Top Senate Democrat backs Medicare, Social Security cuts
WHO ARE MEXICO and OBAMA’S LA RAZA GANG of 8?
TWO OF THESE CLOWNS ARE FROM ARIZONA, A STATE
OVERRUN BY MEXICANS AND THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS.
LA RAZA WELFARE IN THIS STATE ALONE COMES TO
BILLIONS AND THEY ARE THE CAUSE OF MOST CRIMES!
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John McCain (R-Ariz.),
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Jeff Flake (R- Ariz.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick
Durbin (D-Ill.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Michael Bennet (D-Co.) comprise the
Gang of Eight.
ALSO FOR OBAMA’S AMNESTY HOAX IS
Top Senate Democrat
backs Medicare, Social Security cuts.....PAYING FOR THE LA RAZA MEXICAN WELFARE STATE in AMERICA
By Patrick Martin
21 October 2013
The number two
Democrat in the US Senate called Sunday for urgent action to reduce future
federal spending on Social Security and Medicare. “If we don’t focus on health
care and dealing with the entitlements,” Senator Dick Durbin warned, “the baby
boom generation is going to blow away our future.”
Durbin appeared on
Fox News Sunday to deliver his right-wing message, blaming the mounting federal
deficit on the older generation of working people, not on the impact of the
Wall Street financial crash, tax cuts for the wealthy, or the vast cost of
American imperialism’s wars.
“Social Security is
going to run out of money in 20 years,” Durbin declared. “I want to fix it now,
before we reach that cliff. Medicare may run out of money in 10 years, let’s
fix it now. And that means addressing the skyrocketing cost of health care.
That’s what ObamaCare is focused on, and yet, the Republicans want nothing to
do with it.”
The Illinois senator,
who has close relations with the Obama White House, was only one of a
half-dozen Washington power brokers who used appearances on Sunday television
interview programs to make the case for “entitlement reform.”
This is the
saccharine media label for brutal cuts in Social Security and Medicare, on
which more than 50 million retired and disabled people depend to pay their
bills and meet their health needs.
Targeting these
programs—which are overwhelmingly popular with the American public—has been the
real purpose of the budget and debt maneuvers in Washington, including the
16-day federal shutdown and the artificial crisis over the October 17 deadline
for a default on federal debt, narrowly averted by legislation pushed through
the House and Senate with only hours to spare.
Others who sounded
the same theme Sunday included Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, who appeared on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” Asked what he
hoped President Obama would do now that the immediate funding crisis was past,
McConnell said, “My first choice would be to take advantage of the opportunity
presented by a divided government. You know, divided government has frequently
done very, very important things.”
He cited as examples
Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill collaborating with Republican President
Ronald Reagan to raise the age of eligibility for Social Security and
Democratic President Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress collaborating to
carry out “welfare reform”—eliminating the federal aid program entirely—and
balancing the federal budget.
McConnell declared,
“We all know that the unsustainable growth rate of entitlements is the single
biggest challenge confronting America’s future… We currently have a $17
trillion national debt, and that pales in comparison to what’s coming our way
if we don’t make the eligibility for entitlements fit the demographics of
America today and tomorrow.”
Another Republican
Senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, appearing on the same program,
called on Obama to “give Democrats some political cover to reform
entitlements.”
Democratic Senator
Mark Warner of Virginia, who appeared side-by-side with Graham, chimed in: “We
all know at the end of the day, Republicans are going to have to give on
revenues, Democrats are going to have to give on entitlement reform.”
The bill ending the
shutdown, at least until January 15, and postponing the debt default until
February or later, also called for the convening of a House-Senate conference
committee on the federal budget, co-chaired by Democratic Senator Patty Murray
and Republican Congressman Paul Ryan.
This committee is
tasked with drafting a budget for the balance of the current fiscal year, to be
submitted by December 13. It is widely expected to begin discussing cuts in
Social Security and Medicare, a significant first step even if there is not yet
bipartisan agreement on the exact measures to be taken.
The process must be
carried out in a concealed fashion because of the massive opposition among
working people to cuts in these programs—majorities of 70 and 80 percent,
according to opinion polls.
There is an
unbridgeable gulf between these mass sentiments and the 100 percent agreement
in favor of such cuts in the political establishment in Washington, among both
Democrats and Republicans. They engage in mutual mudslinging, combined with
pledges to defend these programs, mainly to disguise this developing consensus.
Obama and both the
Democrats and Republicans advance the Orwellian proposition that it is
necessary to slash benefits and eligibility in order to “save” Social Security
and Medicare.
The unanimity in
ruling class circles was underscored by two prominent media voices. Columnist
George Will, appearing on Fox, gloated about the right-wing character of the
budget talks. “We are now talking entirely in Republican terms, in Republican
vocabulary after this so-called defeat,” he said. “No taxes, how much is the
spending going to be cut? The federal workforce is being cut, discretionary
domestic spending is being cut…”
The Washington
Post, in an editorial headlined, “The fiscal bargain America needs,” argued
that a bipartisan deal on slashing entitlement programs was now possible. It
called on Obama to drop any proposals for tax increases—entirely token in any
case—in order to reach a deal.
Like Durbin and
McConnell, the Post editorial presented Social Security and Medicare as
demographic impossibilities. It stated: “Ten years from now, the US government
will be spending $4 on entitlements for every dollar it spends on all other
domestic functions… In short, the costs of an aging society would crowd out
other vital national functions, while the country goes deeper into the red.”
None of these
spokesmen for the American financial aristocracy explains why the “costs of an
aging society” must be reduced. None of them question the present distribution
of wealth and social benefits, under which a tiny minority enjoys untold
riches, while the vast majority struggle from paycheck to paycheck, or, in the
case of the retired, from Social Security check to Social Security check.
They simply assert a
proposition that has deeply reactionary implications: that the elderly should
live shorter and poorer lives, because in the richest society in human history,
there is supposedly “no money.”
*
I GUESS
WHEN DICK DURBIN ISN’T PUSHING FOR BENEFITS FOR ILLEGALS, HE’S HELPING OBAMA
ORCHESTRATE THE TRANSFER OF THE COST OF THEIR WALL ST. PAYMASTERS’ RAPE AND
PILLAGE OF A NATION ON TO OUR BACKS… AS USUAL.
The six senators include the number
two Democrat, Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois, as well as Senate
Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Mark Warner of Virginia,
a telecommunications multi-millionaire, is the third Democrat.
AMNESTY….LA
RAZA IS PRINTING OUT FRAUD I.D.s BY THE MILLIONS.
"They hauled them down to the
border," Sakuma said. "Three days later, they were standing in our office,
but they had a different name and a different Social Security number."
Wall Street celebrated the increasing scale of the proposed
budget cuts, from both the Senate and the House, with the Dow Jones Industrial
Average soaring 202 points Tuesday, its best showing of 2011. The Dow began to
rise sharply just after Obama made an unexpected appearance in the White House
pressroom to declare his support for the Gang of Six effort.
Democrats,
Republicans vow trillions in US spending cuts
By
Patrick Martin
21 July 2011
Talks on raising the federal debt
ceiling resumed at the White House Wednesday, as leaders of both the Democratic
and Republican parties declared their support for rival measures that would
slash trillions from Social Security, Medicare and other vital federal social
programs.
President Obama summoned
congressional leaders to the White House, saying it was time to “talk turkey”
on a plan to avert a default on the federal debt next month, when the Treasury
projects that it will be unable to pay all the bills that fall due, beginning
with Social Security checks set to go out August 3.
The framework for the bipartisan
budget talks continues to shift to the right, in the wake of Obama’s decision
to put Social Security on the table and propose overall cuts even greater than
those initially demanded by the Congressional Republicans.
In the Senate, a bipartisan group of
three Democrats and three Republicans, dubbed the “Gang of Six,” resumed its
efforts to craft a budget-cutting deal, releasing a proposal Tuesday backed by
all six senators. Conservative Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma left the group
in May, but he returned after the three Democrats agreed to his demand for $117
billion in additional cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.
The brief four-page outline proposed
by the Gang of Six was presented to a bipartisan group of 49 senators, 25
Democrats and 24 Republicans, nearly half the total membership of the upper
house. It calls for $3.7 trillion in spending cuts over ten years, and $1
trillion in “additional revenue,” defined in such a way that net taxes on the
wealthy will decrease, not increase, in the long term. The tax rates on corporations
and the wealthy would be significantly cut as part of the deal.
Like proposals from Republicans in
the House of Representatives, and Obama’s proposal for a “big deal” pegged at
$4 trillion in deficit reduction, the Gang of Six plan is notably light on detail.
All factions in the official budget debate are clearly reluctant to spell out
exactly what programs will be cut and for who, for fear of the mass opposition
from the American people such a declaration would inevitably provoke.
The Gang of Six proposal calls for
an immediate $500 billion in deficit reduction, with an additional $3.2
trillion allotted to various areas—healthcare, transportation, the military,
agriculture, etc.—but with the actual selection of programs to be left to the
congressional committees with jurisdiction over those departments.
The plan proposes to hold the growth
of spending on Medicare and Medicaid to the rate of inflation plus 1 percent,
although healthcare costs have been rising much faster than that for decades.
It also calls for changes in Social Security that would require a 60-vote
super-majority, and without that, the entire plan would be voided.
The six senators include the number
two Democrat, Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois, as well as Senate
Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Mark Warner of Virginia,
a telecommunications multi-millionaire, is the third Democrat. The three
Republicans include Coburn, Mike Crapo of Idaho, and Saxby Chambliss of
Georgia.
Durbin admitted that the group’s
plan could not be drafted as legislation in time to meet the debt ceiling
deadline August 2. He described it as a concept, saying, “What we’re trying to
do is to build these concepts into a long-term debt-reduction” plan.”
President Obama hailed the Gang of
Six proposal while at the same time admitting he had not even read it, but was
endorsing any effort based on a bipartisan agreement. “We have a Democratic
president and administration that is prepared to sign a tough package that
includes both spending cuts and modifications to Social Security, Medicaid and
Medicare,” he said, adding, “we now have a bipartisan group of senators” who
agree with such an approach.
The number three Republican in the
Senate, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, attended the unveiling of the Gang of Six
plan and gave his support, noting, “It helps that the three Republicans
senators are three of the most conservative” in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled
House of Representatives, where members had complained of being “outflanked” on
the right by Obama, sought to regain the initiative by passing Tuesday the most
draconian plan ever adopted by either house of Congress.
The “Cut, Cap and Balance”
legislation passed by a near party-line vote of 234 to 190. It would mandate
$5.8 trillion in unspecified spending cuts over the next ten years and require
adoption of a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget in return for
raising the federal debt ceiling.
The bill would cap overall spending
at the level of the long-term budget resolution adopted by the House in April,
which includes the phasing out of Medicare and its replacement by private
insurance, paid for by a federal voucher that would steadily decline in value
compared to the actual cost of the insurance, shifting ever-greater costs to
the elderly.
The constitutional amendment would
enshrine a privileged position for the wealthy in the US Constitution, by
requiring a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress to raise taxes, while
only a simple majority would suffice to cut spending on social programs on
which tens of millions of working people depend.
This legislation cannot pass the
Democratic-controlled Senate, and Obama has repeatedly said he would veto the
bill. The whole purpose of the exercise was to allow the House Republicans to
reclaim a position on spending cuts to the right of Obama—and to allow
ultra-right Republicans linked to the Tea Party movement to posture before they
bow to the demands of Wall Street and raise the federal debt ceiling.
Wall Street celebrated the increasing scale of the proposed
budget cuts, from both the Senate and the House, with the Dow Jones Industrial
Average soaring 202 points Tuesday, its best showing of 2011. The Dow began to
rise sharply just after Obama made an unexpected appearance in the White House
pressroom to declare his support for the Gang of Six effort.
White House spokesman Jay Carney
revealed a significant shift in Obama’s position on the process to be used to
raise the debt ceiling, indicating that Obama was no longer refusing to sign a
short-term extension of the debt ceiling, provided that there was agreement on
a larger deficit reduction package and the purpose of an extension was to give
Congress time to enact it.
“The president has been clear that
he will not support a short-term extension of the debt ceiling,” White House
spokesman Jay Carney said. “What we mean by that is we would not support a
short-term extension absent an agreement to a larger deal. That’s not
acceptable. Obviously, if both sides agree to something significant, we will
support the measures needed to finalize the details of that.”
The clear purpose of this maneuver
is to open the door to a deal along the lines of the Gang of Six proposal,
which has not yet been rejected by the House Republicans. As a stopgap measure,
the White House is backing the McConnell-Reid plan, which would give Obama the
power to raise the debt ceiling August 2, while requiring up to $1.5 trillion
in spending cuts.
There is still no resolution in the
congressional deadlock, with House Republicans opposing any measure that would
raise taxes on the wealthy, no matter how minor, and a substantial minority
questioning whether breaching the debt ceiling would actually produce a broader
financial crisis.
House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan
praised the Gang of Six proposal for lowering the tax rate for the wealthy from
35 percent to 29 percent, as well as lowering corporate tax rates, but he
complained that it did not sufficiently cut healthcare spending.
Meanwhile the debt rating agency
Moody’s Investor Services put additional pressure on US public finances, naming
five states—Maryland, New Mexico, Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina—for
potential downgrades because of their heavy reliance on federal revenues.
“Should the U.S. government’s rating be downgraded to Aa1 or lower, these five
states’ ratings would likely be downgraded as well,” Moody’s announced Tuesday.
Under Boehner: Debt Up $3T In Under 3 Yrs--Enough to Buy Every Household 3 Yrs Tuition at State College | CNS News
THE OBAMA and LA RAZA CONSPIRACY to Build the Democrat party with illegals, keep wages depressed with more illegals, and destroy the GOP with even hordes of illegals!
“While DeMint says the Heritage Foundation is supportive of the concept of immigration reform, he characterizes the current compromise as “blanket amnesty.”
Giving Illegals Access to Welfare ‘An Assault on the U.S. Taxpayer,’ Researcher Says
May 29, 2013
Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation
NEXT TO DRUGS, MEXICO’S BIGGEST EXPORTS IS POVERTY, CRIMINALS and ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS = 18 YEARS OF GRINGO-PAID WELFARE!
The danger, as Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson argues, is that of “importing poverty” in the form of a new underclass—a permanent group of working poor… AMNESTY IS ONLY ABOUT KEEPING WAGES FOR LEGALS DEPRESSED!
Heritage: Amnestied Illegals Will Get $9.4T in Benefits; Increase Debt $6.3T'
what is the REAL cost of all that “CHEAP” Mexican labor? Add it up and then factor in the MEXICAN CRIME TIDAL WAVE and the fact that the MEXICAN now operate in 2,500 American cities!
more at this link – post on your Facebook and email broadcast
NEXT TO DRUGS, MEXICO’S BIGGEST EXPORTS IS POVERTY, CRIMINALS and ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS = 18 YEARS OF GRINGO-PAID WELFARE!
The danger, as Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson argues, is that of “importing poverty” in the form of a new underclass—a permanent group of working poor… AMNESTY IS ONLY ABOUT KEEPING WAGES FOR LEGALS DEPRESSED!
Heritage: Amnestied Illegals Will Get $9.4T in Benefits; Increase Debt $6.3T'
what is the REAL cost of all that “CHEAP” Mexican labor? Add it up and then factor in the MEXICAN CRIME TIDAL WAVE and the fact that the MEXICAN now operate in 2,500 American cities!
more at this link – post on your Facebook and email broadcast
OBAMA’S AMNESTY HOAX TO LEGALIZE MEXICO’S LOOTING and EXPAND THE LA RAZA MEX WELFARE STATE OFF THE BACKS OF MIDDLE AMERICA.
HERE ARE THE DEVASTATING FIGURES OBAMA and the DEMOCRAT PARTY DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW!!!
more at this link – post on your Facebook and email broadcast
Amnesty's price: $12,433 (PASSED OVER TO AMERICANS IN TAXES!) for every legalized immigrant household
GOP: OBAMA’S AMNESTY HANDOUT WILL COST THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS BILLIONS!
more at this link – post on your Facebook and email broadcast