Will Obama Betray Us on Social Security?

Obama says that he agrees with Romney on Social Security. Romney has supported giving the Trust Fund to his Wall Street buddies to play with. Is this what Obama wants to do too?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday strongly criticized President Obama for not taking a more forceful stance on Social Security in the presidential campaign.

Sanders, founder of the Senate’s Defending Social Security Caucus and a leading voice on the issue in the Senate Democratic caucus, said he was deeply concerned by Obama’s effort to minimize differences between himself and Mitt Romney.

“It was very distressing. It was very distressing not only because it is extremely bad public policy and will cause serious damage to a whole lot of vulnerable Americans. It was also bad because he’s going against what the vast majority of the American people want and it’s going to be very bad for his re-election effort,” said Sanders in an interview.

“The American people in poll after poll after poll have been very clear, do not cut Social Security and for the president to say I expect that my position is somewhat similar to Gov. Romney is very, very distressing,” Sanders said.

Obama said he did not see a major difference between himself and Romney when moderator Jim Lehrer asked about Social Security at Wednesday night’s debate in Denver.

“You know, I suspect that, on Social Security, we’ve got a somewhat similar position. Social Security is structurally sound. It’s going to have to be tweaked the way it was by Ronald Reagan and Speaker — Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill. But it is — the basic structure is sound,” he told the national television audience.

The answer sent shockwaves among Obama’s liberal and labor allies, who have made protecting Social Security from cuts one of their highest priorities.

“My jaw dropped,” said Nancy Altman, co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security coalition and campaign, which includes the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org Political Action, and the Service Employees International Union.

“My reaction was, ‘Then Mr. President, you don’t know the governor’s record on Social Security.’”

In 2007, Romney endorsed then President George W. Bush’s proposal to create personal savings accounts so they can make investments that have a higher return than government debt. In his book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Romney wrote that individual retirement accounts offer an option to repair Social Security.

SOURCE: Alexander Bolton, THE HILL (October 5, 2012)

Challenge to “The Last Ditch” (Unless You’re Chicken)

Lev Sinestra

The Right in general is not able to engage in debate and the critical thinking that informs debate. Oh, sure they can talk about their openness to dialogue and they delight in positing Straw Men with which to argue. Hannity loves Colms but Hannity would never have the balls to sit across from Rachel Maddow or Keith Obermann.

For another example, take a look at a Rightwing blog, “The Last Ditch” which supposedly challenged the Left to debate them on the importance/non-importance of “Fairness”. The head honcho in the Ditch is one Nicholas Strakon who had this to say,

“Instead of merely emitting the word as mouthfog, please define and defend your notion of fairness, and demonstrate how it comports, or not, with justice.

Answers and responses thereto may be posted. I am prepared to keep this challenge posted right here for a year if necessary. — Nicholas Strakon, April 10, 2012″

To which I wrote on May 24:

It is probably not possible to arrive at a mutually agreeable definition of “Fairness” or “Justice”. Like “obscenity” where conservatives have been inclined to give up on definition and conclude that they know it when they see it, Fairness may be one of those words that embody a norm which may or not be accepted by another. The Golden Rule, and not the one where he who has the gold makes the rule, but the foundational premise of many religious traditions holds that one should treat another as one would like to be treated. This is similar to John Rawls’ belief that one can determine what is just, or fair, by assuming a state in which one does not know in advance what the results would be, or what one’s assets are, so that the process of arriving at what should be done is ascertained without bias or predetermination.

Aristotle taught that fairness is to treat equals equally and unequals unequally. If Bill and Bob do the same work (or Bill and Betty) then they should receive the same pay. But if Bill has 20 years experience and Bob is new to the job then a pay differential, being treated unequally, is fair. That is probably the simplest definition. Nevertheless, as Burke wrote, a legislator must concentrate on specific cases and general laws are generally inadequate. This is why comparable concepts such as “due process” and “equal protection” have required case by case resolution in the courts.

The Ditchers replied,

“Thanks for your thoughts, which I will post, perhaps with a response or responses.”

That was about TWO WEEKS ago and as of yet not only has no post been published at The Last Ditch but they continue to gloat “No takers yet. — NS, May 10, 2012″

We can understand that the Ditch would be unwilling to debate with a real live Lefty. As with the fantasies of their erotic imaginations, the imagined is always more accessible than the real.

So, here we will extend an invitation to The Last Ditch, let us debate REAL ideas and REAL principles — Fairness, Justice, Equality and such. If there is no room in the Ditch, the DISSENTING DEMOCRAT will host the debate (even their side of it!)

* * * * * * *

P.S. As of June 9, 2012, NO TAKERS! – L.S. & L.A.W.

Being Nice

Liberal friends of the Dissenting Democrat have asked that if we refer to such people as Karl Rove and Grover Norquist as “demons” are we not stooping to their level. In a way we are, and if politics were a more civil discourse, we would not be. But a wrasslin’ match is not a tea party (or, perhaps, the Tea Party IS a wrasslin’ match). When Ann Coulter moves from calling Liberals traitors to calling them demons, we are not inclined to apologize for retorting in kind.

Evangelical goody-goody, Todd Akin, Republican Congressman from Missouri , has this to say, “At the heart of liberalism, really, is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God.” This is a terrible lie to spread about Liberals but the right-leaning Cons and Repubs have no hesitation in doing so.

The Dissenting Democrat learned 50 years ago in public school, that confronted with a bully, one does not ask, “Pretty please, stop beating me”. No, to stop a bully one kicks him in the nuts! And this would work with Ann Coulter too.

I Really Don’t Know What to Say Anymore…

David Michael Green

I really don’t know what to say anymore, about a country in which proposing a new and better version of corporate-plunder masquerading as national healthcare gets you burned in effigy for being a socialist stooge by
gun-toting angry mobs.

I really don’t know what to say anymore, about a country in which the same
people who hate you for being a socialist simultaneously hate you for being
a fascist.

I really don’t know what to say anymore, about a country in which angry mobs of supposed anti-socialist demonstrators scream at their congressional representatives to “keep your government hands off my Medicare”.

I really don’t know what to say anymore, about a country in which claims
that the government is going to start killing off seniors are taken
seriously by tens of millions of people.

I really don’t know what to say anymore, about a country in which people are all worked up about government czars, but sat silently while the Bush
administration destroyed the Bill of Rights and used a thousand signing
statements to write Congress out of the Constitution.

I really don’t know what to say anymore, about a country in which deficits
have all of a sudden become the source of enormous anger among people who said nothing about them previously, as the tax cuts for the wealthy,
off-budget wars based on lies, and unfunded prescription drug Big Pharma
giveaway transmogrified the biggest surplus in American history into the
biggest deficit ever.

I really don’t know what to say anymore, about a country in which
politicians can rant incessantly about other peoples’ sexual morality, get
caught screwing prostitutes, and then still be reelected to the highest
ranks of government by trashing the president.

I could go on and on, but what would be the point? The positions of so many
Americans on so many policy questions are truly inane – yes, for sure. I
wish that was all that concerned me. But it all goes so much deeper than
that.

The entire premise of a self-ruling democracy rests on some reasonable
degree of rationality and some reasonable degree of an ability to
discriminate between real information and falsehoods. Today’s American
democracy seems to lack these qualities in increasingly abundant amounts.

The complete article may be read at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/18-2