The Toxic GOP "Tax Reform" Atrocity That May Well Eliminate The Safety Net - HEADS UP!!

"It's hard to imagine  a more venal and hard-hearted device to pay for a tax cut for the wealthy than what the GOP has on offer" - Ron Klain

"This is the most irresponsible tax legislation in the history of the United States...there is absolutely no justification for this legislation." - Economist Bruce Bartlett

It is a curious feature of the human brain that it is easily overwhelmed by a torrent of bad news, or even news of a particular type. Much of this also plays into the current narrative of "information overload", or the fact that too many are confronted by so much new information it's like trying to drink water through a firehose.

Alas, there are times when this tendency to take the eye off the ball is understandable - but not now. Not with this latest iteration of the GOP tax "reform" bill which is as close to a political atrocity as we've seen in recent times. Thus, people need to grasp the warp and woof of this abomination - especially the fact - as economist Bruce Bartlett pointed out last night ('Last Word') that once the tax reform plan itself passes the stage is set for worse. This is because the next step will be reconciliation with the budget that has already passed!

Why is this an atrocity? Because the budget the Republicans passed to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion , in Bartlett's words: "also contains 4 trillion dollars in cuts to Social Security and Medicare".

Thus a BIG part of what's paying for this egregious tax cut are future spending cuts to the most needed safety nets, including Medicaid as well.  Bartlett also sought to alert viewers that once this perfidy passes, the  worst is still to come. In his words:

"The Congressional Budget Office pointed out yesterday that because of existing law called 'pay go' automatic spending cuts will take place the minute this legislation takes effect and $25 billion will be cut out of Medicare in fiscal 2018  and for many years to come - and that's already in law."

We expect these cuts to Medicare will be indirect, in the form of cuts to  physicians' reimbursement by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  This means many Medicare beneficiaries  will no longer be able to get medical access because doctors will no longer accept them. As it is, millions of Medicare recipients have to do arduous searches to find providers because Medicare doesn't reimburse at private insurance rates. It also lays the ground for the implementation of a voucher system.

The scale of the spending cuts cited is mind boggling and it is likely that the first Social Security target - as has often been cited in the WSJ - will be Social Security disability insurance. Since the Great Recession this has increasingly become the final financial backstop for millions of unemployed - many laid off in the wake of the 2007-08 financial meltdown. After that as David Leonhardt has pointed out in the NY Times, the template is set for the CPI (Consumer Price Index) to be shifted to a less inflationary measure so that the Social Security COLA can be reduced. This will effectively be a higher tax on seniors as well as an increase in Medicare premiums.

All of this adds to an economic atrocity.

The GOP tax reform is even more hard- hearted and dastardly  as we've recently  learned that 46 percent of the world's wealth is controlled by 0.07 percent of its population.  Added to the sheer economic savagery are two poison pill insults  embedded into this misbegotten,  legislative  farrago masquerading as help to the middle class.

1. It includes a provision for drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Yep, you read that correctly - and these miscreants are hoping you aren't conscious of it.

2. It includes yet another effort to validate "personhood".  (Since so many state referenda efforts have failed like here in Colorado).

As Slate author Christina Cauterucci points out:

"In a provision about tax benefits for college savings accounts, a section wholly unrelated to health or pregnancy, the bill’s authors proposed a new definition of life itself:

'Nothing shall prevent an unborn child from being treated as a designated beneficiary or an individual under this section,' the legislation reads. 'For purposes of this paragraph…the term ‘unborn child’ means a child in utero. … The term ‘child in utero’ means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”

Adding:

It takes some audacity to slide ostensibly “pro-life” language into a bill whose egregious tax cuts for the wealthy would be funded by life-threatening cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.

Consider this anomaly on its own merits: these GOOPr dweezils are inserting this "pro life"  bafflegab even as they seek to terminate any life potential for the elder citizen - given his Medicare and Medicaid (for those in nursing homes) will now be on the chopping block. How perfidious does it get? Well, much more!  Rationale? As Cauterucci observes:

"Giving fetuses access to tax benefits could trigger an If You Give a Mouse a Cookie situation that ends with microscopic clumps of human cells getting birth certificates, marriage licenses, and political appointments.."

Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that no sane person   in his or her right mind (pro-life GOOPs excepted)  can possibly regard a "zygote" as a person, or a fetus as an "unborn child". There is simply no standard by which that passes even elemental laws or tests of logic, or science.  A child cannot be "unborn" because by definition it is already born!  Thus, we send the 'child' to school, to take his medicine and so on. If unborn, it's a fetus, not a "child". Don't these ignorant Reeptard tax reform twits know any better?

Meanwhile, a person, a human person, must have at least minimal capacity for basic cognition and rudimentary choice. It must possess a brain, at the very least, which evinces definite brain waves. Anything that doesn't is a proto-human entity, but clearly not a person. The logical error made is called the "genetic fallacy". That is, arguing that because a thing is going to become something, it IS something. It would be like me picking up an acorn and claiming it's an oak tree. Nope. No way.

Apart from this refuse, on which basis this slop that passes for a bill ought to be DOA anyway, there is this overarching axiom: This tax bill is solely designed to rob most of America of its social safety nets in order to deliver an average tax cut of $58,000 to each millionaire  What might these entitled ones do with their extra loot - compliments of raiding the health plans of the rest of us (the CBO forecasts 13.8 m will lose their health care in the first year after this piece of shit passes - if it does)?  

Well, let's see now, the 1 percenter wives might jet off to special villas in the Caribbean (e.g. St. Lucia) where they can partake of "chocolate scrubs" and "rose wine wraps".

Pretty good, eh? While some poor elder schmuck is dying of caner -  because it's regarded now as a "pre-existing condition" - which will no longer be covered.  But hey,  the extra $$$ will allow a fatcat and his pal to jet off to the same destination for 18 holes of golf in idyllic surroundings

- Say while a kid perishes from a peanut allergy because his mom could no longer afford epi-pens and their ACA benefits were nixed because of terminating the Obamacare mandate.

On getting home, these wealthy scions and recipients of GOP tax fortunes  can check their portfolios again, and ensure their hedge funds are still making money while all the little guys are losing with their pathetic and pedestrian mutual funds.

Ah yes, the life of the typical one percenter. How sweet it is under the Trump-  GOP Reich!

But we haven't even gotten started yet - at least I haven't. Let me reference that while many of the Dems are scratching their heads about how pulling the ACA mandate got into a tax plan, a WSJ editorial two weeks ago ('Tax Reform and Obamacare') first dropped the sordid seed, declaring:

"Republicans are looking under every seat cushion to finance tax cuts....One surprising potential 'pay for' - believe it or not - would be repealing Obamacare's individual mandate."   

Adding:

"Killing the mandate now would also make it easier to revisit health reform next year."

Asserting then that "with the mandate already gone, the CBO would most certainly find there would be fewer uninsured under any new reform the GOP would propose."

Well, of course! And the CBO on weighing this new iteration has found that 13.8 million will lose coverage - hence be "uninsured". But that is most certainly not a good thing as the Journal tries to portray it, other than being more expeditious for the GOP in their next health care try. It means those 13. 8 million people will be without a health safety net and will risk losing everything should a bread winner be in a car crash or even come down with this serious H3N2 flu due to flare up soon.  In terms of the sheer tax benefit, i.e. finding the cash to cover what is given to the rich so they can enjoy their chocolate scrubs and golf  - the CBO estimates a $330b "savings". Transl. $330 b less to spend on citizen health so it can be transferred to the rich who can now enjoy more private Caribbean villa getaways.  (And we aren't even reckoning in the $4 trillion future cuts to Medicare, S.S. to further fund the lifestyles of the Trumpian rich.)

The next piece of germinating codswallop that surfaced around the same time, also appeared in the WSJ ('Corporate Tax Reform Is The Key To Growth') in an op-ed by Martin Feldstein (Nov. 6, p. A17).  In it we read:

"The most important reform is to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent - the highest among major industrial nations - to 20 percent. This will increase corporate capital directly by reducing the tax burden. Cutting the corporate  tax rate to 20 % would raise retained earnings by $2 trillion over ten years"

Adding:

"Capital in the U.S. will move from low productivity uses in agriculture and housing to corporate investments that can create good jobs and raise real wages."

I don't know what planet Marty is living on, but the one I inhabit badly needs affordable housing - also enough food to eat! If he regards agriculture and housing as "low productivity" it must mean he wishes to shift capital away from those economic activities. But in the real world that means lower supply of food and housing, hence higher prices for each because the demands of a larger population will drive it. (The rents in Denver are already at a whopping high of $1,800 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment).

So he is asking us to believe that these fantasy potential "higher wages" will cover the costs of ever scarcer housing units, and less food. Is he nuts, or merely gobbling too much MJ candy?

Now, let's cut the crap and interject some reality, in the form of actual fact pertaining to the corporations.  As I've posted on before, the corporate profits are at near record levels but they are not being used to invest in labor capital or even infrastructure. Companies are in fact spending most of their loot on stock buybacks or issuing dividends rather than creating new jobs. So it is the epitome of delusion that with even more profits - compliments of tax cuts - they'd all of s sudden become noble corporate citizens.   No they would not, you can take it to the bank.

More reality:

While it is true the U.S. has the highest statutory tax rate for corporations among developed nations, this is not what they actually pay. Thanks to the thousands of deductions and exemptions in state and federal tax codes many corporations pay zero . That is how desperate many states are to secure jobs (say from Amazon) that they are prepared to give the CEOs whatever they want - even as their states suffer.

Further, as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) the total U.S. tax burden - covering all levels of government - was ranked 28th out of 32 developed nations.  Read that again, as the fourth LOWEST overall tax rate in the freaking world!

Let's drill this down one more time that supply side tax cuts never work. In previous posts I already went over how Gee Dumbya Bush cut taxes deeply and growth effectively collapsed. A Financial Times analysis even confirmed it. The end result is that real GDP rose barely above what it was in the 1990s.

Also the idea that corporate tax rates create jobs is utter nonsense.  Sara Anderson of the Institute of Policy Studies looked at 92 profitable large corporations what already pay at or less than the 20 percent rate the GOP humpers want - thanks to loopholes in the existing code. But know what? these same 92 corps have been laying off - not adding workers over the past three years.

In the end if this abomination of a tax reform plan goes through it means that the tax cuts will be paid for via vicious cuts to government spending that affect many millions of citizens.  These cuts will involves not only ACA access but also Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts as well. People who stand to get maybe $15 in tax cuts, will be dinged in the ER for thousands of bucks in medical fees once they're no longer covered under the ACA - once the individual mandate goes.

But as we know there is always political payback. The results of the state elections last week, especially in VA and NJ, showed people - voters are paying attention and they have not liked what they've seen with GOP efforts at cutting their health care. The GOP thereby paid at the polls with significant Dem wins. They will pay in ever bigger form in next year's mid terms, if this atrocious GOP tax bomb passes. 

After that, I look for the steady decent of the GOP into political oblivion, just like the Whigs. Because it will show once and for all these reprobates can't be trusted with citizen welfare or security. And the ultimate citizen security is having good health  - hence having access to affordable health care.  As Sen. Patti Murray put it:

"The elections last week clearly showed the American people are paying attention and they don't want their health care taken away."

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/chuck-collins/76270/stop-talking-about-winners-and-losers-from-corporate-tax-cuts

Excerpt:

"The driving motivation behind this bill, rhetoric and packaging aside, is to deliver a whopping $1 trillion tax cut for a few hundred badly behaved global corporations — and another half a trillion to expand tax breaks and loopholes for multi-millionaires and billionaires.

All the other features of proposed tax legislation are either bribes (“sweeteners”) to help pass the bill or “pay fors” to offset their cost. The news media has been talking about “winners and losers” like this were some sort of high-minded tax reform process with legitimate trade-offs, as in 1986.
But this isn’t tax reform. This is a money grab by powerful corporate interests."

Ugly Oldster Conversations Overheard Over A BK Breakfast This A.M.

Occasionally I speed walk to the local Burger King, about a half mile or so away, to have a simple economy breakfast: sausage and egg croissanwich, coffee, and small hash browns. I usually eat while poring over the Business & Investing Section of the WSJ to see what topics might make for blog post fare. I was in the midst of a lengthy article on Monsanto's broad spectrum herbicide (dicamba) shriveling 3.6 million acres of crops in Arkansas, e.g.


And a suit filed by over 300 farmers (on account of the herbicide's drift to their crops),  when a quartet of codgers (average age maybe 80) to the side of me erupted in guffaws at a comment one of them made about Chelsea Clinton. Evidently one of the four, in either a Texas or Georgia accent,  insisted she could "chew corn through a picket fence" while another chimed in that "yeah, and her husband hates the United States, you best believe it."

How did he know that? He didn't say, he merely popped it off the top of his gray -haired mop.  So, it didn't take long to process that these four were part of the elderly retired  Reep-conservo enclave that live in the Springs.  (Most of them retired veterans.)

Of course,  we all know our mothers taught us never to eavesdrop on others' conversations. But let's get real: that's pretty damned difficult to avoid when you're seated in smallish booths that are barely feet apart from each other. And especially if one person or group is babbling at the top of their lungs while you are trying to focus on an important article for a future blog post.

Anyway, their next topic was Puerto Ricans who they actually blamed for coming into our beloved county and skewing the vote toward "tax and spend' bond issues.  "Ya know, I heard that hundreds of 'em come in at Fort Carson and other bases, most military families - and that they voted in this past 'lection. I am sure they along with them millunals tossed the vote to higher taxes."

Barely catching their breaths one of them with a raspy voice then belched on about Catholics and swore to the others that "I tell yuh I have seen them things, statues and such, Catholics have in their homes and churches. And most of 'em got little swastikas on 'em!"  Not able to stop himself he then yapped on: "And then these librul troublemakers  wearing ski masks and all black want to say the Alt Right got all kind of Nazis!"

Moments later another of the group (I was seated with my back basically at "8 o'clock"  to them, i.e. they were seated about 4'  behind me and to the left) lambasted the South Koreans for being ingrates. He lashed out at them, blabbing:

"Them South Koreans say they won't buy any weapons or take any nukes 'cause they don't want no war.  Well I say let them North Korean commies blow 'em all to hell then! See who cares!"

Obviously not processing that the South Koreans are geographically directly in harm's way, with over 10,000 pieces of North Korean artillery directed at them - barely 20 miles away- and bearing shells loaded with chemical agents (e.g. Sarin) and bio agents (anthrax, cholera, smallpox etc.)   So these old duffers had no clue what they were talking about.

But the experience was salutary in a way, answering a question wifey and I asked ourselves since Tuesday night's election when we saw more than 60 percent of the over -65 age group went for Ed Gillespie in Virginia.  We questioned why such seniors would cut their own throats voting against their own interests - since for sure Medicare will be on the Right's tax reform chopping block very soon.

Now we know it's all about identity politics. These elderly white guys all identified with Trump and his policies and had prejudiced views against any who were unlike them  - whether brown (or black) people, Catholics or "libruls". This is also likely why Naomi Klein in her recent book, 'NO Is Not Enough - Resisting Trump's Shock Politics'), argued that, pp. 90-91:

"Ir is short-sighted,  not to mention dangerous, for liberals  and progressives to abandon their own focus on identity politics",

because:

"To a terrifying degree, skin color and gender conformity are determining who is physically safe in the hands of the state, who is at risk from vigilante violence, who can express themselves without constant harassment and who can cross a border without terror."

Bottom line? As these codgers proved to me today, so long as the Right embrace identity politics we on the left must do likewise.

Spending Too Much On The Elderly? Absolutely Not!

Affirmation: Medicare and Social Security are the bedrock programs of American liberalism.

Question:

 "Then why do so many liberals consider it taboo to even suggest adjusting these systems to ensure their sustainability for future generations?"

Response: Liberals emphatically do not regard it as "taboo" to "adjust" these systems so long as that does not mean outright cuts - which serve no one's purpose. In addition, adjustments have already been implemented including ACA future budgetary fixes to "means test" more middle class seniors in Medicare as well as moving greater medical burdens to individuals, including: higher medical co-pays, higher premiums, etc.

This response is needed given 'We The People Live'  host Josh Zepps' claim of  "progressive orthodoxy" (e.g. to fix Medicare especially)  in an original Salon.com video filmed at the Democratic National Convention. (You can google Josh Zepps video at DNC to pick it up)

Zepps claims that America’s resource allocation is "in need of a serious reexamination"  This is also a theme that's been recycled in a number of media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and New York Times.  The core argument or thread running through all is: Young workers, families are getting the shaft as more and more resources, funds are funneled to the elderly in social programs.

What is Zepps further justification? He argues:

“Medicare costs more than $500 billion per annum, 30 percent of which is spent on the five percent of beneficiaries who die each year. One third of that is spent on the final month of life. The final month. I mean, you want to talk about priorities, let’s just take that one datum. More than $50 million each year spent on the final month of life.”

Let's examine this at some length. First, Medicare costs are exploding, but a large part of that is due to a program called "Medicare Advantage" (MA) which was created by BushCO and the Republicans with their Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. It basically confected a privatized form of Medicare ("Part C"), with the express purpose of bleeding regular (traditional) Medicare into insolvency by blowing up to $20-25 billion or more a year (based on gamed "risk scores")  and funneling much of it from the older program. Unless this (MA) program is killed (the sooner the better),  no other cuts will matter - because MA will metastasize to the point every $ is swallowed up.. For those who wish to read the details on why MA is hurling Medicare into insolvency check out the content in these links:

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/06/04/14840/why-medicare-advantage-costs-taxpayers-billions-more-it-should

And:  https://www.medicareresources.org/blog/2015/11/04/is-medicare-on-the-brink-of-insolvency/

Zepps is correct about the magnitude of Medicare spending in the final months of life. But I believe that is the fault of the medical establishment and its specialist practitioners. This is based on not leveling with severely infirm elderly people regarding limits of additional treatments and their real costs v. benefits.. Missing in most treatment discussions, for example, is any reference to quality of life . The focus is exclusively on quantity and that also often comes with huge medical costs. Missing "the talk" is it any wonder older patients tend to believe medical treatments can offer curative solutions rather than only palliative ones?

In my own case I already mentioned my prostate cancer which has now recurred. I also discussed some of the many treatment options, e.g .

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/07/no-you-dont-have-to-accept-further.html

and:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/07/why-do-so-many-men-opt-for-castration.html

I have been immersed in research on treatment options and what I have found thus far isn't encouraging, including:

1) Cancer experts themselves can't agree on which primary treatment is best.

2) The same experts (oncologists) can't agree on which ("salvage") treatment for recurrent disease is best, or when to start it.

3) Most agree that if a guy has recurrent disease and a biopsy shows it has spread to the bones ("bone mets"), his days are basically numbered - though certain treatments (e.g. hormone) will allow some limited life extension.

The question then becomes: How much life extension? While I don't want to croak prematurely and deprive my many readers of my blog posts and insights, I also recognize that once I hit a certain phase in possible further treatment (called "castration resistance") it is basically time to pack it in. Game over. Finito. Some will yelp: "You can't give up or quit!" but the flip side of that is Zepps' point that we spend excessively to stay alive in the last months when all the pointers show we ought to be going to hospice care and telling the medical industrial complex 'Enough!'

The problem is that the medical complex doesn't want to quit since they see it as a renunciation of their practice to fight for life all costs.  Hence, they regard the palliative option as failure, even though added treatments may only marginally increase life - but usually at the expense of life quality. (E.g. hormone treatments for advanced prostate cancer can increase life by 1-3 years but usually with side effects including: memory loss, depression, diabetes, cardiovascular problems, enlarged and tender breasts, shrunken testicles, zero libido and hot flashes such as suffered by menopausal females.).

So in this I do side with Zepps. The tricky question for him (and other would be "adjusters")  is: WHO assumes responsibility for telling an older patient his or her days are numbered and they need to just go gently into that good night? Medicare now has a special program where end of life issues are addressed, but as yet too few patients are getting these consultations, often because their nervous PCPs don't refer them.

I encountered this when I told my own PCP back in June - after the latest PSA test came back at 6.0 - that I planned to do nothing more. I wanted no urologist referrals, no more biopsies, no more anything.  Her reaction? She wouldn't hear of it. Short of strapping me down to the exam table and coercing me, she said I HAD to see the urologist and listen to what he said concerning the latest MRI results  So, while my inclination was to halt all further medical involvement, she wasn't going to play along.  In effect, she intended to add more medical intervention and expenses to my Medicare account. .(Mind you, her adamant stance could well be traced to our litigious culture, especially relative to  medical practitioners, whom we often hold to absurd standards of action and  judgment.)

Same thing with an oncology RN at UCSF who phoned me up after the MRI and stated I "sounded too young" not to accept brachytherapy salvage therapy, i.e. instead of possibly dying at 74 or 75.  When I asked about the side effects she kind of dodged the extreme "level III toxic comorbidities" which included loss of bowel and urinary control and extreme pain with every excretion - thanks to the radiation (36 Gy delivered in two fractional treatments a week apart - under general anesthesia)

How does Zepps propose we deal with  such situations? Clearly, his superficial call for simple "adjustments" shows he doesn't want to get "in the weeds".  But at the same time, you can't just uniformly cut $50b from Medicare and tell sick oldsters to "sink or swim".  And as I noted, Medicare already has the end of life palliative care option in the program (as part of the ACA), ostensibly to limit end of life expenses. But how does it get maximized without resorting to draconian cuts? The devil, as always, is in the details.

Zepps adds:

"The left needs to reckon with the uncomfortable truth that what this country is doing is sapping the vitality of the young and pumping it into the elderly,” he says. “It is a gigantic resources Hoover from young professionals into old retirees.”

But as I pointed out the ball is not in the "Left's" court, it is really in the province and court of the medical establishment.  It is also in the court of the craven politicians who are not prepared to tell Medicare Advantage folks that they need to come out of that too expensive program and go into regular Medicare. Their MA is costing taxpayers way too much each year.

First, if Medicare Advantage had been mothballed, as Obama originally vowed to do back in 2011-12,  we would already have seen more than $75 b saved over the past 4 years. Second, if that Part D Medicare drug plan had been altered to allow bargaining for lowest cost prescription meds like the VA, another $200b would have been saved. (Especially in the wake of the news that costs for catastrophic disease drug prescriptions (like for Hepatitis C) have gone up 85% since 2013.

Third, if the medical establishment more faithfully implemented end of life palliative care conversations with patients - via the Medicare program for that purpose - we'd save a lot of that $50b used in the last months of life. But this portends a massive change in perception by that same medical establishment, to wit, maybe they themselves need retraining especially in the nature of palliative care. This latter as opposed to pushing new and expensive treatments that only marginally improve life extension.

How then do we convince patients as well as the medical experts that end of life quality is as important as quantity?

When Zepps can answer these difficult questions, as opposed to merely interjecting "adjustments" (read cuts) for the sake of cuts, we would be more likely to take his arguments seriously.  It is evident to this observer that Zepps, like so many of his younger cohort, is too ready to blame oldsters for what are really faults of the health system we have. That includes the presence of insurance companies with their built in extortion and selective rules As I noted before, the only way out is a single payer system such as my wife and her activist group are fighting for here in Colorado with ColoradoCare and Amendment 69, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/07/janice-gives-robust-defense-of-colorado.html

Sadly, Zepps objects to those who would "change the topic" by pointing to other items in the federal budget that could use cutting. But this is being myopic and foolish. Because unless we closely examine those other items, especially military spending for which the GDP allocation has doubled since 9/11, we will never get anywhere in terms of real world priorities.  See e.g.  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/muricans-need-to-wake-up-about-military.html

Does the U.S. REALLY need 900 foreign military bases worldwide to fund to the tune of over $1 trillion a year? Especially as the Pentagon already "misplaced" $1.2 trillion in budget allocations prior to 9/11, according to former Defense Dept. analyst Chuck Spinney in a 2002 PBS NOW appearance . Does U.S. "defense" spending REALLY need to exceed that of the next 25 nations?  Clearly Zepps needs more education, though one must give him a prop or two for his audacious salon.com video. But to shed needed light (for his benefit) we can thank Nancy J. Altman and Eric Kingson, authors of 'Social Security Works' .

As the authors observe (p. 40):

"It is false that most older Americans are on "easy street". A very small percentage are, many more are poor or near poor, while some maintain a modest, middle class life style, often struggling to make ends meet."

So much for Zepps' indiscriminate claim of a "resource Hoover" hoovering up everything not bolted down for the benefit of fat, complacent seniors.  (Many of whom still have kids living in their homes, basements because they can't get decent jobs).

Last but not least, Zepps doesn't cover Medicare fraud at all, which could easily be neutralized by implementation of a computer system to track care received over time by different providers.  

I have shown in this post (including links) that Zepps' arguments are immature and don't take full account of: a) how seniors have been exploited by the existing system, and b) how younger workers and families are being exploited by a Neoliberal system with misplaced priorities.  One whose design and financial reward basis finds it more profitable for companies to fund massive stock buybacks than create jobs with decent salaries.

But one thing we cannot do is permit superficial memes and facile arguments against senior health and other benefits to be spread, thereby propelling a push for an elderly  "hunger games" . 

Btw, if the Reepos in the Nov. election seize  all branches of the government, Zepps may get his wish of massive cuts, thanks to Paul Ryan's Medicare voucher plan..  That will save hundreds of billions for sure, but leave most elderly in the same position they were in before Medicare arrived in 1966. That is, begging and scraping for financial help from family, offspring just to stay alive to deal with normal health issues - never mind treating stage IV prostate or breast cancers.

Mitch McConnell Demands COLA Cuts To Social Security As Well as S.S. Disability Cuts - As Part of Debt Deal

"Uh, uh, yes'm! We wanna get more cuts to Social Security and Medicare to get a debt ceilin' deal!"

The latest news for citizens is not sanguine regarding debt ceiling negotiations. It's now been learned that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is demanding even more major concessions from the White House in exchange for his vote to raise the debt ceiling. This is in addition to cuts to Social Security Disability on the order of 19 percent,* and cuts to Medicare of 2 percent per year already approved.

McConnell now wants to raise the age of eligibility for Medicare and he is also seeking to reduce cost of living adjustments for Social Security recipients. In addition, the Kentucky Senator wants to add policy riders to the budget that will restrict the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to uphold clean water standards.

To sum up: tough luck if you make it to 65 and get seriously ill (say from fracking chemicals), and forget about the COLA's  - from now on you get minus one percent a year when inflation is low - not zero, and hey, if ya get sick from dirty water, that's life!

While the Obama White House seems to be resistant to caving into McConnell’s demands this time around, we understand that many Dems are on board. That means Obama could cave if the Ds make him a deal he can't refuse - say refusing to vote for final TPP passage unless the prez gives in now.

However, White House spokesperson, Jennifer Friedman made it clear the president isn’t interested in conceding to McConnell. Friedman stated:

Proposals such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare and changing the way Social Security retirement benefits are indexed to inflation are non-starters for the administration and Democrats in Congress.

On the positive side, sensible Democrats know that Republicans are likely to shoulder most of the blame if there is another government shutdown. Given the widespread popularity of Medicare and Social Security, there is little incentive for many Democrats to cave in to McConnell’s list of demands.

Having said that, the deal already finalized does contain those cuts to Social Security Disability and small cuts to Medicare.

--------------
*Update (10/27)::

According to the WSJ Social Security Disability's shortfall will be addressed by moving money from the regular Social Security Trust Fund.

Neoliberal Beltway Media "Distraught" at Obama's Upcoming Budget Decision

The Beltway media, and their allied Neo-lib ass kissers are all bent out of shape and in a state of distraught disarray.  They are miffed that Obama hasn’t subjugated himself yet again to their Neoliberal Imperative – which is to pull any and every fringe or thread of security out from under citizens. It’s almost as if they’d love to see a Ukraine type mammoth protest play out here in the US of A.

While Obama has abandoned (for now) the absurd plan for a “chained CPI” – to cut back on Social Security benefits (despite the fact S.S. is forbidden by law to contribute to the deficit), the Beltway hacks and blow-drieds aren’t too happy. They wanted to hear it on the tube, and see the oldsters weep as their own Prez screwed them over.

 Well, it’s not to be – as the Left – through a dedicated campaign, forced Obama to take stock and realize he was batting on a losing wicket, see e.g.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/54446/yes-the-left-killed-the-chained-cpi

 

Excerpt:

“As for the president and his supporters, it is clear that the chained CPI is well-liked by both the White House's key economic players -- and by many of the commentators who support them. That's unfortunate, because it is inaccurate, unjust, and economically unwise. But like it, they do.

It appears that both the Republicans and the White House like it, but neither wants such a politically unpopular measure hung around their neck -- especially in an election year.”

Despite that, the Neoliberal jackasses and professional deficit scolds (which class includes much of the supposedly objective American political press) are dismayed. They are practically weeping that they can no longer yap their blow- dried thick heads off about cuts to Social Security. Why, they are asking, can’t American politicians simply grow up and cut social insurance programs?  Well, because it’s a third rail you inveterate morons!

Of course, since Watergate and the commercialization of news as well as contamination via PR, the WaPo has long since to function in citizens’ interest so no surprise that Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt excoriated Obama’s decision to abandon a politically untenable Social Security cut. This moron, believe it or not, actually compared that decision,  to Syria, scribbling:

 

“Did the president really once believe that the United States could no longer kick the can down the road on entitlement reform?”

But it just goes to show even low I.Q. people can rise to very influential heights.

Meanwhile, another dilettante, a political scientist named Adolph Reed Jr.,  recently asked in Harper’s Magazine,  that IF Obama is ‘an unexceptional neoliberal Democrat with an exceptional knack for self-presentation, Why do neoliberal Democrats feel disappointed, too?”

I beg pardon, but to me a “Neoliberal Democrat” is an oxymoron. But maybe not, given so many have seemed to have taken the Neoliberal kool aid in the last 30 years. (Which again, is one reason I left the Dem party for the Democratic Socialists) In any case, who gives a rat’s ass how many of these parasites are “disappointed”? I don’t!

But as salon.com’s Alex Pareene suggests:

“Maybe you’re disappointed because every Western government fully adopted your worldview decades ago and the result has been a new Gilded Age that you can’t blame on reckless Big Government New Deal Democrat”

Back to the Neolib hack Hiatt. While referencing  Medicare as  “the primary driver of entitlement spending,”  he ignores the fact that it’s already projected to cost much less in the future than it was before Obamacare, because the latter slashes nearly $500b off its tag. And we won’t even go into how the earlier sequester cuts seriously slashed reimbursement for cancer treatments.

 What planet is this twit living on? Isn’t he aware of any of this? Obviously, he perceives a target of opportunity because Medicare is usually yoked to Social Security, and one mandate of the Neolibs is to use Medicare costs to justify a preexisting desire to cut Social Security.

If Hiatt were really serious about lowering the long-term deficit by the most effective means possible, as opposed to the most regressive, then he’d opt for severe cuts to the Pentagon’s bloated budget. Say like scrapping the F-35 of which 2,400 are planned with a cost (currently) of $125m each.  Oh, and also pushing for total pullout from Afghanistan and – a final end of the Bush tax cuts for ALL. Those steps would solve all budget problems instantly – but the Neolibs would rather take the end run way because they’re hot to cut “entitlements”.

Joining Hiatt in disappointment is National Journal leadership correspondent Ron Fournier, who purports to explain that both parties refuse to admit (though both secretly know) that the debt will spiral out of control in the long-term future (like, 2038) unless we get a Grand Bargain.  Horse shit! The only ones who profess to know that are the Neoliberal parasites and vermin! (Like the ‘Fix the Debt’ bunch and Peter G. Peterson)

If Beltway centrists – who really believe they’re so much wiser than those “base” Democrats (who think Social Security should be more generous) had a frickin clue they’d pull their heads from their asses and note the  polls that consistently show overwhelming bipartisan majorities in favor of maintaining or expanding Social Security benefits.

But the morons likely think they’re all skewed.

Then there’s MSNBC’s  resident Neolib hack, Chuck Todd, who had a brief requiem for the seemingly dead grand bargain in yesterday morning’s “First Take.” In just one brief paragraph, this dope managed to hit just about every single trope common to Beltway centrist deficit scolds, from treating an unpopular and unnecessary plan to cut social insurance programs as “a universally acknowledged urgent necessity” instead of a highly ideological goal, to bemoaning the fact that politicians who support unpopular things are campaigned against for supporting unpopular things.

Do the Neolib media hacks really want to know why achieving entitlement reform — even on an incremental, bipartisan basis — is so difficult in American politics? Because it is deeply unpopular with actual voters who recognize it as a shitty deal for everyone but the rich.   If the Neoliberal media wasn't so uniformly blinded to that reality, and so ignorant that the majority of Americans want and demand the same security as the wealthy, they'd be more objective. Alas, they aren't - so they can't be.

In the meantime, the progressive Left will relax for the time being, but be wary of any further efforts to sacrifice citizens to the Neoliberal Gargoyle of Greed.

 

Bill Maher Gets It Wrong Again - Joking on Seniors, Sex and "Entitlements"

Bill Maher, again, has it in for seniors. According to his end segment  ('New Rules') last night on REAL TIME, and quoting a HARPER's piece, the Federal yearly spending per child in this country is $3,822 while the federal yearly spending per senior is $25, 455. He continues by posing the ludicrous question:

  "What kind of world are we leaving for our grandkids, well one where Headstart, nutrition assistance and child welfare are being cut"

Then adds his little hee-haw zinger:

"These days when grandpa finds a quarter behind your ear, he keeps it!"

Really, Bill? You believe this bollocks? He then leads into the reason circulated by the Neoliberal media for why "Uncle Sam's  always giving first dollar to grandma"- because she votes.  He then veers off into "CDC reports" on how "fucking in nursing homes is at an all time high" and "syphilis and chlamydia in seniors has nearly tripled in the past decade".  Both citations are intended to make the gullible believe 99% of seniors are on a real sex binge joy ride in their elder years, and on under 60 y/o citizens' taxpayer dime- while the kiddies starve. Never mind that the senior percentage applicable to Bill's narrative is perhaps 1/2 of one percent, if that. Talk about taking an  exceptional incidence and turning it into a commonplace for the sake of fallacious argument!

But hey- it provides Bill with material for his last segment. Also his ending tirade about "why are so many seniors among the angriest people in the U.S.,  opposing Obamacare, etc. ....despite the fact they have government care that will pay for their ED, penis pumps etc."

Nice jokes, but again, misplaced. If Maher had taken the time to actually read and understand why so many seniors are miffed at Obamacare, he'd have learned that its financial inputs are predicated on $500b in cuts to Medicare - most of which were relatively well concealed until recently. One is cuts to Medicare providers which are causing many seniors to lose their primary care physicians. Tens of thousands of seniors with cancer who need chemotherapy have been turned away from Cancer centers (that deliver the treatments) thanks to just 2% cuts to Medicare providers.

Another is the new hidden bomb in hospital admissions, where the option is left to the hospital - according to the law- to enable the sickly senior to be admitted "under observation only".  In this case, the costs are 3 to 5 times higher than they'd have been if it had been full admission.  The senior then, after having perhaps recovered from one heart attack, almost has another when s/he sees the bill.

Leaving out Bill's exaggerations concerning the sexual exploits of seniors, let's look at some stark realities. First and foremost is that it isn't seniors "taking" from the kids - but our vastly expanded (since 9/11)military -industrial complex. This is the ‘elephant’ in the room,  laying waste to the domestic landscape:  the gross, even malignant expansion of the war and national security state. This nexus has benefited from a political establishment invested in the insane policy of perpetual war. It is this policy that has drained us dry and made the country even more vulnerable to terrorism than it would have been had we not stuck our nose in where it never belonged.

It has also left our kids hungry, and our long term unemployed without benefits, and seniors waiting for the next shoe to drop in terms of cuts (e.g. Chained CPI).  The much ballyhooed "bipartisan budget deal" in December was a perfect example, in which the military-industrial state was granted an extra $23 b while domestic needs were sacrificed. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/12/latest-budget-deal-seeks-to-preserve.html

This Military malignancy has already drained us of over $4 trillion and it may well be much more, when all the medical needs of the returned Iraq and Afghanistan vets are tended to, as well as their future disability benefits finally paid for.

Yet despite naming the ‘elephant’, Maher ignores it and wanders off the beaten path and points to seniors receiving Social Security or on Medicare STEALING "from our children"!  And he makes this oh so much more credible because he couches it in yucks about senior sex.

What the elder "sacrifice" mongers like Maher and others forget is that if those "entitlements" weren't there to provide that support, 8 out of 10 elderly would have to move in with those adult "kids". But somehow, the image of rich, greedy old farts persists ....now, thanks to Maher, having endless sex romps.....despite the fact that the AARP's own statistics show that only the uppermost quintile of seniors receive more than $50,000 a year in their retirement. The unlucky ones who don't hit that threshold are eaten alive by medical costs, and let's bear in mind Medicare only pays a fraction of those.

If even $50,000/ yr.  sounds like a lot, just think about this: One major accident, say a fall, could land a senior in a nursing home at a cost of $4,000 a month. If the senior is unlucky enough to have the gene that leads to Alzheimers, he could end up in the same position - emptying his or her bank account - to be warehoused in some home. Likely ending up bankrupt. One wonders how this never got onto Maher's joke tableaux, but perhaps it was too serious to blend in. Far easier to hack for cheap laughs.

Are seniors really "cavalier" and "coasting nice and easy" like Bill claims? Hardly! According to the latest Newsletter from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare the "grand bargain" bollocks is still on hold, and with it the yen to implement the chained CPI. As the NL puts it:

"This cost of living adjustment is not a 'technical tweak' but a benefit cut for the oldest and most vulnerable Americans."

Indeed. It reduces the cost of living adjustment down by 0.3 percentage points annually. That translates into a cut in benefits of 3 percent for those who have been retired ten years, 6 percent after 20 years, and 9 percent after 30 years. The people who have been retired the longest and are, therefore, the poorest, will see the largest cuts. After ten years, the senior will lose the equivalent of one whole monthly S.S. payment - and given inflation isn't going away (especially for prescription drugs, fuel, food) this could be disastrous.

And now, based on Bill's jokes, many ponder taking food out of poor seniors' mouths???

Just so we are clear on this, let me also provide a quote from the American Prospect article: 'Stealing From Poor, Making Rich Richer':

"Social Security isn't broke, but millions of retirees who depend on it are, and many more would be broke without it. The average retired worker's Social Security benefit is just $922 a month--about $11,000 a year. Disabled workers average just $862.

One out of three seniors depends on Social Security for 90 to 100 percent of their income. Two out of three seniors depend on it for more than half their income. Even with Social Security, many seniors must choose between eating and heating, paying the mortgage or paying for medicine."

The next time Bill Maher, David Brooks, Robert Samuelson, Tom Brokaw, Richard Haas or anyone else thinks of playing the "generational war" meme they need to be reminded of the following:

- Seven million children currently live with grandparents - who depend on Social Security to care for them

- 8.5 million other children (including college kids that find themselves jobless and live at home) who live with elder parents that depend on Social Security to make do.

- The tens of millions of 50-plus Americans who, through their tax dollars and Social Security monies, pensions, provide voluntary contributions to support public schools, child health programs, grandparent guardianship programs as well as other charities that care for homeless kids (e.g. Covenant House).

 Concocting war between the generations, pitting young against old, therefore serves no useful or moral purpose. It is merely a cheap, malicious tactic to take attention from the REAL problem: the malignant growth of the Military Industrial Complex to the detriment of all of us outside it!

Why Boehner is a Liar, Weasel, Punk and Traitor

"They wanted to defund Obamacare, and they lost, and they know it. Now, thanks to the fact that they are frightening everyone, they want the prize they've been seeking since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

For the record: if the Obama administration, in its bottomless desire to Do Something Really Big And Bi-Partisan, actually goes and takes this bait, they should be brought up on three hundred million counts of negligent homicide, because they will have killed the country for all time.-  William Rivers Pitt,  'Boehner, Obama and the Triple Dog Dare', smirkingchimp.com


So this whole freaking shebang shutdown has been all for show, to show the Obama administration, the country and the world that the old South is ascendant again and will call the shots (using 'hostage politics')  whenever the hell it wants. Tea Bagger nation, make no mistake, is the reincarnation of the Confederate traitors in modern form with John Boehner as Chief Enabler.

We now learn, as per the analysis of Chris Hayes last night on MSNBC, the GOP always felt the repeal or defunding of 'Obamacare' wasn't feasible and what they wanted all along was a ransom to extract "entitlement" cuts without having to raise taxes. Who'da thought? Well, we should have realized it was all an act.

As per a recent article in TIME ('Loss Leaders'. p. 24) Boehner never believed that challenging Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) was a viable option since two days after Obama's re-election. According to the article:

"Two days after Obama's victory, Boehner was asked whether Republicans would continue to pursue a repeal of health care reform.

'I think the election changes that', he said, 'Obamacare is the law of the land'.

He flatly rejected the idea of tying funding for the bill to the larger fiscal battle.

'Trying to put Obamacare on a budget resolution risks shutting down the government."

So why in the hell did Weepy Johnno turn around and do just that? As TIME notes it was because his Tea Party Caucus wanted nothing less than Obamacare defunded. Since all those reprobates are invincible in their districts - never having to worry about being 'primaried' on the Right, so long as they adhere to the Teapee line-  it didn't matter to them. It did to the weasel punk  Boehner, who stood to lose his Speakership if he refused to cooperate. So despite his earlier refusal to put the ACA on a budget resolution, the little traitor did just that:  placing his Speakership above the national welfare, to appease his proto-Confederate minions.

Hence, pushed by his whiny punk zealot TPs, here we stand at the precipice of a possible credit default. And a never before event: The nation failing to honor its bond responsibilities for the first time in American history.  Is this "harsh language"? You're damned straight because harsh language to call these cretins out is what's required. Being "civil" is exactly what they don't grasp, and what they interpret as weakness. This is a point Obama needs to comprehend as I noted yesterday.

But lo and behold the demands have now changed. No longer does the GOP- at least its saner elements-  demand defunding Obamacare, , but  rather the full scale slicing and dicing of Social Security and Medicare - with no tax strings attached. Only then will they allow the debt ceiling to be raised and national economic catastrophe to be averted.

Of course, Obama can't give in to this new variant of extortion any more than the old. As blogger William Rivers Pitt has aptly put it ('Boehner, Obama and the Triple Dog Dare', www.smirkingchimp.com):

"President Obama's most significant achievement, his legacy for all time, will be facing down these cretins, holding the line against any and all concessions on elemental pieces of legislation like the budget and the debt limit, and ending the vile and vicious cycle of hostage politics that has done so much damage already.

If he doesn't, well...that's a legacy, too."


To which I totally agree. For Obama to even remotely consider doing a "grand bargain" that includes cutting Social Security and Medicare to allow even a temporary increase in the debt ceiling would be an abomination to tarnish his legacy permanently.