Friday, February 19, 2010

Will They Raise the Retirement Age to 91?

That seems to be the implication of a comment made by Alan Simpson, who along with Erskine Bowles, are the tag team that President Obama has appointed to deal with the growing deficit.

These two characters seem to think the only way the deficit problem can be solved is by increasing taxes or cutting back on Social Security payouts. There is very little coming out of their mouths about cutting the number of Federal government employees or cutting back on the wars being fought. Nope. They are just thinking about taking it out of the hides of the people.

From the tax angle, these guys are really hyping a value added tax.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend, they said:
..they would consider a consumption or value-added tax as a way of stemming federal debt.

“I’m just game for anything” and “we going to have to slay sacred cows,” said Simpson.

“A value-added tax -- I’ve looked at lots of them -- ought to be something that’s on the table,” Bowles said.
Simpson comes off as a total elitist S.O.B. during the interview, damn the voters. At one point, according to Bloomberg, he says:
...while voters would have some sense of the panel’s proposals before the November midterm elections, “we don’t dare put out a report before Election Day or it’ll be total cremation and we’ll have to move to the top of Mount Somewhere -- Erskine and I -- somewhere living up there like hermits.”
That's right, the S.O.B's are going to wait until after the mid-term elections to drop the real bombshells. Keep that in mind this November, if you haven't kicked the voting habit.

So how bad could the bombshells get? Real bad. Not only is a VAT in the air, but Simpson and Bowles seem to think that Social Security really is government money that should be paid out sparingly to the people. Get a load of this:
They said the panel would consider changes to the Social Security retirement system, including possibly raising the age when beneficiaries can begin receiving benefits.

“The thing was set up when the life expectancy was 57 -- that’s why they set the retirement at 65,” said Simpson. “Now the average life span is 80, 83 -- it can’t work.”

“If we’re going to get to the Promised Land, everything had got to be on the table or there won’t be money for Social Security,” Bowles said. “This debt is like a cancer.”
Taking Simpson's point to its logical current day extrapolation, Simpson is saying that Social Security wasn't meant to be paid out to all the people, only to the select long term survivors. It appears fine to him that the retirement age was originally set 8 years ABOVE life expectancy. He states that life expectancy is now 80, 83. If he wants to set the Social Security age as he said it was originally set, 8 years above life expectancy, he's thinking of setting the retirement age for Social Security to between 88 and 91 years of age.

Will the retirement age get that high? I doubt it. Simpson would like to, but he would never get away with stealing people's retirement money in such an obvious fashion. But it shows you the direction in which these two mental midgets are thinking, along with the other big governmnet thinkers. They are forcing you into a "retirement" program where ideally you never get to retire.

It's time to change the debate about lowering the deficit from one about taking money out of the hides of the people, and changing it to a debate of cutting and cutting and cutting government, itself, way down to size. First to be laid off should be Simpson and Bowles for lack of creative thinking and attempted theft from "the people."

10 comments:

  1. Guess what won't get taxed, nonprofit 527's, political organizations that pay for ads pushing candidates positions.

    But nonprofit community hospitals will likely make the list, especially given health reform's renaming them "private tax exempt facilities."

    Meanwhile HCA borrows millions to pay a $1.75 billion special dividend to its PEU investors.

    Bowles owns $900,000 in Cousins Properties and Morgan Stanley stock. Where will he come down on capital gains?

    He founded Carousel Capital, a private equity firm. Will he hold the Private Equity Council position on carried interest taxation?

    This pair of elites will issue code so corporate leaders can strategize.

    Votes are now a necessary inconvenience for Machiavellian leaders.

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  2. "mental midgets"? lol! I'm sure the idea of cutting the size of the feds gets a good round of yucks in their meetings.

    And once SSI outgo exceeds income then there's always the surplus to tap, right? That should last at least.... um, well, never mind; guess there really is a downside to stealing money from future recipients.

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  3. Erskine Bowles has plans. Obama's appointing him co-chair of the deficit commission should increase the offers.

    This is from a piece on his retirement from UNC:

    Bowles said he's exploring several options for his future but he emphatically ruled out another run for public office, saying he has no interest in partisan politics.

    http://www.wral.com/news/education/story/7014608/

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  4. END the damned endless wars around the world, and STOP sending our tax dollars to Israel and there would be plenty of funds to end the deficit. But that's too reasonable to be considered by this gang of murderers.

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  5. WOW! Talk about "bate and switch" not to mention fraud. S&B's "solution" is to create/continue a retirement service designed to avoid paying retirement benefits.

    The criminal class of politicians has no shame. Stop rewarding them. STOP VOTING

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  6. The US could cut military spending by 85% and still be spending more than any other country. And that's not including the CIA and all the other black ops spending. That's around 700 billion a year they could not be wasting.

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  7. Don't stop voting. Vote Green Party. maybe we should all stop paying taxes....starve the beast, at least until we are represented again.

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  8. Here is a letter to the editor that I sent to my local newspaper:

    Erskine Bowles, one of President Obama’s co-chairs of the federal debt reduction commission, said recently that “everything is on the table”, regarding ways to reduce the deficit. The Pentagon currently operates four luxury resorts; in Germany, Korea, Hawaii and Orlando, Florida. What is the likelihood that funding for those taxpayer-funded boondoggles will be cut? The Department of Defense also maintains over 200 golf courses around the world. You think any of those will be eliminated? Can you imagine the outrage if the Department of Education owned even one golf course? How about the 737 military bases that we maintain in countries around the world – do you think any of those will be scrutinized for closure? Instead, the programs that are already being targeted for reduction or privitization are Medicare and Social Security, which millions of Americans rely on for health care or as their sole source of income in their retirement years.

    The American people have been bamboozled into believing that all military spending is sacrosanct and that if we don’t spend over half of the federal budget on so-called “defense”, our country will be overrun by godless heathens who will take away our freedoms. Nothing could be further from the truth. What is the truth is that it is not Social Security and Medicare that created these massive federal deficits. In fact, Social Security has been running a surplus that for years has been used to mask the true size of the gaping hole in our government’s operating budget created by out-of-control military spending and unnecessary tax give-aways to wealthy people who didn’t need them. So, it should not be Social Security and Medicare that are now cut to reduce the budgetary imbalances caused by our immoral and misguided priorties.

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  9. You could cut 50% of government employees (local, state and federal) and 90% of the populace wouldn't notice the difference. Bring the troops home, shut down foreign military bases and dismantle all Federal agencies created since 1900. The alternative is hyperinflation or bankruptcy on a scale never seen before.

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  10. If you want to reduce the size of government, stop supporting it. If you don't ike my suggestion to stop voting and are not ready to risk not paying taxes...then maybe we need to Go On STRIKE...

    Minimize your tax generating activities and stop participating in the political process...

    Expecting politicians to reduce government is like expecting the sun to stop being hot. It will happen eventually but only after we are all dead!

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