Social Security to Start Paying Out More Than It Takes In (Again)
Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont received the first Social Security payment on January 31, 1940.
I have never had any expectations I that ever will collect Social Security … let’s see how Congress deals with this crisis (again). This entitlement system (from an accounting standpoint) sure does hope you die before you get old…
STEPHEN OHLEMACHER writes on the AP via Yahoo News:
PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.
It’s time to start cashing them in.
For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.
Not anymore. This year, for…
Obama Says Will Not Campaign for Any Democratic Congressmen Not Supporting Health Care Reform
Looks like the arm twisting is working, as one of the strongest critics of this current effort, Dennis Kucinich, just announced he will vote for the bill. Alex Spillius writes on the Telegraph:
The president will refuse to make fund-raising visits during November elections to any district whose representative has not backed the bill.
A one-night presidential appearance can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds which would otherwise take months to accumulate through cold-calling by campaign volunteers.
Mr Obama’s threat came as the year-long debate over his signature domestic policy entered its final week.
Mr Obama is personally telephoning congressmen who are still on the fence this week, in between several personal appearances devoted toward swinging public opinion.
9/11 Truthers Could Be Locked Up For Life Under Proposed U.S. Law
A new bill quietly introduced by Congress last week is causing quite a stir among civil liberties groups. The brainchild of senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman, the bill would give the United States government the power to indefinitely detain terror suspects without charge or trial. It would also allow the government to interrogate them for the intelligence value and it doesn’t make a distinction between U.S. citizens and non-citizens.
Fears of A Second Crash Are Real: Congress Lacks The Appetite for Action…
What will it take? What are they waiting for? What part of the reality of a systemic crisis that will get worse don’t they get?
How is it possible that after near three years of economic turmoil, with possibly hundreds of TRILLIONs down the rabbit hole — not that anyone is counting or apparently can count — that the geniuses who run our economy still don’t “get” that the sh*t has already hit the fan? How many more jobs and homes have to be lost?
Michael Moore is not the only one predicting a second crash. Paul Krugman is all out words excoriating the Administration for its tepidness. Nouriel Roubini, who forecast the first meltdown, now says we are in serious danger of a “double-dip,” a lethal combo of rising inflation and deeper recession.
Woe to us if we can’t see the handwriting on so many walls.
The people in the know know that nothing has been fixed, know that all the stimuli have barely stimulated, that the new jobs bill will never generate the number of jobs that are needed, and that the banks have obscenely been raking in oodles of money thanks to all the financing taxpayers pumped into their coffers.
Even as the Obamaites finally get around to proposing a measure to break up the big banks and erode the notion of financial institutions being too big to fail, we have the New York Times telling us that Congress does not have the “appetite” — that’s the word they use — to tackle even modest financial reforms.
Jon Stewart Rips Congressman Charlie Rangel for Failure to Pay Taxes
I can’t say if Charlie Rangel (yet) is a psychopath (see discussion), but he may belong in a jail cell for his failure to pay taxes. He recently stepped down from his chairmanship of the Way and Means Committee (you know, the chief tax-writing committee of the House of Representatives).
Oh, the irony. Thanks Jon Stewart for making government corruption funny.
Is Your Favorite Politician A Psychopath? (Or All Politicians In General?)
Tony Schwartz writes on the Huffington Post:
What do John Edwards, Bob Barr, Rod Blagjevich, John Ensign, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, William Jefferson, William Jefferson Clinton, David Vitter, James McGreevy, Tom DeLay, Charles Rangel, Newt Gingrich, and David Paterson have in common?
Obviously, they’re all politicians who’ve been caught doing something illegal, unethical, mind-bogglingly self-destructive, or all of the above.
But what also binds them is that none of them seem to believe they really did anything wrong, in spite of vast evidence to the contrary. When they finally have no option but to appear contrite, their apologies feel stilted, scripted and anything but heartfelt.
The latest offender, New York Governor David Paterson, hasn’t even gotten around to apologizing yet. In the meantime, he’s apparently managed to convince himself that it’s okay to phone up…
U.S. Department of Transportation Shuts Down on March 2nd
Landline Magazine reports:
As of Tuesday, March 2, a big chunk of the U.S. Department of Transportation will be shut down temporarily because of a lack of funding. Just how long it lasts will depend on Congress. The stunning news came Friday after the Senate adjourned without passing legislation to extend surface transportation programs that were set to expire Sunday, Feb. 28.
As a result, 4,000 DOT employees will be at home without pay starting Tuesday, leaving only a skeleton crew to deal with matters of immediate safety. Affected agencies include the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Federal Transit Authority and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
For truckers, the shutdown will bring business such as audits, authority applications, MCS-150 updates and other paperwork issues to a grinding halt.
The shutdown will not…
Justice for Sale: What Can ‘The People’ Bid to Have Democracy in America?
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship writes on Huffington Post:
That famous definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything — and the value of nothing — has come to define this present moment of American politics.
No wonder people have lost faith in politicians, parties and in our leadership. The power of money drives cynicism deep into the heart of every level of government. Everything, and everyone, comes with a price tag attached: from a seat at the table in the White House to a seat in Congress, to the fate of health care reform, our environment, and efforts to restrain Wall Street’s greed and prevent another financial catastrophe.
Our government is not broken; it’s been bought out from under us, and on the right and the left and…
Senator Bayh Calls Senate “Broken and Dysfunctional”
By Dan Balz for the Washington Post:
Sen. Evan Bayh’s surprise decision not to seek reelection touched off a debate Tuesday among strategists and scholars about whether the Indiana senator’s depiction of the “brain dead” politics and hyper-partisanship of Congress is accurate or overblown — and, if accurate, whether walking away was the right decision.
Bayh dealt a triple blow to his Democratic Party and to President Obama with his announcement Monday that he is sick of the partisanship in Washington and will not seek a third term…
Only 8% of Americans Want the Current Members of Congress Re-Elected
Jonathan D. Salant writes in Bloomberg via Yahoo News:
Just 8 percent of Americans want the members of Congress re-elected, according to a CBS News-New York Times poll taken nine months before roughly one-third of the Senate and the entire House face voters.
The Feb. 5–10 survey found 81 percent of respondents saying the lawmakers shouldn’t receive another term. By 80 percent to 13 percent, Americans said members of Congress are more interested in serving special interests than the people they represent.
Also, 75 percent disapproved of the job Congress is doing, the highest level since 74 percent said they disapproved in October 2008. Congress’s job approval rating was 15 percent in the current survey; it was 12 percent in October 2008.
Half of those surveyed said they wanted to abolish the filibuster in…
The Top 5 Health Insurers Had A 56% Profit Gain in 2009
John Byrne writes on RAW Story:
If no health care overhaul passes Congress, health insurers may be in for a windfall — and one far larger that most Americans probably realize.
According to a study by a pro-health reform group published Thursday, the nation’s largest five health insurance companies posted a 56 percent gain in 2009 profits over 2008. The insurers including Wellpoint, UnitedHealth, Cigna, Aetna and Humana, which cover the majority of Americans with insurance.
The insurers’ hefty profit gains came even as 2.7 million more Americans lost their insurance coverage due to the declining economy.
A lobbyist for American’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade group that represents insurers in Washington, D.C., attributed the gain in 2009 profits to a poor performance in 2008. In 2008, insurers were forced to write down their…
Lawrence Lessig: How to Get Our Democracy Back
Lawrence Lessig writes in the Nation:
Editors’ Note: We encourage readers moved by this essay to sign the Change Congress petition, a drive to enact solutions proposed in this article. Click here to sign. A video commentary by Professor Lessig can be viewed here.
We should remember what it felt like one year ago, as the ability to recall it emotionally will pass and it is an emotional memory as much as anything else. It was a moment rare in a democracy’s history. The feeling was palpable — to supporters and opponents alike — that something important had happened. America had elected, the young candidate promised, a transformational president. And wrapped in a campaign that had produced the biggest influx of new voters and small-dollar contributions in a generation, the claim seemed…
Jon Stewart Hits Left and Right on Media Coverage of Obama GOP Lunch
My favorite parts of this are towards the end of this clip: “More than likely MSNBC replayed it at home with the slo-mo button with their pants off” and about Fox News: “We’re going to cut away because this is against the narrative we present.” Via the Daily Show:
Grayson Introduces ‘Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act’ In Congress
Last week the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision overturning restrictions on corporations’ political activity.
The Consumerist reports that, in response, cranky rogue Florida congressman Alan Grayson has introduced a bill before Congress called the “Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act.” The BSMOBA would tax corporate political contributions and spendings on political ads at a rate of 500%.
I’m not sure what the odds are of this getting any traction, but one can always dream.
John Stewart: ‘Corporations Now Have More Rights Than Gay People.’
Congress needs to challenge this ruling now. It seems like the most important things that presidents have done for the last forty-five years is appoint Supreme Court judges (notwithstanding declaring unlawful wars). Via the Daily Show:
The Case For An Electronic Congress
Should Congress become virtual, meeting over the internet rather than in a physical building in Washington D.C.? Conor Friedersdorf argues on Politics Daily that doing so would make our leaders more accountable to constituents and would fight the influence of special interests:
As professional lobbyists grow ever more powerful, it is increasingly consequential that members of Congress spend significant stretches of time hundreds or thousands of miles from their constituents, but mere minutes away from every K Street firm.
An e-Congress wouldn’t merely result in legislators more attuned to their constituents by virtue of spending their working lives among them — it would make influence peddling far more difficult on lobbying firms, who’d find it more expensive and time-consuming to get face-time.
Secret Bill-Writing On The Rise
Jim Abrams on the Washington Post:
Schoolchildren are taught that a bill finally goes to the president after selected lawmakers meet openly to forge a compromise, and the House and Senate approve their accord.
But in today’s Congress, formal conference meetings are rare, the minority party is usually shut out and the public has little or no access to the process.
That trend has been on display this month as Democrats and the White House engage in closed-door talks on how the government is going to change the delivery of health care that have effectively excluded the public and the media.
Dating back to 1789, the House and Senate have dealt with differences in bills by convening conference committees to thrash out a unified approach that the chambers can pass and send to the…
As The U.S. Congress Travels More and More, The Public Pays
BRODY MULLINS and T. W. FARNAM write in the Wall Street Journal:
EDINBURGH — The expenses racked up by U.S. lawmakers traveling here for a conference last month included one for the “control room.”
Besides rooms for sleeping, the 12 members of the House of Representatives rented their hotel’s fireplace-equipped presidential suite and two adjacent rooms. The hotel cleared out the beds and in their place set up a bar, a snack room and office space. The three extra rooms — stocked with liquor, Coors beer, chips and salsa, sandwiches, Mrs. Fields cookies and York Peppermint Patties — cost a total of about $1,500 a night. They were rented for five nights.
While in Scotland, the House members toured historic buildings. Some shopped for Scotch whisky and visited the hotel spa. They capped the…
