“The GOP War On Christmas”: Compassionate Conservatism Is As Much An Oxymoron As “Free Agency” In The Sports World
Most of us will eat a great dinner Thursday and we have a lot to be thankful for. But many Americans won’t have much to eat on Thanksgiving or any other day for that matter.
The Boston Globe recently profiled Lurinda DaRosa, a single mother of two children who lives in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Lurinda had a job but unfortunately she hasn’t been able to work since she had heart surgery.
Before November 1st, Lurinda received $66 in federal nutrition benefits every month. You can imagine it’s not easy to feed three people on that kind of budget. Don’t try it at home. A gallon of milk at the local supermarket costs $2.99. You can do the math, so you can imagine how tough it was for Lurinda and her children when her federal food assistance allowance dropped to $37 a month effective November 1. The allowance for the DaRosa family and millions of other Americans decreased because House Republicans refused to extend the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits that were part of the Economic Recovery Act.
Whatever happened to compassionate conservatism anyway? These days, compassionate conservatism is as much an oxymoron as the phrase “free agency” in the sports world is.
Lucinda and her family will soon take another hit for the holidays from the GOP Grinch who stole Christmas. The deadline for a new federal budget agreement is 10 days before Christmas. The Republican budget proposal is Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” which is a path to poverty for millions of Americans. Under the Ryan budget there will an additional $39 billion in cuts in nutrition assistance for people like Lurinda and her kids over the next 10 years. Good luck with that.
Forty-seven million Americans were on the wrong end of the cuts that just went into effect. Thirty-seven million of the people who suffered the cuts were women and children. The cut took food out of the mouths of babes. And Republicans wonder why so few women vote for them anymore. Ten million of the recipients of the reduced allotments were seniors. A million veterans were also at the wrong end of the budget axe – I hope they didn’t build up too much of an appetite fighting for our freedom. Thank you for your service.
Meanwhile President Obama’s calls to congressional Republicans to cut the hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare fall on deaf ears. Big business has thousands of highly paid lobbyists in Washington. Hungry Americans just don’t have much clout in the capital.
The burden on federal taxpayers would be lighter if Republicans in the House of Representatives would follow the Senate’s example and vote to increase the minimum wage. The best Wal-Mart can do is to sponsor food drives for its workers. McDonald’s does its part by sending its workers a pamphlet on stretching their food dollar. If McDonald’s really wants to help, the fast food giant could pay its workers a living wage.
Conservatives trot out the Bible at the drop of a hat to justify their extremism. During the holiday season, they might want to check out Matthew 25:34-36. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.'”
This time of year, conservatives complain that liberals are trying to take Christ out of Christmas. One way for Republicans to put Christ back into Christmas would be practice a little Christian charity by voting against the Ryan budget next month.
By: Brad Bannon, U. S. News and World Report, November 26, 2013
“Expanding Social Security”: The Fiscal Scolds Driving The Cut-Social-Security Orthodoxy Have Deservedly Lost Credibility
For many years there has been one overwhelming rule for people who wanted to be considered serious inside the Beltway. It was this: You must declare your willingness to cut Social Security in the name of “entitlement reform.” It wasn’t really about the numbers, which never supported the notion that Social Security faced an acute crisis. It was instead a sort of declaration of identity, a way to show that you were an establishment guy, willing to impose pain (on other people, as usual) in the name of fiscal responsibility.
But a funny thing has happened in the past year or so. Suddenly, we’re hearing open discussion of the idea that Social Security should be expanded, not cut. Talk of Social Security expansion has even reached the Senate, with Tom Harkin introducing legislation that would increase benefits. A few days ago Senator Elizabeth Warren gave a stirring floor speech making the case for expanded benefits.
Where is this coming from? One answer is that the fiscal scolds driving the cut-Social-Security orthodoxy have, deservedly, lost a lot of credibility over the past few years. (Giving the ludicrous Paul Ryan an award for fiscal responsibility? And where’s my debt crisis?) Beyond that, America’s overall retirement system is in big trouble. There’s just one part of that system that’s working well: Social Security. And this suggests that we should make that program stronger, not weaker.
Before I get there, however, let me briefly take on two bad arguments for cutting Social Security that you still hear a lot.
One is that we should raise the retirement age — currently 66, and scheduled to rise to 67 — because people are living longer. This sounds plausible until you look at exactly who is living longer. The rise in life expectancy, it turns out, is overwhelmingly a story about affluent, well-educated Americans. Those with lower incomes and less education have, at best, seen hardly any rise in life expectancy at age 65; in fact, those with less education have seen their life expectancy decline.
So this common argument amounts, in effect, to the notion that we can’t let janitors retire because lawyers are living longer. And lower-income Americans, in case you haven’t noticed, are the people who need Social Security most.
The other argument is that seniors are doing just fine. Hey, their poverty rate is only 9 percent.
There are two big problems here. First, there are well-known flaws with the official poverty measure, and these flaws almost surely lead to serious understatement of elderly poverty. In an attempt to provide a more realistic picture, the Census Bureau now regularly releases a supplemental measure that most experts consider superior — and this measure puts senior poverty at 14.8 percent, close to the rate for younger adults.
Furthermore, the elderly poverty rate is highly likely to rise sharply in the future, as the failure of America’s private pension system takes its toll.
When you look at today’s older Americans, you are in large part looking at the legacy of an economy that is no more. Many workers used to have defined-benefit retirement plans, plans in which their employers guaranteed a steady income after retirement. And a fair number of seniors (like my father, until he passed away a few months ago) are still collecting benefits from such plans.
Today, however, workers who have any retirement plan at all generally have defined-contribution plans — basically, 401(k)’s — in which employers put money into a tax-sheltered account that’s supposed to end up big enough to retire on. The trouble is that at this point it’s clear that the shift to 401(k)’s was a gigantic failure. Employers took advantage of the switch to surreptitiously cut benefits; investment returns have been far lower than workers were told to expect; and, to be fair, many people haven’t managed their money wisely.
As a result, we’re looking at a looming retirement crisis, with tens of millions of Americans facing a sharp decline in living standards at the end of their working lives. For many, the only thing protecting them from abject penury will be Social Security. Aren’t you glad we didn’t privatize the program?
So there’s a strong case for expanding, not contracting, Social Security. Yes, this would cost money, and it would require additional taxes — a suggestion that will horrify the fiscal scolds, who have been insisting that if we raise taxes at all, the proceeds must go to deficit reduction, not to making our lives better. But the fiscal scolds have been wrong about everything, and it’s time to start thinking outside their box.
Realistically, Social Security expansion won’t happen anytime soon. But it’s an idea that deserves to be on the table — and it’s a very good sign that it finally is.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, November 22, 2013
“Raising The Medicare Age”: A Terrible Republican Idea Exposed As Even More Terrible
Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office came out with a report assessing the budgetary impact of something many conservatives have supported, raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. What they found was that the change would save far less money than had previously been assumed: only $19 billion over the next decade. The main reason is that many of the people no longer eligible for Medicare would be eligible for either Medicaid or insurance subsidies through the health exchanges, so the net effect on the federal budget would be small.
But more important than that, this is an opportunity to remind ourselves that when government is doing something worthwhile, doing less of it isn’t a good idea even if it saved a lot of money. And if cutting back only saves a modest amount of money, it’s a really bad idea. You know what else would save a lot of money? Eliminating the United States Navy. But I’m guessing that most conservatives think having a navy is a good thing. Medicare is a spectacular success, one of the greatest things this country has ever done. Letting fewer people get on it is like the Miami Heat saying, “We won the championship last year, so what we need to do now is get rid of LeBron James.”
Don’t forget, Medicare is more efficient and less expensive than private insurance. Let me repeat that: Medicare is more efficient and less expensive than private insurance. It costs less to administer, its costs have risen more slowly than those of private insurance, and its beneficiaries love it. I realize that these facts cause many conservatives to begin blinking rapidly as their brains threaten overload from the cognitive dissonance produced when they realize that there are places where a government program outperforms its private-sector counterparts. But it’s true.
Yes, Medicare’s costs are projected to rise greatly in the coming decades. But that isn’t because the program doesn’t work, it’s because of the high cost of health care in general, and because there are going to be a lot more old people. And not incidentally, there was one piece of legislation that found ways to save hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare’s future expenses. It was called the Affordable Care Act, and you may remember that Republicans didn’t think too highly of it. In fact, they even pretended to be terribly opposed to those very savings, falsely characterizing them as cuts to benefits. But instead they’d like to just make the program available to fewer seniors?
If you don’t let people get on Medicare when they’re 65, it isn’t as though they’ll just step into their suspended animation pods for two years and then pop out when they turn 67. Those people will have to get coverage from private insurers. That means they’ll be paying more out of their own pockets. And look, I realize that many conservatives believe that someone getting health insurance from the government is an inherently bad thing, no matter how well the program works. But it isn’t. When a senior goes on Medicare, it’s something to be celebrated. It isn’t free, but it’s government doing exactly what it ought to do.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, October 25, 2013
“Balking At Their Own Ideas”: The GOP Offers President Obama A Chained-CPI Off-Ramp
When Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee who’ll oversee his party’s 2014 midterm efforts, accused President Obama of waging “a shocking attack on seniors,” it took an enormous amount of chutzpah. At issue, of course, is a controversial proposal to change the way Social Security is indexed — the “chained-CPI” policy — that the White House does not like, but which Obama offered as a concession to congressional Republicans who demanded it.
In effect, Walden was condemning the president for his own party’s proposal. A day later, House Speaker John Boehner, one of the officials who demanded Obama put chained-CPI on the table, subtly rebuked Walden’s craven criticism.
But let’s not lose sight of the fact that Walden isn’t alone. Last week, Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) said he’s “not a fan” of the policy, and soon after, they had some company.
“The president is trying to say this draconian thing that no one likes is the Republicans’ fault,” Rep. James Lankford (Okla.), the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, told reporters on Friday.
“It’s not my plan,” Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) said about chained CPI. “This is the president’s plan.”
Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), a House Ways and Means Committee member, added, “I’m very sensitive to the fact that you’re impacting current seniors in particular. It’s something I’m very hesitant to jump up and down and support.”
The word “bullpucky” keeps coming to mind.
Yes, plenty of congressional Republicans, including members of the GOP leadership, have welcomed Obama’s offer — while refusing to point to any comparable concessions they’d accept, of course — so this isn’t a party-wide phenomenon.
But the larger point is that having even some congressional Republicans balk at their own idea offers the president an opportunity.
Remember, the White House doesn’t actually like chained-CPI. Obama freely admits he doesn’t want this policy, and only offered it because Republicans are such enthusiastic supporters of the idea. From the president’s perspective, he and his team are going to have to tolerate some measures they don’t like if there’s going to be a bipartisan compromise in which both sides accept concessions they would otherwise reject.
But over the course of just a few days, GOP lawmakers have called this policy — the one Republicans demanded — a “shocking attack on seniors,” a “draconian” policy, “the president’s plan.”
It is, of course, painfully absurd for the right to criticize Obama for doing exactly what Republicans asked him to do, but therein lies the point: there’s nothing stopping the president from simply walking away from the idea if the GOP has suddenly discovered they dislike their own proposal.
As I mentioned briefly last week, Obama, who doesn’t like chained-CPI anyway and realized his own party is furious, could credibly declare right now, “I thought Republicans wanted this policy. But if they consider this ‘a shocking attack on seniors,’ I’ll gladly drop the idea.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, April 15, 2013
“Victory For The Middle Class”: On Obamacare’s Third Birthday, There Are Already Reasons To Be Grateful
On March 23, 2010, Obamacare — formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — was signed into law by President Obama.
Three years later, the bulk of the first serious attempt at near-universal health care has not yet taken effect. Health marketplaces are still being formed, states are still deciding if they’ll take Medicaid expansion and the subsidies that will help tens of millions of Americans afford health care won’t roll out until January 1, 2014.
Implementing Obamacare won’t be easy, as even some of the biggest fans of the program admit. Expanding Medicare to cover all Americans would have to be an even simpler solution but a complete political impossibility — given that Joe Lieberman (I-CT), whose vote was necessary to pass the law, single-handedly vetoed a provision that would allow 55- to 64-year-olds to buy into Medicare. It’s a compromise solution that uses unpopular provisions — like the individual mandate — to achieve extremely popular results — ending lifetime limits and banning insurance companies from dropping patients once they become sick.
There will be plenty of time to debate the efficacy of Obamacare — especially with insurance companies enjoying record profits threatening to raise rates in order to justify changes to the law.
But right now we should celebrate the greatest victory for the middle class since Medicare and Medicaid. At its heart, Obamacare is a program that asks the rich and corporations to pay a little more to help working Americans get insurance they can count on, thus lowering the cost of health care for everyone. We already pay for each other’s health coverage, but just in the dumbest possible way — emergency rooms.
Here are five reasons to be grateful for Obamacare, which is already making life better for the middle class.
Obamacare Frees Workers And Entrepreneurs
One of the most popular aspects of Obamacare is that beginning in 2014, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny people coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Because insurance companies had been able to do this, many people avoided going to the doctor for fear of being diagnosed with a disease or condition that would brand them for the rest of their lives. Some stayed in jobs they didn’t want and others didn’t take the leap to start a new business for fear of not being able to get coverage. These changes especially free women — who by federal law can no longer be charged more for care because of their gender — to pursue new opportunities.
Insurance Companies Pay You Back
Insurance companies are required for the first time to prove that they’re spending between 80 and 85 percent of premiums, depending on the size of the company, on actual health care. If companies don’t spend that amount on coverage, they have to return that money to their customers — $1.2 billion was returned in 2012 to self-employed Americans whose insurers didn’t hit the proper ratio.
Millions Of Young People Already Covered
An estimated six million college students are already taking advantage of Obamacare’s provision that lets them stay on their parents’ insurance until the age of 26. This has led to a record drop in uninsured young people, allowing them to go back to school or pursue graduate degrees without taking on as much student loan debt.
Seniors Spend Less On Drugs
One of the most immediate benefits of Obamacare was the closing of the Medicare D prescription drug “donut hole,” which requires seniors to pay for the coverage gap between their deductible and yearly limit, at which point the plan covers all medication — $6.1 billion in drug coverage has already been distributed to seniors, which leads to the irony that Republicans ran and won in 2010 on saying that Obamacare cuts Medicare when, in fact, benefits for seniors have only increased. All the savings come from reforming the way providers are paid.
The Red States Get To Pay The Blue States Back
When the Supreme Court ruled that the mandate in Obamacare was Constitutional, it also gave states the chance to opt out of the Medicaid expansion that will provide free public health care for those not already on Medicaid, but who earn up to 133 percent of the poverty level. The states that are turning down the expansion, unfortunately, are some of those that need it the most. All of the states that have rejected the federal extra funding — which begins at 100 percent of the cost of the expansion and goes down to 90 percent — are states that generally vote Republican.
You probably know that most red states take in more federal money than they contribute, as Republican policies encourage growth of programs like food stamps. Though Republican governors can reject the benefits of Medicaid expansion, their richest citizens and corporations will still have to pay the taxes. As a result, they won’t be such “takers.”
Unfortunately, the working poor of red states — who earn too much to be on basic Medicaid — will suffer without the health insurance they need. Those on Medicare and Medicaid will likely see fewer doctors who want to accept clients from these programs, as Medicaid expansion was supposed to make up for the cut in reimbursement rates that begins in 2014. And all residents will not enjoy the slowdown in the growth of health care costs that will come from shrinking the number of the uninsured.
For red state governors, it’s a chance to fulfill the prophecies of doom Republicans made when Obamacare passed. But for residents of blue states, it’s a chance to make America’s health care system more equitable, with red states finally paying closer to their fair share.
By: Jason Sattler, The National Memo, March 22, 2013; Photo: The Advisory Board Company
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