Social Security And The Democratic Party

Easily adapted for American use

Oldham East-Saddleworth is a swing district in northwest England. Labour won there, barely, in last year's General Election, beating the LibDem candidate by 103 votes-- 14,186 to 14,083 (with the Conservatives taking 11,773). Thursday's by-election for the same seat was the first time British voters have been able to express themselves, as voters, since the Conservative-LibDem coalition came to power and started to implement an austerity program that drastically cuts back on working families (especially in healthcare, energy policy and education) while benefiting the wealthy. As we said yesterday, their program isn't as draconian as what the reactionary Republicans in the U.S. are going for, but it's very similar to what Obama is attempting and what we call the "Conservative Consensus." Thursday the Labour Party margin of victory swelled from 103 votes to 3,558 votes, and the Conservatives just vanished as a credible force, their share of the vote dropping from 26.4% in the general to a mere 12.8% this week. The Conservatives did do better than the Pirate Party and the Loony Party. Two more by-elections, in Leicester South and Barnsley Central, will be fought in the next few months, and if Labour wipes the floor with the Conservative-LibDem coalition, as is expected, it could slow down David Cameron's mad rush to cut everything in sight.

Meanwhile on this side of the Atlantic, the Conservative Consensus is still flying high, if slightly under the radar of ordinary Americans, who are still being misled by Fox News and Hate Talk Radio that Obama is a raging socialist rather than a dedicated Wall Street shill. That could start to change as the battle over Social Security heats up and Obama unmasks himself as... just another Paul Ryan. Most progressives in DC are still clinging to unfounded hope that Obama will come through in the end, but they are clearly delusional.

A broad coalition of labor unions and liberal groups has launched an intense lobbying campaign directed at the White House in advance of President Obama’s State of the Union address.

These groups are concerned about Obama’s taciturn response to the proposal by his fiscal commission to gradually increase the retirement age and use a different calculation for cost-of-living adjustments.

Coalition partners held a conference call with liberal bloggers on Thursday afternoon to expand the public-relations campaign directed at the White House and Congress.

The Strengthen Social Security Campaign includes more than 200 member groups such as the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SEIU, Campaign for America’s Future, National Women’s Law Center, USAction and MoveOn.org.

"Many of the groups were members of the Health Care for America Now campaign that worked alongside Obama to push healthcare reform through Congress," but didn't learn, despite the giveaways to Big Pharma and the disastrous betrayal of single-payer or even a public option that Obama is fighting, effectively, on the other side of the barricades. These respectable liberal establishment groups are worried that Obama is even more likely now-- with Republicans in control of the House and a bipartisan majority of conservatives wielding power in the Senate, and the 2012 reelection campaign barreling down the pike-- that Obama will set the terms of a "Grand Compromise" with the far right with a deal, a dreadful and destructive deal, to boost the retirement age, already rising to 67 by 2027, and a change in cost-of-living adjustments.

“Everybody and their cousin is talking to the White House about this,” said a Democratic strategist involved in the lobbying campaign. “Nobody in the progressive world thinks the president ought to endorse the Bowles-Simpson Social Security stuff. People feel very strong about it and have been working it very hard.

“No one knows for sure where the White House is,” said the strategist. “Social Security has been the crown jewel of progressive policy over the last century. Just because so many people voted for the
Bowles-Simpson plan and Obama hasn’t said anything specifically about the Social Security recommendations, groups are doing an all-out push.”

...Bowles and Simpson have called for the retirement age to go up to 68 by 2050 and 69 by 2075 to account for “increasing life expectancy.”

But Kingson argues that while the life expectancy of elites earning high incomes has increased, that is not true for low-income workers.

“How do you tell people in the midst of a recession that the elites in Washington, the talking heads, say we have to raise the retirement age because the life expectancy is longer for elites, but for many of us it’s not longer?” Kingson said.

Many low-income workers opt to retire before the age of 65 because of health problems or difficulty finding steady employment, he noted.

The coalition has sent e-mails to members asking them to contact the White House and asking Obama to keep the promise of Social Security by not cutting benefits.

"In late January, President Obama will make his annual State of the Union address. It is important that he use the speech to send a clear message to those who want to cut Social Security-- Hands Off!" stated an e-mail sent this week.

“Nobody knows what the president is going to do on Social Security,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future. “It’s a huge question for people like me who are strong supporters of Social Security.”

Hickey warned that if Obama embraced the Bowles-Simpson recommendations for Social Security, it would “split the Democratic Party.”

Other liberals warn that it would hurt Obama’s chances for reelection in 2012 and would alienate senior voters from Democratic candidates.

Which is all well and good; he should be judged by his policies. But the fear is that he will also drag down more Democrats in the House, Senate and state legislatures with a negative coattail effect. Disappointed and disillusioned Democrats by the millions stayed away from the polls during the recent midterms because of a perception that Democratic policies were almost as conservative as Republicans' and it just didn't pay to vote. Over half the venal right-wing Blue Dog caucus was defeated in the midterms, having spent all of 2009 and 2010 voting with the Republicans on every item meant to benefit working families. Virulent anti-family Blue Dogs and fellow travelers-- like Bobby Bright (AL), Travis Childers (MS), Artur Davis (AL), Walt Minnick (ID), Jim Marshall (GA), Glenn Nye (VA), Frank Kratovil (MD), Melissa Bean (IL), Charlie Melancon (LA), Michael McMahon (NY), Betsy Markey (CO), John Adler (NJ), John Salazar (CO), Suzanne Kosmas (FL), Allen Boyd (FL), Zach Space (OH), Gene Taylor (MS), Chris Carney (PA), Baron Hill (IN), Lincoln Davis (TN), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), etc-- were defeated and swept from public office. They all deserved to be, but the tidal wave of revulsion against Democrats they created helped further destroy the Democratic brand and also caused defeats, tragically, for a handful of pro-family Democrats like Alan Grayson (FL), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH), Carol Shea Porter (NH), Phil Hare (IL), and Steve Kagen (WI). Democrats will either be the party voters see as having saved Social Security from the Republicans (and Obama) or as the party that didn't have what it takes to stand up and protect the single most popular government program in history.

Bernie Sanders usually votes with the Democrats, although he's an Independent, the only one in the Senate. And he's as worried about Obama working with the Republicans against Social Security as we are at DWT, which explains our unstinting support for him. In a letter to El Presidente, he referred to what he called “worrisome reports” that Obama is considering cuts in Social Security. “I hope that information is wrong and that you will stand by your campaign promises to strengthen Social Security. I urge you once again to make it clear to the American people that under your watch we will not cut Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age or privatize this critical program.”

Let's remember that House Speaker John Boehner is always screaming about how the Social Security retirement age should be 70, and that compared with many Republicans, he's almost a moderate, since most of them would just like to abolish it entirely, the way their party did when it was first passed by New Deal Democrats 75 years ago. Fact of the matter is, the Social Security trust fund has a $2.6 trillion surplus, projected to increase to more than $4 trillion by 2023, and will be able to continue to pay every nickel owed to every eligible recipient for at least another 26 years, even without any remedies from Congress. 

“All of us want to work in a bipartisan manner when we can," Sanders said, "but needlessly cutting Social Security benefits when that has nothing to do with our deficit situation is not good public policy.” Like most people who voted for Obama for president, Sanders agreed with his statements during the campaign when he called Social Security “a fundamentally sound system” and dismissed as “not good policy options” proposals to cut benefits, raise the retirement age or increase taxes on all workers. To strengthen Social Security in the future, Sanders, like DWT, supports an idea Obama voiced last fall when he broached the possibility of raising a cap on earnings subject to the payroll taxes. Earnings of more than $106,800 currently are not taxed for Social Security. That cap should be abolished, and rich people should pay their fair share just like everyone else.

“Our Republican colleagues have long opposed Social Security not because it hasn’t worked, but because of ideological reasons. Despite its extraordinary success, they simply believe that government should not be involved in providing retirement benefits to seniors, or supporting the disabled or widows or orphans. They would prefer Wall Street and the private sector do that. But that has not been your position,” the senator wrote to the president, “and that is not the promise you made to the American people.”