I realize that in the first place Republican legislators did not want to hear about a Deficit Commission because they did not want to, under any circumstances, discuss the issue of incoming revenues to federal coffers as opposed to cutting every damned thing on the federal budget except for war and defense spending.
After a bit of wheeling and dealing, President Obama got his Commission after larding it with the supposedly fiscally-conservative likes of Alan Simpson and Kent Conrad (whom I cannot like even though he claims to be a Democrat) and Judd Gregg and Max Baucus (remember how he stigmatized the single payer people?) and Tom Coburn and Mike Crapo and Paul Ryan (for chrissake!) and others too loathsome to name;
Paul Ryan, Wisconsin, he of the ditzy Roadblock to America's Future, and the glitzy coiffure:
http://www.roadmap.republicans.budge...
After the last Simpson silliness, I was obliged to send a letter to the President, my Congressman, my two Senators:
At this time Social Security is healthy, well-funded, successful and popular.
But Commissioner Simpson on the Deficit Commission is suffering from an advanced case of dementia.
The proof? His comments on Social Security:
"We've reached a point now where it's like a milk cow with 310 million tits!"
"Where do you come up with all the crap you come up with? .... We’re trying to take care of the lesser people in society and do that in a way without getting into all the flash words you love dig up, like cutting Social Security, which is bullshit. We’re not cutting anything, we’re trying to make it solvent. .... It’ll go broke in the year 2037."
It is utterly stupid to recommend that retirement age be raised to 70 when we already have FAR TOO MANY JOBLESS PEOPLE IN THIS NATION.
What we should do is lower the retirement age to 55 so that more American young people can get jobs.
And we should stop allowing the criminally-mind right wing to frame Social Security as a program in crisis.
If our existing workers had not had their wages downsized by all the free trade agreements this country has signed, they would be paying more into FICA.
If necessary, reduce the work week to 35 hours to employ even more American workers.
Require that corporations doing business in this country hire Americans AND PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES INSTEAD OF INCORPORATING OFFSHORE TO AVOID TAXATION.
And, if you’re really worried about the future of Social Security, eliminate the FICA Income Cap.
Now, are you, my elected representative, ready to do business on MY BEHALF AND ON BEHALF OF AMERICAN WORKING PEOPLE, or are you going to listen to the senile babble of Alan Simpson?
In my desperation I stole all kinds of ideas and words from other people who have not been given credit for what they've added to the public debate. Alan Simpson has reduced me to a word and idea desperado.