Keep Your Filthy Deficit-Cutting Claws Off My Social Security

First, let's say again, because it cannot be said enough: Social Security is not in trouble, and cutting social security does nothing to relieve the deficit.

Kevin Drum on the conventional wisdom that Social Security is broke:

I just don't get it. Why do smart people keep saying stuff like this? Medicare is a problem. But unless you believe that the United States is literally going to collapse in the near future, Social Security isn't. Period.

The weird thing about this is that Social Security isn't even hard to understand. Taxes go in, benefits go out. Unlike healthcare, which involves extremely difficult questions of technological advancement and the specter of rationing, Social Security is just arithmetic.

SNIP

But one way or another, at some level between 75% and 100% of what we've promised, Social Security benefits will always be there.

This is not a Ponzi scheme. It's not unsustainable. The percentage of old people in America isn't projected to grow forever. Lifespans will not increase to infinity.1 Taxes go in, benefits go out. It's simple.

Now, Social Security is not a very generous program, so it's possible that you won't want to retire on its modest benefits. But short of some kind of financial apocalypse — in which case we've got way bigger things to worry about anyway — Social Security benefits will be there for everyone alive today. Why is it that so few people seem to get this?

Perhaps because they don't want to get it. Or rather they don't want anyone else to get it.

Digby says the president's silence on social security does not mean he's protecting it. Repugs are desperate for dems to take the fall for killing social security, and Obama's desperate to look like the great nonpartisan compromiser.

In fact, as I have pointed out before and had Dday reiterates today, the Republicans are very anxious to lay the blame for cutting popular entitlements, particularly those that affect the elderly, at the feet of the Democrats. After all, seniors are their fastest growing demographic at the moment and in the last election they had absolutely no problem demagogueing medicare cuts, despite their own decades-long antipathy toward the program. They don't just desire this --- it's a necessity if they hope to win majorities and the presidency. They aren't going to get there with the young, browner America that's coming up. But their ideology depends upon anti-government sentiment. If they can get the democrats to do their dirty work for them, it will be a huger win that benefits them greatly for the next couple of decades as the most dependable voters in the country -- the elderly -- become hard core Republicans. That's the baby boom, in case you're unclear. And there is no reason in the world why that demographic should go Republican.

This is really happening. And if it works, liberalism may never recover. In fact it will be the final triumph of Reaganism. Progressives should not be complacent about this.

Dday has more on what this means for Social Security.

The president has not sold out Social security in his speeches and his budget. But he hasn't taken it off the table either. The administration is using some very specific language (no "slashing" of benefits) that is wide open to interpretation.

So the lie persists, to the point that the White House is determined to "save" social security by destroying it. Why? Because Obama thinks voters will reward him for it. All evidence to the contrary.

Digby again:

As Ezra writes today, the Grand Bargain is basically about cuts to "entitlements" and "tax reform" both of which are essentially GOP issues, depending on how you define "reform" and I think the GOP probably has the upper hand in that. (The right will never agree to cut defense --- unlike the administration they don't seem to believe that the public is impressed when they give up their principles on the alter of making "tough choices.") Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are probably off the table for the time being after the bruising health care battle. So, Social Security is the best terrain for the Grand Bargain: it's effects won't be felt until the people making the deal are probably long dead (or comfortably ensconced in the taxpayer funded retirement), it will impress the only people who matter --- the confidence fairies and bond vigilantes, and it allows the president to be Very Seriously Presidential in Winning The Future.

The problem is that the Republicans want to lay this off on the president so they can have it both ways by saying he didn't do enough while their shadowy corporate supporters under Citizens United demagogue the cuts to senior citizens, thus insuring they will come out to vote against Obama in huge numbers. The president, on the other hand, needs the GOP to jump off the cliff with him so they can share the blame. What do you suppose the odds of the latter happening are?

Slim and none. This "debate" has nothing to do with "strengthening" Social Security and everything to do with getting President Obama to kill the middle class.