is good to see people getting angry enough to fight back against right-wing assaults on Social Security.

*Washington Post / Post-election Obama administration winners and losers emerge: This article says that the elderly are winners in the post-November election losses that Democrats suffered. They say that Barack Obama has taken off the table the ideas of raising the retirement age or reducing benefits. I hope they are right in suggesting the strength of that position.

*GOP aide snipes at Dem Social Security letter – On Congress – POLITICO.com: Is it legitimate for Politico to write an entire article about what some unnamed Republican aide says about what actual public servants chosen by the people say? Probably not.

*Social Security Administration Offers Early Retirement to Its Workers – FoxNews.com: A bit ironic that Republican cuts to Social Security’s operating funds are leading to Social Security employees getting better retirement deals that Social Security actually offers its recipients.

*Tax cut has little impact on economy in January – BusinessWeek: So the Social Security tax holiday, that is a bad idea from a funding-the-government and cutting-the-budget-deficit perspective, turns out to also not be helping stimulate the economy. This is what happens when you listen to conservatives for ideas to “fix” the economy.

*Blue Hampshire: Politics ::: Social Security: If You Can’t Kill The Program, Screw The People: Again, the Republican idea is to be in charge of a government program so they can weaken it so it can’t do its job and then complain about how the program isn’t doing its job so they can get rid of it.

*World Net Daily | 58% of Americans want government shut down: 100% of bloggers writing this post think this poll is nonsense. It is not at all far-fetched to think that the right would fake poll results so they can go on television and say “we’re only doing the will of the people.”

*GOP Strategy: Cut Medicaid, Leave Social Security Alone? | Mother Jones: If there ever was a time for the left to capitalize on the overreach of the other side and really do what is possible and legal to dominate the message battle, this is the time. We’re right on the issue and the public agrees with us. If we fight back strongly, we win not only this battle, but a lot more. If we don’t fight back strongly enough, we could lose this battle, too.

*Keep Social Security strong – The Hill’s Congress Blog: A good personal story about why keeping Social Security like it is now is very important.

*Means-Testing And The Retirement Age – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan: Means-testing Social Security, according to Paul Krugman, won’t do much to improve the fiscal outlook of Social Security, but it is a symbolic move in the right direction.

*Boehner Aims to Tame Benefits Programs – WSJ.com: Boehner says that people don’t understand how big the problem is, which is correct, only the problem isn’t Social Security and Medicare, it’s people like Boehner lying to the people.

*Tea Party voters, by almost 2-1, oppose Social Security cuts | Jay Bookman: Seems to contradict the poll cited by World Net Daily above and shows that Tea Partiers aren’t 100% crazy.

*Huffington Post | Moderate Dems Form Group To Cut Spending: Every time I see the term “moderate Democrat,” I see it followed by news about Democrats adopting Republican policies. That’s not moderate.

*Boehner promises Obama GOP cover if he takes first step on entitlement reform – TheHill.com: Perfect reason why Obama should not pursue any of these reforms is that Boehner likes them. And if Obama believes that Boehner wouldn’t like about this, he’s not paying attention.