social security and medicare Archives

Shhh, don’t tell the GOP

One of the great lines that the GOP has been feeding us over the last three years is that we have too much debt. According to the GOP, we need to do everything that we can, including killing Social Security and Medicare, to decrease our debt. If we, as the GOP claims, really had too much debt, then no one would want to buy our debt, right? Had we too much, investors would be increasing their risk if they were to buy our debt and should, therefore, want to stay away from US debt. Right? Then why are investors buying up US debt at record numbers? Maybe, just maybe, the GOP is 100% on this.

From Bloomberg:

The U.S. government received record demand for its bonds in 2011, pushing longer-maturity Treasuries to their best performance since 1995 in a sign that President Barack Obama may have little difficulty financing a fourth consecutive year of $1 trillion budget deficits.

The Treasury Department attracted $3.04 for each dollar of the $2.135 trillion in notes and bonds sold, the most since the government began releasing the data in 1992 during the George H. W. Bush administration. The U.S. drew an all-time high bid-to- cover ratio of 9.07 for $30 billion of four-week bills it auctioned on Dec. 20 even though they pay zero percent interest.

While Standard & Poor’s stripped the U.S. of its AAA credit rating on Aug. 5, Treasuries due in 10 years or more returned 25.6 percent this year. The spreading sovereign debt crisis in Europe and slower global growth are driving investors to the safety of U.S. assets, helping to contain borrowing costs and making it cheaper as a percentage of gross domestic product to finance deficits than when the nation last had budget surpluses.

“If the last two weeks are any indication of how next year will start, there’s near-insatiable demand,” Ira Jersey, an interest-rate strategist at Credit Suisse Group AG in New York, one of 21 primary dealers that are required to bid at the auctions, said in a Dec. 21 telephone interview. “We have a significantly shrinking supply of risk-free assets in the world and U.S. Treasuries are one of the few left.”

By ecthompsonmd|2011-12-27T09:24:04-04:00December 27th, 2011|Economy|Comments Off

Republicans still have no plan

The Republicans and other conservative politicians talked about wasteful spending. “Slash earmarks,” they cried. “Cut the budget!” These are all very nice ideas which all Americans can agree on. The argument comes when we have sit down and cut something. (Senator-elect Paul has already started to waffle on earmarks.)

From Political Animal:

When it comes to the Senate, no one’s further to the right than South Carolina’s Jim DeMint (R). And with the GOP planning to slash spending, one would assume that DeMint would be waving the biggest hatchet.

But Jon Chait flagged an interesting exchange from the right-wing senator’s recent appearance on “Meet the Press.” DeMint emphasized his demand that the country be on a “path to balancing our budget,” and noted the need to “look at the entitlement programs.” It led host David Gregory to ask a reasonable question. (see clip above, start at 3:43 time mark)

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. The first is that arguably the Senate’s most far-right member is desperate to cut spending, but when pressed, says he wants to leave Social Security and Medicare alone.

The second is that DeMint twice referenced Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) “roadmap.” Maybe DeMint’s a little behind on his reading, but there’s a disconnect here — while vowing not to cut seniors’ benefits, he’s also endorsing Ryan’s budget plan, which calls for privatizing Social Security and gutting Medicare. It also fails miserably in the goal DeMint claims to care about — cutting the deficit. As Paul Krugman recently explained, the Ryan plan “is a fraud that makes no useful contribution to the debate over America’s fiscal future.”

What should be clear to the American people is most conservatives are great at talking. They aren’t great at making plans that will help the American people. They have no idea how to do what they are proposing. There will be a big showdown over earmarks. Who knows what’s going to happen on the budget? I don’t suspect that major cuts to Social Security or Defense are really on the table.

By ecthompsonmd|2010-11-09T16:01:32-04:00November 9th, 2010|Budget, Congress, Party Politics|Comments Off

A letter to Republicans and conservatives – We give up. You win.

I found this on DK. It was too good not to repost.

From DK:

Dear Republicans,

Over the past week, we have seen your passionate protests and heard your concerns about Democratic proposals for health care reform. We have considered your insightful and well reasoned arguments, and on behalf of progressives everywhere, I am here to say: OK! We give up! We are willing to compromise on the proposals that concern you. You’ve won! Yay!

In accordance with your cogent and potent criticisms, these are the terms of our concession:

We will not euthanize your grandmother. This is the big one, and I really hope you guys appreciate how much of a concession this is on behalf of the progressive movement. Since the days of the Bull Moose Party, progressives have wanted nothing more than to slaughter old people by the millions. That much is obvious. After all, if we wanted senior citizens to have long and healthy lives, why would we have created Social Security and Medicare? Think about it. Death to grannies has long been the core of progressive policy, so it’s not without some consternation that we give it up. So there: no euthanizing old people. You’ve got it.
Rahm Emanuel’s brother will not kill Sarah Palin’s baby. While this will require us to gut HR 3200 “America’s Health Choices and Murder Sarah Palin’s Baby Act of 2009,” we’re currently working with Henry Waxman to remove the extensive Sarah Palin’s baby-killing provisions from the final bill. While this will probably cost us Andrew Sullivan’s support, we recognize that this is a necessary sacrifice for securing broad bipartisan support of health care reform.
The government will not nationalize hospitals and other health service providers. This is another big one. Though the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has correctly pointed out that current Democratic proposals involve adopting the British health care system, we now recognize that this is not politically viable. The final bill, accordingly, will not involve the nationalization of hospitals and other health service providers. This will be a major setback to Obama’s well known communist agenda, but again, we progressives agree with the Blue Dogs that we need to reach a broad national consensus by responding to Republican concerns.
We will make the health care reform bill available for all Americans to read as soon as possible. I know that conservatives and pundits have been eagerly anticipating an opportunity to read the final health care reform bill, and after extensive discussion, we have decided to comply with your request. While we would like to have unseen drafts languishing in committee forever, we have asked Senate Democrats like Max Baucus and Kent Conrad to deliver a bill as soon as possible in order to allow the public to read it. As you know, progressives wanted nothing more than to keep these drafts hidden for as long as possible, but in the interests of transparency and bipartisan consensus, we recognize that it’s vital to move the legislative process forward. In fact, it is our hope that Baucus and Conrad will return from the August recess early in order to ensure that the public has as much time as possible to inspect their work. (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2009-08-09T23:32:27-04:00August 9th, 2009|Healthcare, Party Politics|Comments Off