IS CHINA EXCLUDED IF MUCH OF US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES ARE GLOBAL CHINESE CORPORATIONS? OF COURSE NOT-----MADE IN CHINA MADE IN AMERICA IS FOR WHICH TRUMP WORKS.
One last mention as TRUMP pushes TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT wrapped as a NEW NAFTA-----we discussed in detail how all this US national media surrounding TARIFF WARS making TRUMP sound like last century's HOOVER. Again, if the goal of MOVING FORWARD is to fill our US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES with global corporations especially CHINESE which these several decades were making products shipped TO a sovereign US-----the tariffs working to protect REAL MADE IN AMERICA businesses-----today, that is being FLIPPED. So, Chinese corporations are now inside US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES EXPORTING out ----so the TARIFF dynamics are being shifted-----protecting Chinese corporations here in US. So, TRUMP is not waging war against the Chinese businesses---he is PROTECTING THEIR PROFITS.
Again, in the world of global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS bringing US to a colonial status and DARK AGES work conditions ---we have no REAL US LABOR UNION LEADERSHIP. We have international labor union tied to WORLD BANK ready to be those far-right wing global corporate fascist MARXISTS fighting for BILLIONAIRES killing 99% of US and global citizens black, white, and brown citizens.
THIS TRUMP TRADE AGREEMENT IS SIMPLY THE CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA TRADE AGREEMENT AND ITS GOAL IS TO KILL ALL US WORKER WEALTH NOT ONLY IN SHORT TERM---BUT AS A FINAL SOLUTION.
So, China does not have to be a member of TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT-----China will be in AFRICA and NORTH AMERICA both covered by TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT ----both having global banking 5% freemason/Greek player pols writing TARIFF policies that will protect these MADE IN CHINA MADE IN AMERICA/AFRICA factory profits.
Only POVERTY PIMPS would pretend TRUMP is any different than CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA!
Trump Just Ripped Up Nafta.
Here’s What’s in the New Deal.
Changes for automakers, dairy farmers, labor unions and large corporations headline the renegotiated U.S.M.C.A., which is poised to replace Nafta.
By Jim Tankersley
It’s a cosmetic change for an otherwise consequential set of revisions.
“It’s not Nafta redone, it’s a brand-new deal,” President Trump said at the White House on Monday.
OH, REALLY????????????
Text of the pact, released late Sunday, includes major adjustments in several key areas of the countries’ trading relationships. The agreement sets new rules for automobile production, meant to incentivize production of cars and trucks in countries that pay higher wages. It reduces barriers for American dairy farmers to sell cheese, milk and other products to Canada. It retains a tribunal for resolving trade disputes that the United States had sought to eliminate.
It guarantees Canadian and Mexican manufacturers expanded access to some large American markets, such as cars and light trucks, but leaves lingering questions about their ability to avoid tariffs on steel and aluminum exports to the United States.
Here are highlights from the text of the agreement, and from the 12 “side letters” the negotiating countries filed alongside it.
An attempt to steer more car production to the United States
Nafta required automakers to produce 62.5 percent of a vehicle’s content in North America to qualify for zero tariffs. The new agreement raises that threshold, over time, to 75 percent. That’s meant to force automakers to source fewer parts for an “Assembled in Mexico” (or Canada) car from Germany, Japan, South Korea or China.
For the first time, the new agreement also mandates that an escalating percentage of parts for any tariff-free vehicle — topping out at 40 percent in 2023 — must come from a so-called “high wage” factory. The agreement says those factories must pay a minimum of $16 an hour in average salaries for production workers. That’s about triple the average wage in a Mexican factory right now, and administration officials hope the provision will force automakers to shift suppliers from Mexico to Canada or the United States.
There are risks to that change. Automotive analysts have warned that the provision could have a damaging effect for Americans, by raising costs for American car buyers and incentivizing automakers to move production to low-cost countries outside the United States, such as China.
Conversely, the final provision, as written, could prove relatively ineffective at shifting production — because it is not indexed to inflation. An average wage of $16 an hour will be less constraining in 2023 dollars than it is today.
Relief from future auto tariffs for Canada and Mexico
Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened, over the last year, to impose tariffs on imported automobiles. In a news conference last week, he suggested that Canada would face such tariffs if it did not reach agreement with the United States on a new trade deal. Mr. Trump’s administration has undertaken an investigation that could lead to auto tariffs, but it appears unlikely to finish up any time soon. The threat of auto tariffs has clouded trade talks with several countries, including Japan and South Korea, which import cars and car parts into America.
Canada and Mexico won’t have to sweat it, though. The new agreement includes side letters that grant exemptions from any future American tariffs to 2.6 million imported passenger vehicles from each of those countries. That’s slightly more vehicles than Mexico has exported to the United States over the last year, and nearly 1 million more than Canada has exported.
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We will spend the end of week on public policy tied to US and our new to US immigrants' WEALTH ----by looking again at those DASTARDLY NEW DEAL safety net programs being dismantled by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. Remember, the death throw to our Social Security/Medicare came during OBAMA era when Clinton neo-liberals unleashed massive attacks on our sovereign US TREASURY BONDS in what EVERYONE knows was CRIMINAL. $20 trillion in national debt equal NO PUBLIC TRUST FUNDING.
Now, we have to listen to MORE lying, cheating, as stealing continues under TRUMP.
JUST A TINY CUT TO DISABILITY says far-right wing global banking 1% MANHATTAN INSTITUTE chosen by far-right wing global banking 1% NATIONAL REVIEW to comment on what is indeed the DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS of Social Security.
We discussed earlier this week how global banking 1% POVERTY PIMPS used SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY to keep our US unemployed DOWN-----don't get mad at those citizens pushed onto disability---they were deliberately kept from being able to get a REAL JOB.
Right wing NATIONAL REVIEW is lying when it says today's Congressional cuts to SOCIAL SECURITY are aimed at all those DISABILITY LOSERS. Rather, they expand from our US 99% DISABLED to largely hit our US 99% WE THE WOMEN.
'Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute comments that this “was just a tiny old Obama proposal to trim some duplicative payments in the disability program — just 0.02% of the Social Security budget (as in 1/50 of 1%). . . . When Obama used to propose it, it was never even covered because it was so small and non-controversial'.
About Those ‘Social Security Cuts’
By Ramesh Ponnuru
June 20, 2018 5:41 PM
Washington Post reporter Erica Werner tweeted yesterday that House Republicans “have released a budget that balances in 9 years via big cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.” Her story on the website is flagged, “House GOP plan would cut Medicare, Social Security to balance budget.”
The story includes the line, “House Republicans released a proposal Tuesday that would balance the budget in nine years — but only by making large cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Social Security, that President Trump vowed not to touch.”
But later in the story we learn that “Social Security comes in for more modest cuts of $4 billion over the decade, which the budget projects could be reached by eliminating concurrent receipt of unemployment benefits and Social Security disability insurance.”
Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute comments that this “was just a tiny old Obama proposal to trim some duplicative payments in the disability program — just 0.02% of the Social Security budget (as in 1/50 of 1%). . . . When Obama used to propose it, it was never even covered because it was so small and non-controversial.
“And again, no seniors would be cut even one penny.”
This seems like rather important context. I’d be happy to see Social Security benefit growth restrained, which is not the same thing as cutting benefits for current retirees and near-retirees. But it doesn’t look like Republicans are doing either.
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Let's take a second to show how our US right wing REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVE think tanks have been corrupted by global banking 1% BUSH NEO-CONS these few decades. Ramesh is being called an AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE-----but RAMESH is a global banking 1% working to kill US sovereignty making America a colonial entity -----so RAMESH is not an AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE---he is a ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE global 1% wanting to CONSERVE all wealth from NORTH AMERICA to the global 1% ONLY. There is no SOVEREIGNTY in MOVING FORWARD. One cannot be a right wing conservative REPUBLICAN without sovereignty.
This is why RAMESH is called a LEADER of REFORM CONSERVATIVE movement.
'He has been identified as a leader of the "reform conservative" movement'
Global banking 5% FAKE civil liberties will say---wait, she is being RACIST or HATING because she does not like a PONNURU as a US conservative. What our 99% of East Indian citizens coming to US want ---are politicians tied to REAL AMERICAN 300 YEARS OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND FREE MARKET CAPITALIST ECONOMICS. What PONNURU has as a goal as too all global banking 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---is to CONSERVE all wealth generated to only the GLOBAL 1%.
PONNURU is no better than a CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA for our 99% of new immigrant East Indian citizens being pushed into ONE WORLD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES operating as they do in Asia.
You say RAMESH we say ROMESH-----let's call the whole MOVING FORWARD off!
REAL left social progressives educate our new to US immigrants how we work hard to keep these global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS OUT of our people's government. It doesn't matter if a candidate is black, white, or brown if they are working to kill 99% of all citizens.
Romesh Wadhwani
- Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romesh_Wadhwani
Romesh T. Wadhwani (born 1947/48) is an Indian-born American billionaire businessman, the founder, chairman and CEO of Symphony Technology Group (STG), a private equity firm for software, Internet and technology services companies.
Ramesh Ponnuru
(/rəˈmɛʃ pəˈnʊəruː/; born August 16, 1974) is an American conservative political pundit and journalist. He is a senior editor for National Review magazine, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,[1] a columnist for Bloomberg View,[2] and a contributing editor to the domestic policy journal National Affairs.
Ponnuru has written widely on a range of political and policy topics, appeared on many public affairs and news interview programs, and is a widely respected voice on conservative policy.[4] He has been highly critical of President Donald Trump, as have many of the figures associated with National Review.
Policy
Ponnuru is a sought-after thinker on conservative policy and its political implications, and has regularly been a guest at retreats for congressional Republicans.[23] In 2015, Politico Magazine featured him and his wife, April Ponnuru, as two of the "Politico 50" influential leaders in American politics.
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OBAMA did not kick-the-can on ending SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY. OBAMA and Clinton neo-liberals created what we discuss in detail a NEW pipeline to prison-----the REHABILITATION CAMPS tied to forced labor operating these several decades in overseas FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES. Rather then having POVERTY PIMPS push all of our US SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUNDS into DISABILITY these few decades to support growing US unemployed----now they are simply going to send anyone needing unemployment to WORK CAMPS---no need to have a doctor declare someone DISABLED.
OBAMA and Clinton neo-liberals set the stage for ending SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY by passing policies PRETENDING to be rehabilitation structures----when it is simply a new pathway to prison pipeline---instead of prison global banking 1% global corporate MARXISM creates forced labor.
So, these policies will hit a great percentage of our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens having been captured in POVERTY PIMPING policies written by INTERNATIONAL INEQUITY INDUSTRY WORLD BANK.
'is to combine a limited reallocation with genuine policy reforms that protect both the disabled who cannot work, Social Security’s retirement program, and the workers who finance Social Security'.
When EVERY US SENATOR is FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL BANKING 1%-------these 'reforms' will be brutal and repressive.
July 15, 2015
President Obama’s Failure on Social Security Disability
Social Security Disability Insurance faces a funding shortfall of nearly $270 billion over the next decade. The program’s unfunded liability amounts to $1.2 trillion over the next 75 years. Social Security’s trustees project the DI trust fund will be bankrupt by late 2016. The condition of the trust fund has significantly worsened during the Obama administration, and the depletion of the trust fund is coming 10 years sooner than experts predicted in 2007.
Without changes in the law, depletion of the trust fund will mean that DI beneficiaries can only be paid from incoming payroll tax receipts specifically devoted to the fund. Since projected receipts would only finance about 81 percent of scheduled benefits, beneficiaries would face across-the-board benefit cuts of approximately 19 percent without legislative action.
The DI program’s impending insolvency is the result of demographic changes like the aging of the population, as well as structural deficiencies in the program and Social Security Administration mismanagement. These problems include:
Without reform, the failures of DI will continue to erode economic productivity and harm both the truly disabled as well as taxpayers. A bipartisan solution is urgently needed to fix the program’s problems and to preserve it for those who cannot work.
The president’s irresponsible kick-the-can proposal
Despite holding office for six and a half years, the president has not engaged with Congress to develop a longer term solution to DI’s impending bankruptcy. Now, rather than proposing reforms, the president has offered to kick the can down the road by demanding a stand-alone payroll tax reallocation. Currently, the total payroll tax equals 12.4 percent of wage income – with 1.8 percent dedicated to DI and 10.6 percent dedicated to Social Security’s old age and survivor component. The president’s proposal would increase the tax earmarked for the DI trust fund to 2.7 percent, while reducing the payroll tax earmarked for the OASI trust fund to 9.7 percent for the next five years.
President Obama’s proposed reallocation is projected to generate sufficient reserves in the DI trust fund to forestall bankruptcy until 2033. In his proposal, the OASI trust fund is projected to become insolvent at the same time. The president’s 2016 budget request argued that his plan would remedy the reserve depletion of the DI trust fund “while a longer-term solution to overall Social Security solvency is developed with the Congress.” The president is offering an irresponsible proposal that is not accompanied by any reforms in the DI program – something inconsistent with previous re-allocations.
Many Democrats are pushing the myth that there have been 11 previous bipartisan reallocations between trust funds in the past and that such reallocations are ordinary housekeeping. In fact, there has never been a reallocation from OASI to DI like the president is proposing. The previous reallocations stemmed from six pieces of legislation, four of which involved major Social Security reform. None of the previous reallocations occurred at a time when both parts of Social Security were in such poor fiscal shape.
The most recent reallocation occurred in 1994 when Congress increased the DI portion of the payroll tax by 50 percent. While Social Security’s public trustees supported the reallocation, they urged SSA and Congress to study DI and develop “substantive changes needed in the program” in their 1994 report. In the trustees 1995 report, they reiterated that the reallocation “should be viewed as only providing time and opportunity to design and implement substantive reforms that can lead to long-term financial stability.” The SSA, previous Congresses, and the executive branch failed to head the trustees’ advice. Despite the promise of reforms, these never happened – and DI’s finances have deteriorated to the point where bankruptcy is again imminent.
The president’s standalone reallocation proposal will undoubtedly delay reforms and structural changes once again. His plan defies repeated calls from the Social Security trustees – who include his secretaries at Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services, and the acting Social Security commissioner – for prompt action to address Social Security’s unsustainable path.
Moreover, there are long-standing reasons why the trust funds should be separate. Social Security public trustee Chuck Blahous wrote in April that “[w]hen Social Security was first established, lawmakers assured the public that its retirement pensions would be self-financing. … When disability insurance was added later, similar promises were made that it would also be self-sustaining, and not siphon funds from Social Security’s retirement program or from the general budget.” Blahous noted that President Eisenhower’s signing statement cited the separate trust fund as one of the features that enabled him to sign the bill:
“A separate trust fund was established for the disability program in an effort to minimize the effects of the special problems in this field on the other parts of the program – retirement and survivors’ protection.”
While the president’s reallocation proposal appears to avert the DI trust fund’s shortfall until 2033, uncertainty will actually return in 2026. Under the president’s plan, the DI “trust fund ratio,” which measures trust fund reserves at the beginning of a year as a percentage of projected program expenditures, will fall below 100 in 2026. A ratio below 100 fails the short-range test for financial adequacy. As a result, in 2026 and each year thereafter, the Social Security trustees will issue financial warnings from the failed adequacy test, causing anxiety over the possibility of benefit cuts.
Stand-alone reallocation harms Social Security retirement program
The president’s proposed reallocation would transfer about $350 billion from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund in the next five years. Since the president’s proposal worsens the solvency of Social Security’s OASI trust fund, it threatens benefits for retirees. Moreover, the president’s proposal is a particularly bad idea given that OASI’s financial condition is in even worse long-run shape than is DI’s. This was not the case in 1994 when the last reallocation passed Congress.
According to Blahous, “[r]earranging the deck chairs, rather than slowing cost growth, would be an inadequate response with potentially ruinous implications for the program.” In a January 15 editorial, the Wall Street Journal used the analogy of “an underwater borrower transferring debt from one maxed-out credit card to another with a higher balance but also a higher spending limit.”
Republicans have proposed DI reforms
Rather than demand an irresponsible solution to a problem that the president has ignored for too long, he should work with Congress on real solutions. These include modernizing DI and improving its fiscal outlook; making it easier for beneficiaries to work if they are able; and reducing waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the program. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan have proposed bills that would begin the process of reforming the DI program. They are also soliciting ideas on reforms from disability program experts, researchers, advocates, and the general public. The responsible path forward – and one consistent with most prior reallocations – is to combine a limited reallocation with genuine policy reforms that protect both the disabled who cannot work, Social Security’s retirement program, and the workers who finance Social Security.
______________________________________
The other side of US national media has global banking 5% freemason/Greek media outlet trying to confuse both right wing and left wing 99% WE THE PEOPLE by mixing and matching all kinds of individual parts of deliberately long and complicated BILLS. You would be a MOTLEY FOOL if you followed what one media outlet sells.
This far-right wing media outlet says RELAX---those REPUBLICANS are simply going to TWEAK here and there---maybe just raise that age limit. OH, REALLY?
Thinking of our population groups tied to families and children----who depends on GRANDMOTHERS rearing grandchildren? So, these policies hit hardest our US low-income families already dealing with support heavily tied to SS DISABILITY.
The GOP May Not Seek Social Security Reform After All
Republicans may want to reduce long-term Social Security expenditures, but that's unlikely to happen in 2018.
Sean Williams
(TMFUltraLong)
Jan 8, 2018 at 8:33AM
It took nearly a full year in the Oval Office, but President Trump and the Republican Party secured their first major legislative win last month when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law. It's the first major overhaul of the U.S. tax code in around three decades, and it speaks to one of the key promises that President Trump made while on the campaign trail.
Spending cuts are probably still on the GOP docket However, tax reform comes with some big shoes to fill -- namely, the expectation that permanently lower corporate tax rates and temporarily reduced individual federal income-tax rates will balloon the federal deficit by around $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Part of this deficit is expected to be dealt with by economic growth created by lower taxes. In other words, higher wages and more job creation could increase what the federal government is expected to collect. Nevertheless, cuts are probably still needed.
One of the larger money-saving items in the recently passed GOP tax law was the elimination of the individual mandate associated with the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, as it's better known). The individual mandate is the actionable component of Obamacare that required people to purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty. Without this mandate, it's expected that millions will drop out of Obamacare, and thus the federal government will become less reliant on supplying federal subsidies for the Advanced Premium Tax Credit. Estimates suggest savings of $338 billion over the next decade.
Still, more cuts may be needed, and so-called entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare may be in the crosshairs of the GOP.
Two key ways the GOP would cut Social Security benefits While both Democrats and Republicans have a number of ways they'd consider fixing the shortcomings of Social Security, both of the core fixes for the GOP would act as a means to reduce long-term expenditures for the program.
First of all, a majority of Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill strongly believe in raising the full retirement age. Your full retirement age is the age where the Social Security Administration deems you eligible to receive 100% of your payout. If you claim benefits between ages 62 (the first age of retired worker eligibility) and a month before your full retirement age, you accept a permanent reduction in your monthly stipend. If you wait until after your full retirement age to claim benefits, you can actually get a boost. Currently set to top out at age 67 in 2022, a number of GOP proposals have suggested increasing the full retirement age to 68, 69, or even 70, for future generations of retirees.
Raising the full retirement age doesn't impact current retirees, nor would it be likely to affect anyone born before 1960. However, future generations of retirees would either have to wait longer to receive 100% of their monthly payout, or be willing to accept a steeper reduction by claiming early. Either way, it means fewer lifetime dollars paid out to seniors.
The second way the GOP aims to save the program money is by switching the inflationary tether away from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) to the Chained CPI. Both inflationary measures are pretty similar, with one key difference. The Chained CPI takes into account substitution bias, or the act of consumers trading down to a cheaper good or service when another gets too expensive (e.g., buying pork when beef prices are too high). Though this represents a real world choice consumers do make, it would wind up reducing the inflation factored into Social Security's annual cost-of-living adjustment.
It took nearly a full year in the Oval Office, but President Trump and the Republican Party secured their first major legislative win last month when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law. It's the first major overhaul of the U.S. tax code in around three decades, and it speaks to one of the key promises that President Trump made while on the campaign trail.
Spending cuts are probably still on the GOP docket However, tax reform comes with some big shoes to fill -- namely, the expectation that permanently lower corporate tax rates and temporarily reduced individual federal income-tax rates will balloon the federal deficit by around $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Part of this deficit is expected to be dealt with by economic growth created by lower taxes. In other words, higher wages and more job creation could increase what the federal government is expected to collect. Nevertheless, cuts are probably still needed.
One of the larger money-saving items in the recently passed GOP tax law was the elimination of the individual mandate associated with the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, as it's better known). The individual mandate is the actionable component of Obamacare that required people to purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty. Without this mandate, it's expected that millions will drop out of Obamacare, and thus the federal government will become less reliant on supplying federal subsidies for the Advanced Premium Tax Credit. Estimates suggest savings of $338 billion over the next decade.
Not so fast! The GOP may not seek Social Security reform after all House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has made it no secret that reforming Social Security and Medicare are among his top priorities in 2018. However, even with current control of the legislative branch of the government, such a plan is looking more unlikely by the day.
Recently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has all but declared entitlement reform dead ahead of next year's agenda. In a news conference in December, according to Politico, McConnell told reporters, "The sensitivity of entitlements is such that you almost have to have bipartisan agreement in order to achieve a result." Imagine that -- bipartisan cooperation!
But it's not just the lack of support from McConnell that could doom Ryan's chances of enacting reforms. There are two other factors at play here.
First, Republicans, like Democrats, don't just have a line-in-the-sand view on Social Security. There are conservatives within the party who lean very far to the right, and more moderate Republicans, some of whom would probably scoff at the idea of cutting benefits in any way for future generations. With just a one-seat majority in the Senate, getting a party consensus would be nearly impossible.
The other issue being that we're now in an election year. With midterm elections in November, the GOP would have to be careful not to completely tick off the voting base with Social Security or Medicare reforms, lest they could be voted out of office. At this point, the GOP seems more concerned with damage control following healthcare and tax reform debates than it does with pressing on with Social Security reforms.
Congressional kick the can continues in 2018
Nonetheless, this demonstrates the incredible rift in Washington when it comes to repairing the fractured Social Security system. Both parties have a means to fix the program, but neither has the support, speaking strictly on party lines, to make it happen. A middle ground is needed to come to a bipartisan solution, but neither party will back down when they have what they believe to be the winning ticket in their back pocket.
In short, it could be a long time before we see any serious discussion take place on Capitol Hill regarding Social Security reform.
OH, REALLY?????
_____________________________________________
Remember, in killing a vital and much-loved social safety net program like SOCIAL SECURITY----as MEDICARE global banking 1% has to make one population group feel like WINNERS----while selected population groups are great big LOSERS. Socioeconomic ladders ALWAYS go to black and brown 99% of citizens first----seniors and disabled next----and then of course all those US 99% of WE THE WHITE people and UPPER-MIDDLE INCOME/MERELY RICH will be LOSERS last.
Today, US Congressional pols under TRUMP are targeting SENIORS and their SS benefits not that COLA policy hasn't been doing that throughout CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. We all know the NO SOCIAL SECURITY UNTIL YOU ARE 70 scheme---that is being done by making our US 99% afraid to stop working because they will lose HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE. MOVING FORWARD kills health care access for 99% of citizens so longevity will fall steeply and immediately---people will not live to age 70 in US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Global banking 1% POVERTY PIMPS keep harping on LONGEVITY figures all the time killing access to health care that created these longer lives.
The Social Security Reform Act of 2019
They’re coming after Social Security spousal benefits. Count on it.
“Social Security spousal benefits have been part of the benefit structure since 1939, a time before Rosie the Riveter, the women’s movement and the decline in average wages which forced women into the workforce,” writes Jeffrey Miller, a retired econ professor at the University of Delaware.
“It is time to question the fairness and usefulness of the spousal benefit in the context of today’s realities,” Miller says in a MarketWatch column posted last Friday.
Today’s episode of The 5 is a follow-up from May 14. Then, we took note of an item in President Obama’s 2015 budget blueprint. It proposed to eliminate “file and suspend” — a method many couples use to maximize their Social Security benefits over time.
The proposal doesn’t have a prayer of passage in Congress this year or next.
But Professor Miller goes a step further. And he makes us wonder what’s in store once we get past the 2016 elections…
“Let’s eliminate the spousal benefit altogether,” proposes the professor, invoking a word that should always make you reach for your wallet defensively — fairness.
Miller cites the case of two hypothetical couples: Both earn $2,000 in Social Security benefits at full retirement age. But the wife in Couple No. 1 never worked, while both spouses in Couple No. 2 worked.
“If the husband in couple (1) claims retirement benefits at full retirement age ($2,000) and his wife claims spousal benefits (half his benefit, $1,000) when she reaches her full retirement age, the couple will receive $3,000,” Miller writes.
If the husband and wife in couple (2) also wait until full retirement age to claim their benefits, they will receive a total of $4,000. While couple (2) will receive $1,000 more in benefits than couple (1), they will pay twice as much in Social Security taxes during their working lives. Thus, couple (2) pays twice as much in taxes and receives only 33% more in benefits.
Our point today isn’t about whether Miller is right or wrong. It’s about this: The government reserves the authority to change the rules of the game at any time.
We learned this more than a generation ago from the Greenspan Commission. Before he embarked on his two-decade path of destruction running the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan chaired one of those proverbial bipartisan blue-ribbon panels. Its task — to shore up Social Security’s shaky finances.
President Reagan appointed the commission in 1981, a year after his election. The commission’s work resulted in the Social Security Reform Act of 1983. Its signal clause broke a promise dating back to the system’s creation in the 1930s — that Social Security benefits would not be subject to income tax. Today, up to 85% of Social Security benefits are taxable income.
YOU MEAN REAGAN/GREENSPAN TRIPLED PAYROLL TAXES AND MADE SOCIAL SECURITY MONTHLY CHECKS TAXABLE INCOME ALL WHILE SAYING THEY WERE SHORING UP OUR SS TRUST? WHAT POVERTY PIMPS.
But the reforms had only so much impact. As we’ve mentioned from time to time, Social Security’s own actuaries predict the program’s “trust fund” will be exhausted by 2033… and researchers at Harvard and Dartmouth anticipate the day of reckoning will arrive sooner, in 2029.
So it’s not hard to imagine the next president, whoever it is, appointing another bipartisan blue-ribbon panel to once again take up the task of revamping Social Security.
If the new president follows the Reagan timetable, the commission will be appointed in 2017 and its recommendations would end up as law by 2019. (Maybe Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, would be the chairman?)
As we noted last month, eliminating file and suspend won’t achieve much in the way of savings — $9.5 billion a year, or barely 1% of the $863 billion in benefits Social Security paid last year.
But eliminating spousal benefits? The aforementioned Professor Miller says now we’d be getting somewhere — although he doesn’t offer up hard numbers.
It’s this simple: The rules will change, sooner or later. And you need to do everything in your power to maximize your retirement income above and beyond Social Security.
Best regards,
Dave Gonigam
for The Daily Reckoning
_______________________________________________
'The group calls Johnson's proposal "a thoughtful plan" and the product of "true leadership."'
So, the next population group targeted is SPOUSES AND CHILDREN. This has not only to do with DISABLED benefits---it is tied to SPOUSES being able to claim the other spouses Social Security benefits if that spouse has higher monthly payments. So, if a wife worked 50 years at high-paying job and dies----the husband earning less can assume her SOCIAL SECURITY MONTHLY PAYMENTS to increase the sole survivor's income. Now, we say this hits women more because let's face it-----it is the husband more likely to have that higher paying job for 50 years ergo having a higher Social Security monthly payment. Many times a wife does not work ----leaving only the husband earning that SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFIT. So, what does that stay-at-home wife do NOW when that husband dies? Well, she won't get that spousal claim to his SS monthly benefits.....she is left without support in old age.
'Johnson would also cut benefits for the spouses and children of retired and disabled workers by pegging them to average wages, rather than to the wages actually earned by the worker. This pares the benefits for families earning more than the average'.
Both global banking 1% CLINTON/OBAMA neo-liberals and global banking 1% BUSH NEO-CONS are MOVING FORWARD these attacks on SOCIAL SECURITY.
THIS IS NOT ONLY ABOUT MADMAN TRUMP.
If we are reading all those silly FAKE changes bumping one population group up while killing another population group---we need to WAKE UP and look at the MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
Republicans always behind STAY-AT-HOME MOMS are killing those STAY-AT-HOME WIVES.
The GOP unveils a 'permanent save' for Social Security — with massive benefit cuts
By Michael Hiltzik
Dec 09, 2016 | 1:25 PM
Amid all the hand-wringing over Republican plans to eviscerate Medicare and Medicaid and repeal the Affordable Care Act, it shouldn't be overlooked that the GOP has the knives out for Social Security too.
The latest reminder comes from Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Tex., chairman of the Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee. Johnson on Thursday uncorked what he termed a "plan to permanently save Social Security."
Followers of GOP habits won't be surprised to learn that it achieves this goal entirely through benefit cuts, without a dime of new revenues such as higher payroll taxes on the wealthy. In fact, Johnson's plan reduces the resources coming into the program by eliminating a key tax --another way that he absolves richer Americans of paying their fair share, while increasing the burdens of retirement for almost everyone else.
No one voted for massive cuts to Social Security, nor to end the program as we know it.
Predictably, this plan has already been hailed by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a billionaire's front group that likes to portray itself as a neutral budget watchdog. (The foundation of hedge fund billionaire Peter G. Peterson, whose hostility to Social Security is well-documented, provided $3.3 million in funding for the committee in 2015; that's the equivalent of about half the group's revenue of $7.1 million in 2014)
The group calls Johnson's proposal "a thoughtful plan" and the product of "true leadership." But it also says that "revenue and benefit changes both need to be on the table." Johnson's plan doesn't meet that standard at all.
Typically, Social Security "reform" proposals at least pay lip service to the fact that the payroll tax has been giving the wealthy a larger and larger pass, by covering an ever-shrinking percentage of their wages and exempting the capital gains and dividends that make up a larger share of high-end income.
Johnson's plan doesn't mention that at all. It does, however, give higher-income beneficiaries a tax cut by eliminating income tax on benefits starting in 2045. The tax affects about 30% of retirees by treating at least half of the benefits of those earning more than $32,000 as taxable income.
By law, the tax must be credited to the Social Security system. It's scheduled to bring in as much as $78 billion in 2025. Johnson's rationale here is murky. If Social Security is in such bad shape that he sees the need to slash benefits, why cut its revenue, too?
Social Security's actuaries, who analyzed the plan at Johnson's request, agreed that it would improve the program's finances, but noted that virtually every provision involved a benefit cut.
Let's take a look.
Johnson's "Social Security Reform Act" changes the program's benefit formula to provide modest benefit increases for the lowest-earning workers in the system— those who earned up to an annual average of about $22,105 over their lifetimes in inflation-indexed pay — with cuts for everyone else ranging from 17% to as much as 43%, compared with currently scheduled benefits, by 2080.
The act would cut way back on cost-of-living increases for retirees. It would do this by cutting out cost-of-living raises entirely for retirees earning adjusted gross income of more than $85,000 ($170,000 for couples) starting in December 2018, and using the chained consumer price index to calculate the COLA for all others. (The income threshold would be adjusted for inflation.)
Johnson asserts that the chained CPI is "a more accurate measure of inflation," but he's blowing smoke. There are no grounds to say the index, which was heavily promoted a few years ago by yet another gang associated with Peter G. Peterson, is more accurate than the index used today. If anything, it understates price increases in housing and healthcare, which have especially pronounced impacts on the household budgets of seniors. Conservatives like it for one reason: It grows more slowly than the regular CPI, so it's cheaper. As we explained a few years ago, using the chained CPI is a benefit cut, and one that gets larger year by year. Period.
Johnson would also cut benefits for the spouses and children of retired and disabled workers by pegging them to average wages, rather than to the wages actually earned by the worker. This pares the benefits for families earning more than the average.
Finally, the measure also raises the full retirement age, which is now pegged to reach 67 by 2022, to 69 by 2030. this means that workers taking early retirement, which is permitted as soon as age 62, would face a steeper cut in annual benefits for starting early. Johnson would increase the age up to which delayed retirement credits may be earned to 72, from 70. Workers who can afford to put off claiming Social Security will reap the great rewards from this maneuver; by their nature, they tend to be wealthier people who have the resources to live on while deferring Social Security.
Conservatives often argue that raising the retirement age is innocuous because Americans are living longer. Their lengthier retirements, it's argued, put an unexpected strain on Social Security's finances, and they don't need all that money anyway.
But this change is unfair and short-sighted for several reasons. One is that life expectancy is closely tied to income, education and careers. Well-heeled persons who spend much of their lives behind a desk — congressmen from Texas and analysts at billionaire-funded think tanks, say — are more likely to live longer and can stay in their careers well into their 60s and 70s. That's not so for workers who spent their careers in menial or physically challenging work.
Raising the retirement age is also predicated on life expectancies rising indefinitely. Just as trees don't grow into the stratosphere, there's no guarantee this trend isn't finite. Indeed, just this week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that U.S. life expectancies actually declined last year for the first time since 1993, falling to 78.8 years at birth from 78.9 in 2014, statistically a major decline.
It may be unwise to draw too sweeping a conclusion from a single year's figures, but this statistic is a reminder that life expectancy is a dynamic phenomenon, and we may merely have been living through a two-decade bump. Nature may have its own ideas about the appropriate average lifespan for members of the human race.
The bottom line is that Johnson's plan is one of the most cynical and dishonest Social Security "fixes" to come down the Republican chute in years. It "fixes" Social Security in the same sense that one "fixes" a cat, and makes the program less relevant for millions of Americans facing retirement with ever shrinking resources.
Is this a serious policy prescription? Social Security advocates are properly aghast. As Nancy Altman, co-founder of Social Security Works, put it Friday, in the last election "no one voted for massive cuts to Social Security, nor to end the program as we know it." Donald Trump even campaigned on a hands-off pledge.
"Trump needs to immediately reassure the American people that he will keep his campaign promise and veto this awful bill," Altman said. "He should tweet that immediately."
One last mention as TRUMP pushes TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT wrapped as a NEW NAFTA-----we discussed in detail how all this US national media surrounding TARIFF WARS making TRUMP sound like last century's HOOVER. Again, if the goal of MOVING FORWARD is to fill our US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES with global corporations especially CHINESE which these several decades were making products shipped TO a sovereign US-----the tariffs working to protect REAL MADE IN AMERICA businesses-----today, that is being FLIPPED. So, Chinese corporations are now inside US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES EXPORTING out ----so the TARIFF dynamics are being shifted-----protecting Chinese corporations here in US. So, TRUMP is not waging war against the Chinese businesses---he is PROTECTING THEIR PROFITS.
Again, in the world of global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS bringing US to a colonial status and DARK AGES work conditions ---we have no REAL US LABOR UNION LEADERSHIP. We have international labor union tied to WORLD BANK ready to be those far-right wing global corporate fascist MARXISTS fighting for BILLIONAIRES killing 99% of US and global citizens black, white, and brown citizens.
THIS TRUMP TRADE AGREEMENT IS SIMPLY THE CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA TRADE AGREEMENT AND ITS GOAL IS TO KILL ALL US WORKER WEALTH NOT ONLY IN SHORT TERM---BUT AS A FINAL SOLUTION.
So, China does not have to be a member of TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT-----China will be in AFRICA and NORTH AMERICA both covered by TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT ----both having global banking 5% freemason/Greek player pols writing TARIFF policies that will protect these MADE IN CHINA MADE IN AMERICA/AFRICA factory profits.
Only POVERTY PIMPS would pretend TRUMP is any different than CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA!
Trump Just Ripped Up Nafta.
Here’s What’s in the New Deal.
Changes for automakers, dairy farmers, labor unions and large corporations headline the renegotiated U.S.M.C.A., which is poised to replace Nafta.
By Jim Tankersley
- Oct. 1, 2018
It’s a cosmetic change for an otherwise consequential set of revisions.
“It’s not Nafta redone, it’s a brand-new deal,” President Trump said at the White House on Monday.
OH, REALLY????????????
Text of the pact, released late Sunday, includes major adjustments in several key areas of the countries’ trading relationships. The agreement sets new rules for automobile production, meant to incentivize production of cars and trucks in countries that pay higher wages. It reduces barriers for American dairy farmers to sell cheese, milk and other products to Canada. It retains a tribunal for resolving trade disputes that the United States had sought to eliminate.
It guarantees Canadian and Mexican manufacturers expanded access to some large American markets, such as cars and light trucks, but leaves lingering questions about their ability to avoid tariffs on steel and aluminum exports to the United States.
Here are highlights from the text of the agreement, and from the 12 “side letters” the negotiating countries filed alongside it.
An attempt to steer more car production to the United States
Nafta required automakers to produce 62.5 percent of a vehicle’s content in North America to qualify for zero tariffs. The new agreement raises that threshold, over time, to 75 percent. That’s meant to force automakers to source fewer parts for an “Assembled in Mexico” (or Canada) car from Germany, Japan, South Korea or China.
For the first time, the new agreement also mandates that an escalating percentage of parts for any tariff-free vehicle — topping out at 40 percent in 2023 — must come from a so-called “high wage” factory. The agreement says those factories must pay a minimum of $16 an hour in average salaries for production workers. That’s about triple the average wage in a Mexican factory right now, and administration officials hope the provision will force automakers to shift suppliers from Mexico to Canada or the United States.
There are risks to that change. Automotive analysts have warned that the provision could have a damaging effect for Americans, by raising costs for American car buyers and incentivizing automakers to move production to low-cost countries outside the United States, such as China.
Conversely, the final provision, as written, could prove relatively ineffective at shifting production — because it is not indexed to inflation. An average wage of $16 an hour will be less constraining in 2023 dollars than it is today.
Relief from future auto tariffs for Canada and Mexico
Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened, over the last year, to impose tariffs on imported automobiles. In a news conference last week, he suggested that Canada would face such tariffs if it did not reach agreement with the United States on a new trade deal. Mr. Trump’s administration has undertaken an investigation that could lead to auto tariffs, but it appears unlikely to finish up any time soon. The threat of auto tariffs has clouded trade talks with several countries, including Japan and South Korea, which import cars and car parts into America.
Canada and Mexico won’t have to sweat it, though. The new agreement includes side letters that grant exemptions from any future American tariffs to 2.6 million imported passenger vehicles from each of those countries. That’s slightly more vehicles than Mexico has exported to the United States over the last year, and nearly 1 million more than Canada has exported.
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We will spend the end of week on public policy tied to US and our new to US immigrants' WEALTH ----by looking again at those DASTARDLY NEW DEAL safety net programs being dismantled by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. Remember, the death throw to our Social Security/Medicare came during OBAMA era when Clinton neo-liberals unleashed massive attacks on our sovereign US TREASURY BONDS in what EVERYONE knows was CRIMINAL. $20 trillion in national debt equal NO PUBLIC TRUST FUNDING.
Now, we have to listen to MORE lying, cheating, as stealing continues under TRUMP.
JUST A TINY CUT TO DISABILITY says far-right wing global banking 1% MANHATTAN INSTITUTE chosen by far-right wing global banking 1% NATIONAL REVIEW to comment on what is indeed the DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS of Social Security.
We discussed earlier this week how global banking 1% POVERTY PIMPS used SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY to keep our US unemployed DOWN-----don't get mad at those citizens pushed onto disability---they were deliberately kept from being able to get a REAL JOB.
Right wing NATIONAL REVIEW is lying when it says today's Congressional cuts to SOCIAL SECURITY are aimed at all those DISABILITY LOSERS. Rather, they expand from our US 99% DISABLED to largely hit our US 99% WE THE WOMEN.
'Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute comments that this “was just a tiny old Obama proposal to trim some duplicative payments in the disability program — just 0.02% of the Social Security budget (as in 1/50 of 1%). . . . When Obama used to propose it, it was never even covered because it was so small and non-controversial'.
About Those ‘Social Security Cuts’
By Ramesh Ponnuru
June 20, 2018 5:41 PM
Washington Post reporter Erica Werner tweeted yesterday that House Republicans “have released a budget that balances in 9 years via big cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.” Her story on the website is flagged, “House GOP plan would cut Medicare, Social Security to balance budget.”
The story includes the line, “House Republicans released a proposal Tuesday that would balance the budget in nine years — but only by making large cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Social Security, that President Trump vowed not to touch.”
But later in the story we learn that “Social Security comes in for more modest cuts of $4 billion over the decade, which the budget projects could be reached by eliminating concurrent receipt of unemployment benefits and Social Security disability insurance.”
Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute comments that this “was just a tiny old Obama proposal to trim some duplicative payments in the disability program — just 0.02% of the Social Security budget (as in 1/50 of 1%). . . . When Obama used to propose it, it was never even covered because it was so small and non-controversial.
“And again, no seniors would be cut even one penny.”
This seems like rather important context. I’d be happy to see Social Security benefit growth restrained, which is not the same thing as cutting benefits for current retirees and near-retirees. But it doesn’t look like Republicans are doing either.
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Let's take a second to show how our US right wing REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVE think tanks have been corrupted by global banking 1% BUSH NEO-CONS these few decades. Ramesh is being called an AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE-----but RAMESH is a global banking 1% working to kill US sovereignty making America a colonial entity -----so RAMESH is not an AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE---he is a ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE global 1% wanting to CONSERVE all wealth from NORTH AMERICA to the global 1% ONLY. There is no SOVEREIGNTY in MOVING FORWARD. One cannot be a right wing conservative REPUBLICAN without sovereignty.
This is why RAMESH is called a LEADER of REFORM CONSERVATIVE movement.
'He has been identified as a leader of the "reform conservative" movement'
Global banking 5% FAKE civil liberties will say---wait, she is being RACIST or HATING because she does not like a PONNURU as a US conservative. What our 99% of East Indian citizens coming to US want ---are politicians tied to REAL AMERICAN 300 YEARS OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND FREE MARKET CAPITALIST ECONOMICS. What PONNURU has as a goal as too all global banking 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---is to CONSERVE all wealth generated to only the GLOBAL 1%.
PONNURU is no better than a CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA for our 99% of new immigrant East Indian citizens being pushed into ONE WORLD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES operating as they do in Asia.
You say RAMESH we say ROMESH-----let's call the whole MOVING FORWARD off!
REAL left social progressives educate our new to US immigrants how we work hard to keep these global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS OUT of our people's government. It doesn't matter if a candidate is black, white, or brown if they are working to kill 99% of all citizens.
Romesh Wadhwani
- Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romesh_Wadhwani
Romesh T. Wadhwani (born 1947/48) is an Indian-born American billionaire businessman, the founder, chairman and CEO of Symphony Technology Group (STG), a private equity firm for software, Internet and technology services companies.
Ramesh Ponnuru
(/rəˈmɛʃ pəˈnʊəruː/; born August 16, 1974) is an American conservative political pundit and journalist. He is a senior editor for National Review magazine, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,[1] a columnist for Bloomberg View,[2] and a contributing editor to the domestic policy journal National Affairs.
Ponnuru has written widely on a range of political and policy topics, appeared on many public affairs and news interview programs, and is a widely respected voice on conservative policy.[4] He has been highly critical of President Donald Trump, as have many of the figures associated with National Review.
Policy
Ponnuru is a sought-after thinker on conservative policy and its political implications, and has regularly been a guest at retreats for congressional Republicans.[23] In 2015, Politico Magazine featured him and his wife, April Ponnuru, as two of the "Politico 50" influential leaders in American politics.
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OBAMA did not kick-the-can on ending SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY. OBAMA and Clinton neo-liberals created what we discuss in detail a NEW pipeline to prison-----the REHABILITATION CAMPS tied to forced labor operating these several decades in overseas FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES. Rather then having POVERTY PIMPS push all of our US SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUNDS into DISABILITY these few decades to support growing US unemployed----now they are simply going to send anyone needing unemployment to WORK CAMPS---no need to have a doctor declare someone DISABLED.
OBAMA and Clinton neo-liberals set the stage for ending SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY by passing policies PRETENDING to be rehabilitation structures----when it is simply a new pathway to prison pipeline---instead of prison global banking 1% global corporate MARXISM creates forced labor.
So, these policies will hit a great percentage of our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens having been captured in POVERTY PIMPING policies written by INTERNATIONAL INEQUITY INDUSTRY WORLD BANK.
'is to combine a limited reallocation with genuine policy reforms that protect both the disabled who cannot work, Social Security’s retirement program, and the workers who finance Social Security'.
When EVERY US SENATOR is FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL BANKING 1%-------these 'reforms' will be brutal and repressive.
July 15, 2015
President Obama’s Failure on Social Security Disability
Social Security Disability Insurance faces a funding shortfall of nearly $270 billion over the next decade. The program’s unfunded liability amounts to $1.2 trillion over the next 75 years. Social Security’s trustees project the DI trust fund will be bankrupt by late 2016. The condition of the trust fund has significantly worsened during the Obama administration, and the depletion of the trust fund is coming 10 years sooner than experts predicted in 2007.
Without changes in the law, depletion of the trust fund will mean that DI beneficiaries can only be paid from incoming payroll tax receipts specifically devoted to the fund. Since projected receipts would only finance about 81 percent of scheduled benefits, beneficiaries would face across-the-board benefit cuts of approximately 19 percent without legislative action.
The DI program’s impending insolvency is the result of demographic changes like the aging of the population, as well as structural deficiencies in the program and Social Security Administration mismanagement. These problems include:
- The SSA has allowed, and even encouraged, administrative law judges to rubber-stamp disability claims. According to a 2014 congressional report, “there were 191 ALJs who had a total allowance rate in excess of 85 percent [between 2005 and 2013]. These 191 ALJs awarded more than $150 billion in lifetime benefits between 2005 and 2013.” A 2014 study by the inspector general for Social Security found that only 11 percent of “high allowance” ALJ decisions contained a well-supported rationale. An official with an association for ALJs told 60 Minutes in 2013 that “if the American public knew what was going on in our [disability] system, half would be outraged and the other half would apply for benefits.”
- A 2010 paper by the Center for American Progress and the Brookings Institution concluded: “SSDI is ineffective in assisting workers with disabilities to reach their employment potential or maintain economic self-sufficiency. Instead, the program provides strong incentives to applicants and beneficiaries to remain permanently out of the labor force.”
- Economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta concluded in May 2014 that the growth in disability is a significant factor in the rapid decline in the labor force participation rate during the Obama administration. Fewer than one percent of program beneficiaries return to the workforce in any given year.
- According to a 2013 paper by Mark Duggan, President Obama’s former adviser for health care policy, an increasing number of people are qualifying for DI with subjective conditions like back pain or depression.
Without reform, the failures of DI will continue to erode economic productivity and harm both the truly disabled as well as taxpayers. A bipartisan solution is urgently needed to fix the program’s problems and to preserve it for those who cannot work.
The president’s irresponsible kick-the-can proposal
Despite holding office for six and a half years, the president has not engaged with Congress to develop a longer term solution to DI’s impending bankruptcy. Now, rather than proposing reforms, the president has offered to kick the can down the road by demanding a stand-alone payroll tax reallocation. Currently, the total payroll tax equals 12.4 percent of wage income – with 1.8 percent dedicated to DI and 10.6 percent dedicated to Social Security’s old age and survivor component. The president’s proposal would increase the tax earmarked for the DI trust fund to 2.7 percent, while reducing the payroll tax earmarked for the OASI trust fund to 9.7 percent for the next five years.
President Obama’s proposed reallocation is projected to generate sufficient reserves in the DI trust fund to forestall bankruptcy until 2033. In his proposal, the OASI trust fund is projected to become insolvent at the same time. The president’s 2016 budget request argued that his plan would remedy the reserve depletion of the DI trust fund “while a longer-term solution to overall Social Security solvency is developed with the Congress.” The president is offering an irresponsible proposal that is not accompanied by any reforms in the DI program – something inconsistent with previous re-allocations.
Many Democrats are pushing the myth that there have been 11 previous bipartisan reallocations between trust funds in the past and that such reallocations are ordinary housekeeping. In fact, there has never been a reallocation from OASI to DI like the president is proposing. The previous reallocations stemmed from six pieces of legislation, four of which involved major Social Security reform. None of the previous reallocations occurred at a time when both parts of Social Security were in such poor fiscal shape.
The most recent reallocation occurred in 1994 when Congress increased the DI portion of the payroll tax by 50 percent. While Social Security’s public trustees supported the reallocation, they urged SSA and Congress to study DI and develop “substantive changes needed in the program” in their 1994 report. In the trustees 1995 report, they reiterated that the reallocation “should be viewed as only providing time and opportunity to design and implement substantive reforms that can lead to long-term financial stability.” The SSA, previous Congresses, and the executive branch failed to head the trustees’ advice. Despite the promise of reforms, these never happened – and DI’s finances have deteriorated to the point where bankruptcy is again imminent.
The president’s standalone reallocation proposal will undoubtedly delay reforms and structural changes once again. His plan defies repeated calls from the Social Security trustees – who include his secretaries at Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services, and the acting Social Security commissioner – for prompt action to address Social Security’s unsustainable path.
Moreover, there are long-standing reasons why the trust funds should be separate. Social Security public trustee Chuck Blahous wrote in April that “[w]hen Social Security was first established, lawmakers assured the public that its retirement pensions would be self-financing. … When disability insurance was added later, similar promises were made that it would also be self-sustaining, and not siphon funds from Social Security’s retirement program or from the general budget.” Blahous noted that President Eisenhower’s signing statement cited the separate trust fund as one of the features that enabled him to sign the bill:
“A separate trust fund was established for the disability program in an effort to minimize the effects of the special problems in this field on the other parts of the program – retirement and survivors’ protection.”
While the president’s reallocation proposal appears to avert the DI trust fund’s shortfall until 2033, uncertainty will actually return in 2026. Under the president’s plan, the DI “trust fund ratio,” which measures trust fund reserves at the beginning of a year as a percentage of projected program expenditures, will fall below 100 in 2026. A ratio below 100 fails the short-range test for financial adequacy. As a result, in 2026 and each year thereafter, the Social Security trustees will issue financial warnings from the failed adequacy test, causing anxiety over the possibility of benefit cuts.
Stand-alone reallocation harms Social Security retirement program
The president’s proposed reallocation would transfer about $350 billion from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund in the next five years. Since the president’s proposal worsens the solvency of Social Security’s OASI trust fund, it threatens benefits for retirees. Moreover, the president’s proposal is a particularly bad idea given that OASI’s financial condition is in even worse long-run shape than is DI’s. This was not the case in 1994 when the last reallocation passed Congress.
According to Blahous, “[r]earranging the deck chairs, rather than slowing cost growth, would be an inadequate response with potentially ruinous implications for the program.” In a January 15 editorial, the Wall Street Journal used the analogy of “an underwater borrower transferring debt from one maxed-out credit card to another with a higher balance but also a higher spending limit.”
Republicans have proposed DI reforms
Rather than demand an irresponsible solution to a problem that the president has ignored for too long, he should work with Congress on real solutions. These include modernizing DI and improving its fiscal outlook; making it easier for beneficiaries to work if they are able; and reducing waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the program. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan have proposed bills that would begin the process of reforming the DI program. They are also soliciting ideas on reforms from disability program experts, researchers, advocates, and the general public. The responsible path forward – and one consistent with most prior reallocations – is to combine a limited reallocation with genuine policy reforms that protect both the disabled who cannot work, Social Security’s retirement program, and the workers who finance Social Security.
______________________________________
The other side of US national media has global banking 5% freemason/Greek media outlet trying to confuse both right wing and left wing 99% WE THE PEOPLE by mixing and matching all kinds of individual parts of deliberately long and complicated BILLS. You would be a MOTLEY FOOL if you followed what one media outlet sells.
This far-right wing media outlet says RELAX---those REPUBLICANS are simply going to TWEAK here and there---maybe just raise that age limit. OH, REALLY?
Thinking of our population groups tied to families and children----who depends on GRANDMOTHERS rearing grandchildren? So, these policies hit hardest our US low-income families already dealing with support heavily tied to SS DISABILITY.
The GOP May Not Seek Social Security Reform After All
Republicans may want to reduce long-term Social Security expenditures, but that's unlikely to happen in 2018.
Sean Williams
(TMFUltraLong)
Jan 8, 2018 at 8:33AM
It took nearly a full year in the Oval Office, but President Trump and the Republican Party secured their first major legislative win last month when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law. It's the first major overhaul of the U.S. tax code in around three decades, and it speaks to one of the key promises that President Trump made while on the campaign trail.
Spending cuts are probably still on the GOP docket However, tax reform comes with some big shoes to fill -- namely, the expectation that permanently lower corporate tax rates and temporarily reduced individual federal income-tax rates will balloon the federal deficit by around $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Part of this deficit is expected to be dealt with by economic growth created by lower taxes. In other words, higher wages and more job creation could increase what the federal government is expected to collect. Nevertheless, cuts are probably still needed.
One of the larger money-saving items in the recently passed GOP tax law was the elimination of the individual mandate associated with the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, as it's better known). The individual mandate is the actionable component of Obamacare that required people to purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty. Without this mandate, it's expected that millions will drop out of Obamacare, and thus the federal government will become less reliant on supplying federal subsidies for the Advanced Premium Tax Credit. Estimates suggest savings of $338 billion over the next decade.
Still, more cuts may be needed, and so-called entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare may be in the crosshairs of the GOP.
Two key ways the GOP would cut Social Security benefits While both Democrats and Republicans have a number of ways they'd consider fixing the shortcomings of Social Security, both of the core fixes for the GOP would act as a means to reduce long-term expenditures for the program.
First of all, a majority of Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill strongly believe in raising the full retirement age. Your full retirement age is the age where the Social Security Administration deems you eligible to receive 100% of your payout. If you claim benefits between ages 62 (the first age of retired worker eligibility) and a month before your full retirement age, you accept a permanent reduction in your monthly stipend. If you wait until after your full retirement age to claim benefits, you can actually get a boost. Currently set to top out at age 67 in 2022, a number of GOP proposals have suggested increasing the full retirement age to 68, 69, or even 70, for future generations of retirees.
Raising the full retirement age doesn't impact current retirees, nor would it be likely to affect anyone born before 1960. However, future generations of retirees would either have to wait longer to receive 100% of their monthly payout, or be willing to accept a steeper reduction by claiming early. Either way, it means fewer lifetime dollars paid out to seniors.
The second way the GOP aims to save the program money is by switching the inflationary tether away from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) to the Chained CPI. Both inflationary measures are pretty similar, with one key difference. The Chained CPI takes into account substitution bias, or the act of consumers trading down to a cheaper good or service when another gets too expensive (e.g., buying pork when beef prices are too high). Though this represents a real world choice consumers do make, it would wind up reducing the inflation factored into Social Security's annual cost-of-living adjustment.
It took nearly a full year in the Oval Office, but President Trump and the Republican Party secured their first major legislative win last month when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law. It's the first major overhaul of the U.S. tax code in around three decades, and it speaks to one of the key promises that President Trump made while on the campaign trail.
Spending cuts are probably still on the GOP docket However, tax reform comes with some big shoes to fill -- namely, the expectation that permanently lower corporate tax rates and temporarily reduced individual federal income-tax rates will balloon the federal deficit by around $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Part of this deficit is expected to be dealt with by economic growth created by lower taxes. In other words, higher wages and more job creation could increase what the federal government is expected to collect. Nevertheless, cuts are probably still needed.
One of the larger money-saving items in the recently passed GOP tax law was the elimination of the individual mandate associated with the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, as it's better known). The individual mandate is the actionable component of Obamacare that required people to purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty. Without this mandate, it's expected that millions will drop out of Obamacare, and thus the federal government will become less reliant on supplying federal subsidies for the Advanced Premium Tax Credit. Estimates suggest savings of $338 billion over the next decade.
Not so fast! The GOP may not seek Social Security reform after all House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has made it no secret that reforming Social Security and Medicare are among his top priorities in 2018. However, even with current control of the legislative branch of the government, such a plan is looking more unlikely by the day.
Recently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has all but declared entitlement reform dead ahead of next year's agenda. In a news conference in December, according to Politico, McConnell told reporters, "The sensitivity of entitlements is such that you almost have to have bipartisan agreement in order to achieve a result." Imagine that -- bipartisan cooperation!
But it's not just the lack of support from McConnell that could doom Ryan's chances of enacting reforms. There are two other factors at play here.
First, Republicans, like Democrats, don't just have a line-in-the-sand view on Social Security. There are conservatives within the party who lean very far to the right, and more moderate Republicans, some of whom would probably scoff at the idea of cutting benefits in any way for future generations. With just a one-seat majority in the Senate, getting a party consensus would be nearly impossible.
The other issue being that we're now in an election year. With midterm elections in November, the GOP would have to be careful not to completely tick off the voting base with Social Security or Medicare reforms, lest they could be voted out of office. At this point, the GOP seems more concerned with damage control following healthcare and tax reform debates than it does with pressing on with Social Security reforms.
Congressional kick the can continues in 2018
Nonetheless, this demonstrates the incredible rift in Washington when it comes to repairing the fractured Social Security system. Both parties have a means to fix the program, but neither has the support, speaking strictly on party lines, to make it happen. A middle ground is needed to come to a bipartisan solution, but neither party will back down when they have what they believe to be the winning ticket in their back pocket.
In short, it could be a long time before we see any serious discussion take place on Capitol Hill regarding Social Security reform.
OH, REALLY?????
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Remember, in killing a vital and much-loved social safety net program like SOCIAL SECURITY----as MEDICARE global banking 1% has to make one population group feel like WINNERS----while selected population groups are great big LOSERS. Socioeconomic ladders ALWAYS go to black and brown 99% of citizens first----seniors and disabled next----and then of course all those US 99% of WE THE WHITE people and UPPER-MIDDLE INCOME/MERELY RICH will be LOSERS last.
Today, US Congressional pols under TRUMP are targeting SENIORS and their SS benefits not that COLA policy hasn't been doing that throughout CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. We all know the NO SOCIAL SECURITY UNTIL YOU ARE 70 scheme---that is being done by making our US 99% afraid to stop working because they will lose HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE. MOVING FORWARD kills health care access for 99% of citizens so longevity will fall steeply and immediately---people will not live to age 70 in US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Global banking 1% POVERTY PIMPS keep harping on LONGEVITY figures all the time killing access to health care that created these longer lives.
The Social Security Reform Act of 2019
They’re coming after Social Security spousal benefits. Count on it.
“Social Security spousal benefits have been part of the benefit structure since 1939, a time before Rosie the Riveter, the women’s movement and the decline in average wages which forced women into the workforce,” writes Jeffrey Miller, a retired econ professor at the University of Delaware.
“It is time to question the fairness and usefulness of the spousal benefit in the context of today’s realities,” Miller says in a MarketWatch column posted last Friday.
Today’s episode of The 5 is a follow-up from May 14. Then, we took note of an item in President Obama’s 2015 budget blueprint. It proposed to eliminate “file and suspend” — a method many couples use to maximize their Social Security benefits over time.
The proposal doesn’t have a prayer of passage in Congress this year or next.
But Professor Miller goes a step further. And he makes us wonder what’s in store once we get past the 2016 elections…
“Let’s eliminate the spousal benefit altogether,” proposes the professor, invoking a word that should always make you reach for your wallet defensively — fairness.
Miller cites the case of two hypothetical couples: Both earn $2,000 in Social Security benefits at full retirement age. But the wife in Couple No. 1 never worked, while both spouses in Couple No. 2 worked.
“If the husband in couple (1) claims retirement benefits at full retirement age ($2,000) and his wife claims spousal benefits (half his benefit, $1,000) when she reaches her full retirement age, the couple will receive $3,000,” Miller writes.
If the husband and wife in couple (2) also wait until full retirement age to claim their benefits, they will receive a total of $4,000. While couple (2) will receive $1,000 more in benefits than couple (1), they will pay twice as much in Social Security taxes during their working lives. Thus, couple (2) pays twice as much in taxes and receives only 33% more in benefits.
Our point today isn’t about whether Miller is right or wrong. It’s about this: The government reserves the authority to change the rules of the game at any time.
We learned this more than a generation ago from the Greenspan Commission. Before he embarked on his two-decade path of destruction running the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan chaired one of those proverbial bipartisan blue-ribbon panels. Its task — to shore up Social Security’s shaky finances.
President Reagan appointed the commission in 1981, a year after his election. The commission’s work resulted in the Social Security Reform Act of 1983. Its signal clause broke a promise dating back to the system’s creation in the 1930s — that Social Security benefits would not be subject to income tax. Today, up to 85% of Social Security benefits are taxable income.
YOU MEAN REAGAN/GREENSPAN TRIPLED PAYROLL TAXES AND MADE SOCIAL SECURITY MONTHLY CHECKS TAXABLE INCOME ALL WHILE SAYING THEY WERE SHORING UP OUR SS TRUST? WHAT POVERTY PIMPS.
But the reforms had only so much impact. As we’ve mentioned from time to time, Social Security’s own actuaries predict the program’s “trust fund” will be exhausted by 2033… and researchers at Harvard and Dartmouth anticipate the day of reckoning will arrive sooner, in 2029.
So it’s not hard to imagine the next president, whoever it is, appointing another bipartisan blue-ribbon panel to once again take up the task of revamping Social Security.
If the new president follows the Reagan timetable, the commission will be appointed in 2017 and its recommendations would end up as law by 2019. (Maybe Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, would be the chairman?)
As we noted last month, eliminating file and suspend won’t achieve much in the way of savings — $9.5 billion a year, or barely 1% of the $863 billion in benefits Social Security paid last year.
But eliminating spousal benefits? The aforementioned Professor Miller says now we’d be getting somewhere — although he doesn’t offer up hard numbers.
It’s this simple: The rules will change, sooner or later. And you need to do everything in your power to maximize your retirement income above and beyond Social Security.
Best regards,
Dave Gonigam
for The Daily Reckoning
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'The group calls Johnson's proposal "a thoughtful plan" and the product of "true leadership."'
So, the next population group targeted is SPOUSES AND CHILDREN. This has not only to do with DISABLED benefits---it is tied to SPOUSES being able to claim the other spouses Social Security benefits if that spouse has higher monthly payments. So, if a wife worked 50 years at high-paying job and dies----the husband earning less can assume her SOCIAL SECURITY MONTHLY PAYMENTS to increase the sole survivor's income. Now, we say this hits women more because let's face it-----it is the husband more likely to have that higher paying job for 50 years ergo having a higher Social Security monthly payment. Many times a wife does not work ----leaving only the husband earning that SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFIT. So, what does that stay-at-home wife do NOW when that husband dies? Well, she won't get that spousal claim to his SS monthly benefits.....she is left without support in old age.
'Johnson would also cut benefits for the spouses and children of retired and disabled workers by pegging them to average wages, rather than to the wages actually earned by the worker. This pares the benefits for families earning more than the average'.
Both global banking 1% CLINTON/OBAMA neo-liberals and global banking 1% BUSH NEO-CONS are MOVING FORWARD these attacks on SOCIAL SECURITY.
THIS IS NOT ONLY ABOUT MADMAN TRUMP.
If we are reading all those silly FAKE changes bumping one population group up while killing another population group---we need to WAKE UP and look at the MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
Republicans always behind STAY-AT-HOME MOMS are killing those STAY-AT-HOME WIVES.
The GOP unveils a 'permanent save' for Social Security — with massive benefit cuts
By Michael Hiltzik
Dec 09, 2016 | 1:25 PM
Amid all the hand-wringing over Republican plans to eviscerate Medicare and Medicaid and repeal the Affordable Care Act, it shouldn't be overlooked that the GOP has the knives out for Social Security too.
The latest reminder comes from Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Tex., chairman of the Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee. Johnson on Thursday uncorked what he termed a "plan to permanently save Social Security."
Followers of GOP habits won't be surprised to learn that it achieves this goal entirely through benefit cuts, without a dime of new revenues such as higher payroll taxes on the wealthy. In fact, Johnson's plan reduces the resources coming into the program by eliminating a key tax --another way that he absolves richer Americans of paying their fair share, while increasing the burdens of retirement for almost everyone else.
No one voted for massive cuts to Social Security, nor to end the program as we know it.
Predictably, this plan has already been hailed by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a billionaire's front group that likes to portray itself as a neutral budget watchdog. (The foundation of hedge fund billionaire Peter G. Peterson, whose hostility to Social Security is well-documented, provided $3.3 million in funding for the committee in 2015; that's the equivalent of about half the group's revenue of $7.1 million in 2014)
The group calls Johnson's proposal "a thoughtful plan" and the product of "true leadership." But it also says that "revenue and benefit changes both need to be on the table." Johnson's plan doesn't meet that standard at all.
Typically, Social Security "reform" proposals at least pay lip service to the fact that the payroll tax has been giving the wealthy a larger and larger pass, by covering an ever-shrinking percentage of their wages and exempting the capital gains and dividends that make up a larger share of high-end income.
Johnson's plan doesn't mention that at all. It does, however, give higher-income beneficiaries a tax cut by eliminating income tax on benefits starting in 2045. The tax affects about 30% of retirees by treating at least half of the benefits of those earning more than $32,000 as taxable income.
By law, the tax must be credited to the Social Security system. It's scheduled to bring in as much as $78 billion in 2025. Johnson's rationale here is murky. If Social Security is in such bad shape that he sees the need to slash benefits, why cut its revenue, too?
Social Security's actuaries, who analyzed the plan at Johnson's request, agreed that it would improve the program's finances, but noted that virtually every provision involved a benefit cut.
Let's take a look.
Johnson's "Social Security Reform Act" changes the program's benefit formula to provide modest benefit increases for the lowest-earning workers in the system— those who earned up to an annual average of about $22,105 over their lifetimes in inflation-indexed pay — with cuts for everyone else ranging from 17% to as much as 43%, compared with currently scheduled benefits, by 2080.
The act would cut way back on cost-of-living increases for retirees. It would do this by cutting out cost-of-living raises entirely for retirees earning adjusted gross income of more than $85,000 ($170,000 for couples) starting in December 2018, and using the chained consumer price index to calculate the COLA for all others. (The income threshold would be adjusted for inflation.)
Johnson asserts that the chained CPI is "a more accurate measure of inflation," but he's blowing smoke. There are no grounds to say the index, which was heavily promoted a few years ago by yet another gang associated with Peter G. Peterson, is more accurate than the index used today. If anything, it understates price increases in housing and healthcare, which have especially pronounced impacts on the household budgets of seniors. Conservatives like it for one reason: It grows more slowly than the regular CPI, so it's cheaper. As we explained a few years ago, using the chained CPI is a benefit cut, and one that gets larger year by year. Period.
Johnson would also cut benefits for the spouses and children of retired and disabled workers by pegging them to average wages, rather than to the wages actually earned by the worker. This pares the benefits for families earning more than the average.
Finally, the measure also raises the full retirement age, which is now pegged to reach 67 by 2022, to 69 by 2030. this means that workers taking early retirement, which is permitted as soon as age 62, would face a steeper cut in annual benefits for starting early. Johnson would increase the age up to which delayed retirement credits may be earned to 72, from 70. Workers who can afford to put off claiming Social Security will reap the great rewards from this maneuver; by their nature, they tend to be wealthier people who have the resources to live on while deferring Social Security.
Conservatives often argue that raising the retirement age is innocuous because Americans are living longer. Their lengthier retirements, it's argued, put an unexpected strain on Social Security's finances, and they don't need all that money anyway.
But this change is unfair and short-sighted for several reasons. One is that life expectancy is closely tied to income, education and careers. Well-heeled persons who spend much of their lives behind a desk — congressmen from Texas and analysts at billionaire-funded think tanks, say — are more likely to live longer and can stay in their careers well into their 60s and 70s. That's not so for workers who spent their careers in menial or physically challenging work.
Raising the retirement age is also predicated on life expectancies rising indefinitely. Just as trees don't grow into the stratosphere, there's no guarantee this trend isn't finite. Indeed, just this week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that U.S. life expectancies actually declined last year for the first time since 1993, falling to 78.8 years at birth from 78.9 in 2014, statistically a major decline.
It may be unwise to draw too sweeping a conclusion from a single year's figures, but this statistic is a reminder that life expectancy is a dynamic phenomenon, and we may merely have been living through a two-decade bump. Nature may have its own ideas about the appropriate average lifespan for members of the human race.
The bottom line is that Johnson's plan is one of the most cynical and dishonest Social Security "fixes" to come down the Republican chute in years. It "fixes" Social Security in the same sense that one "fixes" a cat, and makes the program less relevant for millions of Americans facing retirement with ever shrinking resources.
Is this a serious policy prescription? Social Security advocates are properly aghast. As Nancy Altman, co-founder of Social Security Works, put it Friday, in the last election "no one voted for massive cuts to Social Security, nor to end the program as we know it." Donald Trump even campaigned on a hands-off pledge.
"Trump needs to immediately reassure the American people that he will keep his campaign promise and veto this awful bill," Altman said. "He should tweet that immediately."
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