Feb 14, 2023·edited Feb 14, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Lots of things going through my mind today:
** How MTG looked and acted like Cruella Deville at the State of the Union.
** How irresponsible to the nation's security GOP members of Congress were when they took the most negative twist they could find to criticize how President Biden handled the spy balloon before they had heard any briefing on the subject.
** How greed of fracking and going after oil too deep under the ground brought about more earthquake activity to Oklahoma than it had ever felt might be a contributing factor to the earthquake disaster in Syria and Turkey - oil.
** How we need to emphasize the second word in Social Security and think about how many people would lose any sense of security if the GOP succeeds in pulling Social Security up by its roots.
** How the mass shooting at Michigan State University this evening with a lone gunman makes me want to do something to get the Congress to do their job -- for the People and their safety.
** How waiting for the Texas Judge to ban the abortion pill makes me and all women second class citizens to be hauled around by the hair by GOP apes.
** How a politician with integrity seems an oxymoron these days and I'd like to go back to my "Re-elect No One!" slogan.
What dawned on me this evening is that we need a People's Agenda that we get the majority of the People to support and only voting for those politicians who would sign on publicly to implement it. A movement not a party. A movement based on all of the People this time protecting the rights of others, protecting the right for others to vote, protecting the environment for all, to be a true democracy not just un-representative. the People's Agenda (tPA) would be akin to the Ten Commandments for Democracy, the Real Deal rather than the New Deal, Safety, Security and Sharing - Valuing generosity to the community over personal profit.
An "AND" society which synergistically grows to support the well-being of all. Where Doing the Right Thing is a motto to live by. Where Valuing Differences is an asset of different perspectives creating real solutions that help everyone. Where social media uses algorithms which already exist helping groups reach consensus and working together rather than hate and division. A movement where one's Party doesn't matter.
tPA is a clot busting drug which saved my life two hours before death (10 year anniversary of my near death will be a week from Saturday). Now we use tPA movement to bust the Congress and refill it with Synergists who take action and have empathy for all People.
Please fill in the sentence -- One of the essential actions of tPA would be ______ . I'm thinking education (the 3 rRs - respect, responsibility and resilience), human rights for all, sustainability of the planet, sustainability of true democracy, security (food, retirement, well-being), safety (gun safety, no assault weapons, no ammunition that tears up human organs), etc......
We, the People, all of us this time being there for each other. We all live our dreams!
Thank you for your kind words. I ask everyone I meet now "What is your dream?" now. When their eyes light up I know they are thinking of their dream and then I ask them how they are working to achieve it! You can have a meaningful, connecting conversation in under a minute with anyone!
I think your ideas are great and I hope someone who can make a difference is listening. The biggest fear I have is are we too polarized as a country to make your ideas a reality? Happy anniversary
We are listening Stephen and it's up to all of us to support and spread the idea. Robert, Heather Richardson, TC and others will help too but blanketing Substack and other social media with Cathy's idea and stirring statement is how momentum will build.
Dave I agree with your concept but the people we need to get on board are not like you and I because they don’t read Substack or listen to MSNBC or get both sides of the story. It has to be grassroots and it had to be local newspaper letters to the editor and local organizations and places of worship. Politics at the end of the day is local. We sometimes forget that.
Absolutely right Stephen, and that is the hard part. Getting local papers and organizations to dare to be a little out of line takes more effort than people expect. As much as the "leaders" of both parties would like to believe otherwise, politics, as you note, is local and personal.
Whatever it takes, Dave. We can do it. Our country made it to the moon. Advances to technology and medicine are often are amazing. I have often said “we seem to be able to advance technology, science and medicine but the social sciences seem to languish. Thank you.
Had a speaker at an event I attended say when we are this polarized in history it means the People are saying STOP! 🛑 We're going the wrong direction! So, let's change direction. Thank you!
Wow, Kathy! I'm impressed and in total agreement. I can't think of anything to add to your comprehensive list, but I'll be thinking about it. What a wonderful world it would be🌍😍!
My goodness, Cathy, you ate your Wheaties this morning and you surely had a rush of adrenaline when you wrote this. Congratulations on offering a great idea.
Can we make that People’s Agenda happen?
Your next to last paragraph was super, super on the money.
I salute you. An exceptional post. If I were the author of Today’s Edition I’d pin it. 👏
Thank you so much for your kind words and encouragement, John, We can make the People's Agenda happen. Let's spread the word and welcome the ideas that will flesh out an Agenda. Together. Valuing each other. This feels like the right time.
Copy it and post it John. I asked Cathy earlier to be sure that was OK with her. The farther we can spread it the more effective it will be. We're all gonna need Wheaties.
All great points, but a suggestion: Use paragraph breaks to emphasize each major thought. I had to work hard to read the whole piece as a single block of text.
Yes, It was 2 am and definitely stream of consciousness writing. Thanks for your suggestions. See if my edits above help a bit. I know it's long but I wanted to bring all the thoughts together.
Yes, please use it any way you'd think helpful! Thanks for being a first follower and a leader for this movement! See the 3 minute video on making a movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFt1BZiMTw
"President Biden continues to claim that they are intent on reducing or eliminating Social Security and Medicare. Good for Biden—because he is right! " Biden is right in three ways. He is accurate, as you say. Republicans want to reduce or eliminate social security and medicare. He is effective. The accusation has made Republicans confront their own agenda and then run away from it. He is energizing. The accusation gives Democrats a starting point in demonstrating the difference between the two political parties. Keep it up Joe Biden. And keep it up Robert Hubbell.
Feb 14, 2023·edited Feb 14, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Robert, I agree with you that there is ample evidence that the GOP wants to end entitlements, especially the Social Security Ponzi scheme, but what Scalese in his inarticulate way cited is not evidence of it. I suspect Scalese was talking about Social Security Disability Insurance, not retiree benefits. He thinks people are getting checks when they could work. I'm not sure what evidence he would find to support that.
My firm did a 9-year, $125 million pilot program with nearly 1 million SSDI recipients to entice them to return to work. Normally when SSDI beneficiaries reach an income threshold (under $18,000), their SSDI benefits get cut off. To encourage them to work more and rely less on the SSDI trust fund, which has solvency issues, the pilot enabled them to keep getting 50% of the benefits for every dollar they earned above the threshold. Few people who participated in the pilot went back to work. Why? we don't know. Maybe they were too disabled to work. Maybe what was effectively a 50% marginal rate on earnings made working unattractive. Maybe the paperwork to participate in the program was too burdensome or hard to understand. In any event, the financial incentive didn't work, and it's far from clear whether a greater incentive would make a difference. So while it's hardly conclusive evidence that Scalese's assumption that people on SSDI could work is wrong, the behavior of a sample of nearly 1 million people is suggestive that he is. Not a small sample.
BTW, Congress initially wanted all SSDI participants to participate in the program, but fortunately cooler heads prevailed and created a pilot. Full participation would have cost $1 billion. So while there were complaints that our study squandered $125 million on the pilot, in fact, we saved the government the additional $875 million that lawmakers wanted to spend on a program that didn't work.
I am having a hard time wrapping my head around this thought: People are disabled and qualify for disability benefits, but to receive those benefits, they need to work, but if they do, they lose those benefits???. As you say, "Few people who participated in the pilot went back to work. Why? we don't know. Maybe they were too disabled to work. . . ." And 1 million people is a huge sample.
What is insulting about Scalise's comments is the underlying premise: that people who are disabled are lazy and fakers. Shame on Scalise, a man who undoubtedly received disability benefits (or full salary) when he was on his long road to recovery from a gunshot wound. But he cannot empathize with people who become disabled through injury or illness. Shame on him.
As the mother of a disabled adult daughter, the idea that she "should go out to work" is ludicrous. She WANTS to work and struggles with an identity that precludes it. She was a claims manager for a major insurance company, in charge of a whole regional office, on the promotion fast track, before the events which led to her disability.
Again, thanks for this response Robert. Your points are well stated. I have never been able to wrap my head around why Republicans are so reluctant to help the average citizen but never fail to want to cut taxes to give the wealthy huge breaks as the concurrently oppose education at all levels, insist that college students pay huge debts since Reagan turned loans over to the financial community. (I happen to have been a beneficiary of the National Defense Student Loan program, later retitled National “Direct”Student Loan.) The Reagan era really began the devaluing of education in the U.S. while playing up the divisiveness of college vs technical training, etc. It’s a stupid game that has fostered an unnecessary divide rather than broadening the scope of our educational commitment. We need to return to a country that values education for every citizen of every age.
The Republicans are a party of projections. What they do wrong, they assume everyone does. While I know our state's members of Congress are hard working and honest, not so for many others who get a much larger salary than I ever did, plus benefits, plus goofing off time and plenty of drama which is mostly "Sound and Fury."
Robert, I interpreted your Scalice quote differently than you did. I imagined he was saying that we need as many young/middle age adults as possible to be working so that their payments into the SS system would be supporting its long term viability. Of course, as a GOP leader, his concepts re: which “potential workers” are getting unwarranted “government handouts” and staying home would be, nauseatingly broad to me, I’m sure. But unemployment and COVID relief checks would likely be at the top of his list, not disability payments through SSI.
In researching this, here’s what Scalice has on his House website, from about 10 days ago:
“President Biden's agenda of paying people not to work undermines Social Security because when he's borrowing money to pay people to sit at home – again, hundreds of billions of dollars he's borrowed to pay people not to work – those are people that aren't working, who would otherwise be paying into Social Security. So, President Biden's agenda has actually weakened Social Security.”
I’m certainly not defending his thinking, but also don’t want us misinterpreting our opponents and then pillorying them on that basis. Let’s leave that to FOX!
Stan, I write to say that many people who receive Social Security have part time jobs for various reasons. I have family members whose Social Security could not fully fund her very frugal life. She worked two part time jobs until her mid 80's when the store where she worked closed. She still has the compact car she purchased in 2010 during cash for clunkers. Like I stated there are lots of SS recipients who work often out of plain old necessity.
Thanks for the link, and, Oh geez! It's worse than I thought. It includes provisions such as, "Protect Beneficiaries from Liberal Trial Lawyers) [a.k.a. lawyers who represent claimants in the appeals process]. It is filled with language that suggests that recipients are grifters. It calls people who legitimately qualify for benefits under different programs (unemployment and disability) "double dippers". It says that if you don't recover in the time the Republicans think you should, you lose your benefits and must re-apply, without regard to your actual progress. And all of this is written by the Heritage Institute think tank.
Here is another offensive example: The Republican plan suggests that people with muscular-skeletal or mental disability are not deserving of disability beneifts:
"A large percentage of applicants suffer from mental or musculoskeletal problems, which can be difficult to diagnose. Crowding out DI payments for those who need them by sending benefits to those who can and should work is an unjust and immoral use of taxpayer dollars."
So, if you suffer from a mental disabilitiy, you "can" work and your receipt of benefits is "unjust and immoral."
I don't think anyone on any government financial support system is less deserving of money from the government than the whole lot of spineless and or hate filled right wing Republicans who function as "do nothing" seat warmers and bullies in Congress.
I'm truly struggling with your seemingly offhanded SS "Ponzi scheme" comment and your $125 Million study predicated on how to get officially disabled people on SSDI support to return to work. Both lead me to believe something is amiss here. Are you actually promoting Republican talking points?
Sheila, no. My apologies in advance for the length of this comment.
Ron Johnson calls it a Ponzi scheme. Actually, if you define a Ponzi scheme as using investments by later investors to pay off early investors, there is a resemblance. But no fraud is involved in Social Security, and that is a critical element of a Ponzi scheme. Johnson would be better off just saying that all the funds are headed toward insolvency and something must be done. That is indisputable, and there's no need for polemics, but as a Republican, he is obligated to go over the top and tar a government program that has been astonishingly successful in reducing poverty for the elderly, as intended.
One of the ideas in the GOP plan to reform the disability fund is to give employers who make accommodations to rehire disabled workers a cut in the payroll tax, which finances Social Security. So these buffoons want to make the solvency situation even worse. Why not leave it to the free market, Republicans? Employers are scrambling to find workers. You need to invest to get a return. If companies think they can get a decent return on their investment, they will make the accommodations without a tax break that further cripples Social Security so they can get the workers they need and increase output and profits.
The GOP plan also talks about the benefits cliff (a complete benefits cutoff when you hit the earnings threshold) and how letting people keep $1 of every $2 in benefits if they exceed the threshold would encourage people to go back to work. As usual, they ignore facts and evidence: $125 million and nine years of data that show that approach won't work. Buffoons once again.
I'm no expert on solutions I know only what didn't work), but I would look to Brookings for its discussion of solutions, not the Heritage Foundation. Here's what Brookings's William Gale supports: raise the payroll tax cap substantially, raise the payroll tax rate by 1% over 10 years for both employees and employers, increase the income taxation of Social Security benefits for high-income households, change the way Social Security calculates inflation to better reflect price changes, and raise the full retirement age by one month every two years until it reaches 69 in about 2070.
On the disability side, the GOP proposal notes accurately that work force participation rates are low. They have been declining since the 1990s. They have rebounded a bit from a sharp decline during the height of the pandemic--and are well above the rates of the 1950s, before women entered the work force in large numbers. Many factors account for the decline. The Bureau of Labor Statistics cites increased dependent care needs, fear of getting COVID, higher unemployment benefits, desire for higher wages, which reduces interest in low-paying jobs, higher pace of retirements due to an aging population, and slower population growth. Most of these don't involve slackers. Is there disability fraud? No doubt. Is there more of it than election fraud? No idea. All I know is, when nearly 1 million SSDI recipients had the chance to retain some benefits if they went back to work, they didn't or couldn't. The Brookings ideas could help shore up SSDI, too.
I agree the Democrats are on the offensive and when I sit back and think about it, they are in on the offensive because they are leading from strength having delivered many successful programs and have effectively demonstrated what good government looks like. I think the Democrats in addition to pushing Republicans on Social Security should adopt a slogan when the bogus Hunter Biden hearings and comments are made. That slogan should be repeated daily “ What about Jared? The Kushner story and the 2 Billion dollar payout is easier for voters to believe and understand than the unsubstantiated Hunter laptop story of a non government employee.
Remember the “ show and tell” programs in school when you were a kid? The Democrats should show Americans all the infrastructure projects (roads, bridges, dams , and utilities) that are currently being implemented in towns and cities all over America and have local representatives on local television showing pictures of these projects. These projects are employing local citizens and Democrats need to focus on what is happening now. A picture is worth a thousand words.
When we say What about Jared? We are not engaging in the what about-ism that excuses bad behavior because other people do it. This is a case of the committee saying “We exist to investigate wrongdoing. Only the Biden side does anything wrong, so that’s who we investigate. Got it? Jared does not merit investigation because he is not a Biden, is he?”
Want to permanently resolve the gqp issues with Social Security? Simple. Remove and end the slackers’ special congressional retirement pension plan and put them into the SSI system. I am disgusted and tired of the high pay and expense to pay for these feckless bastards.
Here is some of what we pay for:
Health Benefits. ...
Dental and Vision Benefits. ...
Flexible Spending Accounts. ...
Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) ...
Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) ...
Flexible Work Arrangements. ...
Commuting Assistance. ...
Annual and Sick Leave
That is just the tip of the iceberg. Add in mail, meals, limos, travel and staff cost….tens of billions of dollars.
Want to reduce government spending? Let them start at home and cut the congressional budget. Maybe then the republicans can find their way to raise the debt ceiling to pay for what they have spent.
May I raise a completely off-topic comment? This concerns Kevin McCarthy and Bibi Netanyahu. The controversy in Israel about the Supreme Court shows, as does the appointment of the Special House Committee on weaponization, that a parliamentary form of government, while theoretically prone to compromise, can operate in exactly the opposite way. When voting is close, it hands a far-out minority to wield enormous power if a would-be leader has no principles of his own. Wing nuts like Gaetz, Greene and Jordan, just like the far right in Israel, would have no support in an election of all voters, yet can call the shots when their votes will give a power-hungry would-be leader a victory.
Parliamentary systems do have serious drawbacks in that the majority party rules the country. The Prime Minister and cabinet are unassailable until the next election. A minority government has two choices. Work with a third small party or call an election. Since election dates are not fixed, both options are doable.
I fully believe that the GOP's genuine intentions regarding S.S. were let out of the bag by Senator Rick Scott. I wonder if Scalise's remarks are in regard to the Disability programs which were shoved into S.S., and have nothing to do with a "retirement" program per se. I think there would be a case funding-wise for separating the disability programs from S.S. Retirement contributions would best be dedicated strictly for retirement purposes.
I would not however trust the wrecking crew of the GOP to be involved in any overhaul, anymore than I would want them involved in a Constitutional Convention.
Far be it from me to defend Steve Scalise but I don’t think he is quite making the argument you think he is. The argument you think he’s making is self-evidently absurd even to MAGA-heads, so why would he think it will gain traction with them?
Because that’s not what he means. I think his argument is that we can “strengthen Social Security” by cutting social service spending on all “the undeserving poor” by forcing THEM to work more for their paltry checks, saving “the gummint” money which will be available to fund Social Security.
Of course, that’s not how it works either. That’s just another mean-spirited way of appealing to MAGA-loving seniors by attacking the poor. Any money saved by such cuts could be spent anywhere the “gummint” decides: defense, cops, tax reductions for the wealthy, fraud and waste. There is no mechanism to fund Social Security and Medicare from government revenues except FICA taxes on employees and employers.
It’s a complicated hash of verbiage that has been given little scrutiny much less been reduced to legislation. No doubt millions of holes could be poked in it and someone may try to do so, but our main point is that SS ain’t broke so why try to fix it, and if more money is needed at some point, get it from increasing payroll taxes on the wealthy.
A friend sent an article from Mercola about the Cochrane Report. I decided I needed to educate myself. Here is what they actually said, "The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.... There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited" https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full
That is indeed what the Cochrane authors say about their own study. And if you read the Real Clear Science article, you will see that Cochrane used only population based studies that suffered from horrendous implementation and compliance issues in temrs of mask wearing. So if you study a population to see if masks are effective, and the popolation takes off their masks to eat in restaurants, talk to friends at social gatherings, you are testing compliance, not the effectiveness of masks themselves. As the Real Clear Science article demonstrates, when you test individuals who wear masks properly, they show a dramatic decrease in infection.
Also, Mercola is the #1 disinformation source on the internet regarding Covid. He promotes ivermectin, hydroxochloriquine, etc.
When are journalists going to go back to class? I remember being taught in school that there was an expected format for articles. The first paragraph was supposed to be something of an abstract for the rest of the article, with the body of the article expanding on the theme and presenting evidence or facts. It would end with some sort of summary or conclusion. Many people don't read past the first paragraph if they make it past the headline (which is why misleading headlines are such a bad thing).
Presenting the conclusions of a poorly done metadata study in the introduction of an article without a clear denunciation of the methodology is an example of a poorly constructed article at the least. It's actively spreading misinformation as well.
Lots of things going through my mind today:
** How MTG looked and acted like Cruella Deville at the State of the Union.
** How irresponsible to the nation's security GOP members of Congress were when they took the most negative twist they could find to criticize how President Biden handled the spy balloon before they had heard any briefing on the subject.
** How greed of fracking and going after oil too deep under the ground brought about more earthquake activity to Oklahoma than it had ever felt might be a contributing factor to the earthquake disaster in Syria and Turkey - oil.
** How we need to emphasize the second word in Social Security and think about how many people would lose any sense of security if the GOP succeeds in pulling Social Security up by its roots.
** How the mass shooting at Michigan State University this evening with a lone gunman makes me want to do something to get the Congress to do their job -- for the People and their safety.
** How waiting for the Texas Judge to ban the abortion pill makes me and all women second class citizens to be hauled around by the hair by GOP apes.
** How a politician with integrity seems an oxymoron these days and I'd like to go back to my "Re-elect No One!" slogan.
What dawned on me this evening is that we need a People's Agenda that we get the majority of the People to support and only voting for those politicians who would sign on publicly to implement it. A movement not a party. A movement based on all of the People this time protecting the rights of others, protecting the right for others to vote, protecting the environment for all, to be a true democracy not just un-representative. the People's Agenda (tPA) would be akin to the Ten Commandments for Democracy, the Real Deal rather than the New Deal, Safety, Security and Sharing - Valuing generosity to the community over personal profit.
An "AND" society which synergistically grows to support the well-being of all. Where Doing the Right Thing is a motto to live by. Where Valuing Differences is an asset of different perspectives creating real solutions that help everyone. Where social media uses algorithms which already exist helping groups reach consensus and working together rather than hate and division. A movement where one's Party doesn't matter.
tPA is a clot busting drug which saved my life two hours before death (10 year anniversary of my near death will be a week from Saturday). Now we use tPA movement to bust the Congress and refill it with Synergists who take action and have empathy for all People.
Here's a short TED video by Derek Sivers on how to start a movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFt1BZiMTw
Please fill in the sentence -- One of the essential actions of tPA would be ______ . I'm thinking education (the 3 rRs - respect, responsibility and resilience), human rights for all, sustainability of the planet, sustainability of true democracy, security (food, retirement, well-being), safety (gun safety, no assault weapons, no ammunition that tears up human organs), etc......
We, the People, all of us this time being there for each other. We all live our dreams!
Cathy, 💙 the idea of tPA and your clever, heartfelt use of the acronym.
Happy Anniversary ! The world is certainly a better place with you in it…
Thank you for your kind words. I ask everyone I meet now "What is your dream?" now. When their eyes light up I know they are thinking of their dream and then I ask them how they are working to achieve it! You can have a meaningful, connecting conversation in under a minute with anyone!
Wow! Way to go Cathy...great analogy. tPA has saved many lives..so let’s use its equivalent to save our nation!
I think your ideas are great and I hope someone who can make a difference is listening. The biggest fear I have is are we too polarized as a country to make your ideas a reality? Happy anniversary
We are listening Stephen and it's up to all of us to support and spread the idea. Robert, Heather Richardson, TC and others will help too but blanketing Substack and other social media with Cathy's idea and stirring statement is how momentum will build.
Dave I agree with your concept but the people we need to get on board are not like you and I because they don’t read Substack or listen to MSNBC or get both sides of the story. It has to be grassroots and it had to be local newspaper letters to the editor and local organizations and places of worship. Politics at the end of the day is local. We sometimes forget that.
Absolutely right Stephen, and that is the hard part. Getting local papers and organizations to dare to be a little out of line takes more effort than people expect. As much as the "leaders" of both parties would like to believe otherwise, politics, as you note, is local and personal.
Whatever it takes, Dave. We can do it. Our country made it to the moon. Advances to technology and medicine are often are amazing. I have often said “we seem to be able to advance technology, science and medicine but the social sciences seem to languish. Thank you.
Had a speaker at an event I attended say when we are this polarized in history it means the People are saying STOP! 🛑 We're going the wrong direction! So, let's change direction. Thank you!
Wow, Kathy! I'm impressed and in total agreement. I can't think of anything to add to your comprehensive list, but I'll be thinking about it. What a wonderful world it would be🌍😍!
My goodness, Cathy, you ate your Wheaties this morning and you surely had a rush of adrenaline when you wrote this. Congratulations on offering a great idea.
Can we make that People’s Agenda happen?
Your next to last paragraph was super, super on the money.
I salute you. An exceptional post. If I were the author of Today’s Edition I’d pin it. 👏
Thank you so much for your kind words and encouragement, John, We can make the People's Agenda happen. Let's spread the word and welcome the ideas that will flesh out an Agenda. Together. Valuing each other. This feels like the right time.
Copy it and post it John. I asked Cathy earlier to be sure that was OK with her. The farther we can spread it the more effective it will be. We're all gonna need Wheaties.
Thank you, Dave, I just subscribed to Dave's Newsletter! I appreciate you spreading these words. It inspires me.
All great points, but a suggestion: Use paragraph breaks to emphasize each major thought. I had to work hard to read the whole piece as a single block of text.
Yes, It was 2 am and definitely stream of consciousness writing. Thanks for your suggestions. See if my edits above help a bit. I know it's long but I wanted to bring all the thoughts together.
The edits worked wonderfully!
No offense, ma’am, but that’s an insult to Cruella Deville.
She ought not take it too hard, someone once compared tfg to Jabba the Hutt. At least they're both movie stars.
None taken, sir. They sure share the same sense of "fashion".
Thank you Cathy for ALL of this, the list, ideas, and energy. Yes, We The Peope!!!!
All of us this time!
Actually I had " ....All The People " as well, but then I removed it. Yes ALL ALL ALL.
Congrats on your anniversary, Cathy!! It is one to cherish and you’re right, of course, to mention we need a tPA movement. Thanks for the link, too!
Beautiful!
Awesome Cathy. May one copy this and post it elsewhere?
Yes, please use it any way you'd think helpful! Thanks for being a first follower and a leader for this movement! See the 3 minute video on making a movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFt1BZiMTw
Thanks Cathy. Excellent presentation on the TED talk.
"President Biden continues to claim that they are intent on reducing or eliminating Social Security and Medicare. Good for Biden—because he is right! " Biden is right in three ways. He is accurate, as you say. Republicans want to reduce or eliminate social security and medicare. He is effective. The accusation has made Republicans confront their own agenda and then run away from it. He is energizing. The accusation gives Democrats a starting point in demonstrating the difference between the two political parties. Keep it up Joe Biden. And keep it up Robert Hubbell.
I just want to wish everyone a day of Love & Wokeness ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Robert, I agree with you that there is ample evidence that the GOP wants to end entitlements, especially the Social Security Ponzi scheme, but what Scalese in his inarticulate way cited is not evidence of it. I suspect Scalese was talking about Social Security Disability Insurance, not retiree benefits. He thinks people are getting checks when they could work. I'm not sure what evidence he would find to support that.
My firm did a 9-year, $125 million pilot program with nearly 1 million SSDI recipients to entice them to return to work. Normally when SSDI beneficiaries reach an income threshold (under $18,000), their SSDI benefits get cut off. To encourage them to work more and rely less on the SSDI trust fund, which has solvency issues, the pilot enabled them to keep getting 50% of the benefits for every dollar they earned above the threshold. Few people who participated in the pilot went back to work. Why? we don't know. Maybe they were too disabled to work. Maybe what was effectively a 50% marginal rate on earnings made working unattractive. Maybe the paperwork to participate in the program was too burdensome or hard to understand. In any event, the financial incentive didn't work, and it's far from clear whether a greater incentive would make a difference. So while it's hardly conclusive evidence that Scalese's assumption that people on SSDI could work is wrong, the behavior of a sample of nearly 1 million people is suggestive that he is. Not a small sample.
BTW, Congress initially wanted all SSDI participants to participate in the program, but fortunately cooler heads prevailed and created a pilot. Full participation would have cost $1 billion. So while there were complaints that our study squandered $125 million on the pilot, in fact, we saved the government the additional $875 million that lawmakers wanted to spend on a program that didn't work.
I am having a hard time wrapping my head around this thought: People are disabled and qualify for disability benefits, but to receive those benefits, they need to work, but if they do, they lose those benefits???. As you say, "Few people who participated in the pilot went back to work. Why? we don't know. Maybe they were too disabled to work. . . ." And 1 million people is a huge sample.
What is insulting about Scalise's comments is the underlying premise: that people who are disabled are lazy and fakers. Shame on Scalise, a man who undoubtedly received disability benefits (or full salary) when he was on his long road to recovery from a gunshot wound. But he cannot empathize with people who become disabled through injury or illness. Shame on him.
As the mother of a disabled adult daughter, the idea that she "should go out to work" is ludicrous. She WANTS to work and struggles with an identity that precludes it. She was a claims manager for a major insurance company, in charge of a whole regional office, on the promotion fast track, before the events which led to her disability.
My heart goes out to your daughter and to you!
thanks.
Again, thanks for this response Robert. Your points are well stated. I have never been able to wrap my head around why Republicans are so reluctant to help the average citizen but never fail to want to cut taxes to give the wealthy huge breaks as the concurrently oppose education at all levels, insist that college students pay huge debts since Reagan turned loans over to the financial community. (I happen to have been a beneficiary of the National Defense Student Loan program, later retitled National “Direct”Student Loan.) The Reagan era really began the devaluing of education in the U.S. while playing up the divisiveness of college vs technical training, etc. It’s a stupid game that has fostered an unnecessary divide rather than broadening the scope of our educational commitment. We need to return to a country that values education for every citizen of every age.
The Republicans are a party of projections. What they do wrong, they assume everyone does. While I know our state's members of Congress are hard working and honest, not so for many others who get a much larger salary than I ever did, plus benefits, plus goofing off time and plenty of drama which is mostly "Sound and Fury."
Robert, I interpreted your Scalice quote differently than you did. I imagined he was saying that we need as many young/middle age adults as possible to be working so that their payments into the SS system would be supporting its long term viability. Of course, as a GOP leader, his concepts re: which “potential workers” are getting unwarranted “government handouts” and staying home would be, nauseatingly broad to me, I’m sure. But unemployment and COVID relief checks would likely be at the top of his list, not disability payments through SSI.
In researching this, here’s what Scalice has on his House website, from about 10 days ago:
“President Biden's agenda of paying people not to work undermines Social Security because when he's borrowing money to pay people to sit at home – again, hundreds of billions of dollars he's borrowed to pay people not to work – those are people that aren't working, who would otherwise be paying into Social Security. So, President Biden's agenda has actually weakened Social Security.”
I’m certainly not defending his thinking, but also don’t want us misinterpreting our opponents and then pillorying them on that basis. Let’s leave that to FOX!
Stan, I write to say that many people who receive Social Security have part time jobs for various reasons. I have family members whose Social Security could not fully fund her very frugal life. She worked two part time jobs until her mid 80's when the store where she worked closed. She still has the compact car she purchased in 2010 during cash for clunkers. Like I stated there are lots of SS recipients who work often out of plain old necessity.
This was my learned experience both as a nurse in an HR setting and as a family member. The grifters were few and the truly needy were many.
Why are you assuming that Scalise meant something that would make a bit of sense
https://banks.house.gov/uploadedfiles/fy23_budget_final_copy.pdf
Starting page 73 has Repub proposal for SSDI
Thanks for the link, and, Oh geez! It's worse than I thought. It includes provisions such as, "Protect Beneficiaries from Liberal Trial Lawyers) [a.k.a. lawyers who represent claimants in the appeals process]. It is filled with language that suggests that recipients are grifters. It calls people who legitimately qualify for benefits under different programs (unemployment and disability) "double dippers". It says that if you don't recover in the time the Republicans think you should, you lose your benefits and must re-apply, without regard to your actual progress. And all of this is written by the Heritage Institute think tank.
Here is another offensive example: The Republican plan suggests that people with muscular-skeletal or mental disability are not deserving of disability beneifts:
"A large percentage of applicants suffer from mental or musculoskeletal problems, which can be difficult to diagnose. Crowding out DI payments for those who need them by sending benefits to those who can and should work is an unjust and immoral use of taxpayer dollars."
So, if you suffer from a mental disabilitiy, you "can" work and your receipt of benefits is "unjust and immoral."
Who are these people?
Who are they? It seems they've all turned into sociopaths.
Few employers want to hire people with mental disabilities. (Yes, there are notable exceptions of such people being elected to high office.)
Who are these people? I bet if you asked, they would say they are "good, God fearing Christians". I would call them cruel, selfish beasts.
I don't think anyone on any government financial support system is less deserving of money from the government than the whole lot of spineless and or hate filled right wing Republicans who function as "do nothing" seat warmers and bullies in Congress.
I'm truly struggling with your seemingly offhanded SS "Ponzi scheme" comment and your $125 Million study predicated on how to get officially disabled people on SSDI support to return to work. Both lead me to believe something is amiss here. Are you actually promoting Republican talking points?
Sheila, no. My apologies in advance for the length of this comment.
Ron Johnson calls it a Ponzi scheme. Actually, if you define a Ponzi scheme as using investments by later investors to pay off early investors, there is a resemblance. But no fraud is involved in Social Security, and that is a critical element of a Ponzi scheme. Johnson would be better off just saying that all the funds are headed toward insolvency and something must be done. That is indisputable, and there's no need for polemics, but as a Republican, he is obligated to go over the top and tar a government program that has been astonishingly successful in reducing poverty for the elderly, as intended.
One of the ideas in the GOP plan to reform the disability fund is to give employers who make accommodations to rehire disabled workers a cut in the payroll tax, which finances Social Security. So these buffoons want to make the solvency situation even worse. Why not leave it to the free market, Republicans? Employers are scrambling to find workers. You need to invest to get a return. If companies think they can get a decent return on their investment, they will make the accommodations without a tax break that further cripples Social Security so they can get the workers they need and increase output and profits.
The GOP plan also talks about the benefits cliff (a complete benefits cutoff when you hit the earnings threshold) and how letting people keep $1 of every $2 in benefits if they exceed the threshold would encourage people to go back to work. As usual, they ignore facts and evidence: $125 million and nine years of data that show that approach won't work. Buffoons once again.
I'm no expert on solutions I know only what didn't work), but I would look to Brookings for its discussion of solutions, not the Heritage Foundation. Here's what Brookings's William Gale supports: raise the payroll tax cap substantially, raise the payroll tax rate by 1% over 10 years for both employees and employers, increase the income taxation of Social Security benefits for high-income households, change the way Social Security calculates inflation to better reflect price changes, and raise the full retirement age by one month every two years until it reaches 69 in about 2070.
On the disability side, the GOP proposal notes accurately that work force participation rates are low. They have been declining since the 1990s. They have rebounded a bit from a sharp decline during the height of the pandemic--and are well above the rates of the 1950s, before women entered the work force in large numbers. Many factors account for the decline. The Bureau of Labor Statistics cites increased dependent care needs, fear of getting COVID, higher unemployment benefits, desire for higher wages, which reduces interest in low-paying jobs, higher pace of retirements due to an aging population, and slower population growth. Most of these don't involve slackers. Is there disability fraud? No doubt. Is there more of it than election fraud? No idea. All I know is, when nearly 1 million SSDI recipients had the chance to retain some benefits if they went back to work, they didn't or couldn't. The Brookings ideas could help shore up SSDI, too.
Thanks for your more complete reply, Stan. The greater context was most helpful!
I once thought of being a Republican, but I couldn't flunk the IQ test low enough to qualify.
Just thinking about becoming an R is guaranteed to lower your IQ by 30 points. By writing this, mine has gone down by 10.
I Laughed Out Loud. Actually!
I agree the Democrats are on the offensive and when I sit back and think about it, they are in on the offensive because they are leading from strength having delivered many successful programs and have effectively demonstrated what good government looks like. I think the Democrats in addition to pushing Republicans on Social Security should adopt a slogan when the bogus Hunter Biden hearings and comments are made. That slogan should be repeated daily “ What about Jared? The Kushner story and the 2 Billion dollar payout is easier for voters to believe and understand than the unsubstantiated Hunter laptop story of a non government employee.
Remember the “ show and tell” programs in school when you were a kid? The Democrats should show Americans all the infrastructure projects (roads, bridges, dams , and utilities) that are currently being implemented in towns and cities all over America and have local representatives on local television showing pictures of these projects. These projects are employing local citizens and Democrats need to focus on what is happening now. A picture is worth a thousand words.
When we say What about Jared? We are not engaging in the what about-ism that excuses bad behavior because other people do it. This is a case of the committee saying “We exist to investigate wrongdoing. Only the Biden side does anything wrong, so that’s who we investigate. Got it? Jared does not merit investigation because he is not a Biden, is he?”
Want to permanently resolve the gqp issues with Social Security? Simple. Remove and end the slackers’ special congressional retirement pension plan and put them into the SSI system. I am disgusted and tired of the high pay and expense to pay for these feckless bastards.
Here is some of what we pay for:
Health Benefits. ...
Dental and Vision Benefits. ...
Flexible Spending Accounts. ...
Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) ...
Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) ...
Flexible Work Arrangements. ...
Commuting Assistance. ...
Annual and Sick Leave
That is just the tip of the iceberg. Add in mail, meals, limos, travel and staff cost….tens of billions of dollars.
Want to reduce government spending? Let them start at home and cut the congressional budget. Maybe then the republicans can find their way to raise the debt ceiling to pay for what they have spent.
Or, as Jackie Mason said, put them on commission.
😷 I have worn a mask whenever I go out. 🤞🏽I haven’t had a cold, flu or Covid since Covid lockdown.🤞🏽
Same with my husband and I, and we are fully vaxed vs Covid and flu.
There is evidence mask protect against cold, flu and other not so nice bugs.
Would anyone want the medical personnel in the operating room to be unmasked during THEIR surgery?
Yes. I think of that every time someone claims masks are useless. If they were, why would they be required in operating rooms?
This is the best!
Happy Valentine's Day everyone.
May I raise a completely off-topic comment? This concerns Kevin McCarthy and Bibi Netanyahu. The controversy in Israel about the Supreme Court shows, as does the appointment of the Special House Committee on weaponization, that a parliamentary form of government, while theoretically prone to compromise, can operate in exactly the opposite way. When voting is close, it hands a far-out minority to wield enormous power if a would-be leader has no principles of his own. Wing nuts like Gaetz, Greene and Jordan, just like the far right in Israel, would have no support in an election of all voters, yet can call the shots when their votes will give a power-hungry would-be leader a victory.
Parliamentary systems do have serious drawbacks in that the majority party rules the country. The Prime Minister and cabinet are unassailable until the next election. A minority government has two choices. Work with a third small party or call an election. Since election dates are not fixed, both options are doable.
I fully believe that the GOP's genuine intentions regarding S.S. were let out of the bag by Senator Rick Scott. I wonder if Scalise's remarks are in regard to the Disability programs which were shoved into S.S., and have nothing to do with a "retirement" program per se. I think there would be a case funding-wise for separating the disability programs from S.S. Retirement contributions would best be dedicated strictly for retirement purposes.
I would not however trust the wrecking crew of the GOP to be involved in any overhaul, anymore than I would want them involved in a Constitutional Convention.
Didn’t MBS make an investment in Kushner’s private equity fund, not a loan?
yes; you are correct.
Far be it from me to defend Steve Scalise but I don’t think he is quite making the argument you think he is. The argument you think he’s making is self-evidently absurd even to MAGA-heads, so why would he think it will gain traction with them?
Because that’s not what he means. I think his argument is that we can “strengthen Social Security” by cutting social service spending on all “the undeserving poor” by forcing THEM to work more for their paltry checks, saving “the gummint” money which will be available to fund Social Security.
Of course, that’s not how it works either. That’s just another mean-spirited way of appealing to MAGA-loving seniors by attacking the poor. Any money saved by such cuts could be spent anywhere the “gummint” decides: defense, cops, tax reductions for the wealthy, fraud and waste. There is no mechanism to fund Social Security and Medicare from government revenues except FICA taxes on employees and employers.
Actually, upon reading Josh Marshall today, it appears that they actually DO want to impose work requirements on some (unspecified) set of SS recipients. See https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/three-quarters-of-house-gops-endorsed-social-security-cuts-last-year#more-1448176. Marshall points to a “Blueprint to Save America” that 75% of the House GOP signed onto in 2022.
It’s a complicated hash of verbiage that has been given little scrutiny much less been reduced to legislation. No doubt millions of holes could be poked in it and someone may try to do so, but our main point is that SS ain’t broke so why try to fix it, and if more money is needed at some point, get it from increasing payroll taxes on the wealthy.
A friend sent an article from Mercola about the Cochrane Report. I decided I needed to educate myself. Here is what they actually said, "The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.... There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited" https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full
That is indeed what the Cochrane authors say about their own study. And if you read the Real Clear Science article, you will see that Cochrane used only population based studies that suffered from horrendous implementation and compliance issues in temrs of mask wearing. So if you study a population to see if masks are effective, and the popolation takes off their masks to eat in restaurants, talk to friends at social gatherings, you are testing compliance, not the effectiveness of masks themselves. As the Real Clear Science article demonstrates, when you test individuals who wear masks properly, they show a dramatic decrease in infection.
Also, Mercola is the #1 disinformation source on the internet regarding Covid. He promotes ivermectin, hydroxochloriquine, etc.
When are journalists going to go back to class? I remember being taught in school that there was an expected format for articles. The first paragraph was supposed to be something of an abstract for the rest of the article, with the body of the article expanding on the theme and presenting evidence or facts. It would end with some sort of summary or conclusion. Many people don't read past the first paragraph if they make it past the headline (which is why misleading headlines are such a bad thing).
Presenting the conclusions of a poorly done metadata study in the introduction of an article without a clear denunciation of the methodology is an example of a poorly constructed article at the least. It's actively spreading misinformation as well.