The program known as “Women, Infants and Children” (WIC) is officially the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.  Their web site can be found here.  The site describes the program this way:

“The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk.”

The program serves approximately nine million people.  As the sequester kicked in a few months ago, this is one of the programs whose funding will be impacted.  It’s solvent through the end of the fiscal year (30 September 2013) but its future after that is not so certain.  There are few examples more clear of how we expect the people who can least afford it to pay for our government’s irresponsibility.

The Center on Budget a Policy Priorities has released this report on the impact the cuts will have on this program.  The cuts to the program’s budget come at a time when increases are needed to maintain it for the 8.9 million people who depend on it.  While it appears, the United States’ economy is recovering, for too many people recovery is a long way off.  WIC is an incredibly successful and effective program.  To do anything but increase its funding will make it turn people who need the services away.

All of this because Congress can’t do its job.  The sequester was supposed to be so bad that no one would let it actually be enacted but it was.  Congress even passed “no budget, no pay” requiring both sides of Capitol Hill pass budget resolutions by 15 April or forfeit their salaries.  Sounds good, right?  Not so fast.  Both chambers passed budgets — a big deal in some ways, the Senate has not passed one since 2009 but at the end of the day, it means almost nothing.  While both chamber met the bar set to keep members getting their salaries, the next step — appoint conferees to work out the differences between the two budget– has not happened.

It’s time for Congress to stop wasting time passing bills to repeal Obamacare and do something to help people who need it.

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The Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare turns three today.  Many of the provisions will go into effect in January 2014 and you may be unsure about how this may impact your coverage.  Some states have seen insurance companies increase their premiums and you may be concerned that will happen to you.  A new web site has been set up to explain the bill and what your options will be.  If you are interested, check this out.

PS.  I recently had a heated conversation with someone who was convinced the ACA could have been written by Hitler (really, it was surreal, I am such a freak magnet).  Nothing I have read about makes me think that, if you have evidence to prove me wrong, please let me know.

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The House of Representatives voted this morning on Congressman Paul Ryan‘s budget proposal.  It passed by a vote of 221 to 207.  The 221 yeahs were all Republican, 197 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted no.   You can read the official vote count here.  You can read the official vote count here.  Read more about the actual legislation here.

This is how the House Budget Committee describes the Republican budget plan:

Washington owes the American people a responsible, balanced budget. This is a plan to balance the budget in ten years. It invites President Obama and Senate Democrats to commit to the same common-sense goal. This budget will achieve the following:

1. Stop spending money we don’t have by cutting wasteful spending.
2. Fix our broken tax code to create jobs and increase wages.
3. Protect and strengthen important priorities like Medicare and national security.
4. Reform welfare programs like Medicaid so they can deliver on their promise.

You can read the summary here and the full plan here.

Before I give my critique of Ryan’s budget, I would like to be very clear about something.  I do not have anything against him.  I just disagree with the approach he has taken to the overall budget and Medicare.

So, I do have problems with Ryan’s budget.  They are:

1. It doesn’t go anywhere near defense spending.  Not only that, despite claiming to be supporters of “fiscal responsibility” the GOP controlled House voted to give the Defense Department more money than it requested.  From the Associated Press, “The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday overwhelmingly backed a $642 billion defense bill that calls for construction of a missile defense site on the East Coast, restores aircraft and ships slated for early retirement and ignores the Pentagon’s cost-saving request for another round of domestic base closings.”  
2. Since the Defense Department budget is off the table, major cuts will be made to other discretionary spending.  It should be noted that this part of the budget is really small and cuts to these programs will not do a lot to impact the deficit or debt.
3. The Obamacare “repeal” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Sure, it gets rid of a lot of it but “Ryan’s budget doesn’t actually assume the repeal of all of Obamacare. It keeps the tax increases and Medicare cuts so that it can balance in 10 years, as top Republicans in the House promised conservatives.”  Link here.
4. It does nothing to address the sequester.  According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the sequester’s impact on the economy is very real.  They looked into this and found, “In the absence of sequestration, CBO estimates, GDP growth would be about 0.6 percentage points faster during this calendar year, and the equivalent of about 750,000 more full-time jobs would be created or retained by the fourth quarter.” More on that can be found here.
5. It fails to address economic growth.  In 1992, one Clinton/Gore campaign slogan was “It’s the economy, stupid.”  That idea applies today.  A better rate of economic growth would solve a lot of our deficit and debt problems.  Louis Woodhill writes this in Forbes: ”The FY2014 Budget Resolution makes a few vague statements about economic growth, but it doesn’t promise that following Ryan’s plan will deliver a growth rate above the woefully inadequate CBO baseline, which peters out to a pathetic 2.19% rate by FY2023. This is what makes the whole exercise a suicide mission for House Republicans.”
6. Yes, we have a divided government but all the reports I have read indicate House Democrats received more votes than House Republicans and the only reason the GOP has a majority is gerrymandering (see my post on the Reform We Need for more on my view on this — and no, both sides try to do it so I don’t put all the blame for gerrymandering on the right side of the aisle).  The bigger issue, is that voters rejected the GOP budgetary priorities when they rejected the Romney/Ryan ticket.  Read more here.

While those are my basic problems with the plan, the specifics of which programs will be cut bother me a lot.  I watched Ryan this morning on the House floor talk about the differences between how Republicans and Democrats view government and I am going to address some of that now.

Ryan said, “This budget debate was constructive. It revealed each side’s priorities. We want to balance the budget. They don’t. We want to restrain spending. They want to spend more. We think taxpayers give enough to Washington. They want to raise taxes by $1 trillion—just take more to spend more. We want to strengthen programs like Medicare. They seem complicit in their demise. We see Obamacare as a roadblock to patient-centered reform. They see it as a sacred cow. We think national security is a top priority. They want to hollow out our military. We offer modernization and reform, growth and opportunity. They cling to the status quo.”

You can watch that below.

My belief is that government exists to do for us collectively what we cannot do individually.  While I do not share Ryan’s view that a balanced budget is the end all, be all of everything (to me that is a GOP “sacred cow”), I am not opposed to it.  The last time we had a balanced budget was not under a GOP administration but during President Clinton’s tenure.  Moreover, the Republicans spent a lot like drunken sailors when they had control so I am not sure what he is talking about there.  I also do not want to “hollow out our military.”  I want to make it more efficient.  I suspect if I were to talk to Ryan, he would have a similar answer to questions about Medicare — he says he doesn’t want to destroy it, he wants to save it by making it more efficient.

I do not think we should cut:

1. Education spending:  our workers compete against workers all over the globe. I would like our people to be as (or more) qualified as anyone else.   I saw an interview with Apple where they said they would love to manufacture more products in the US but we don’t have the numbers of qualified people they need to do it all.  We need more engineers, scientists, etc.  We face shortages in healthcare (nurses, techs and a variety of physician specialties such as primary care doctors and surgeons).  This is not the time to cut education spending.
2. Transportation & infrastructure spending:  Our infrastructure is crumbling.  Our highways, bridges and rail lines are so far behind other countries, it is crazy.  Repairing these systems would be a way to get large numbers of people jobs that cannot be exported anywhere.
3. Clean energy research and development.  I know, I know there have been some bad companies but the more energy sources we have, the lower the costs will be and the less dependent we will be on unstable and unfriendly regimes.
4. Programs to help the poor.  With unemployment where it is, too many people depend on food stamps, unemployment insurance and other programs to cut them off.  One of my mom’s friends (and no, Ryan has never said anything like this — as far as I know), she said “when the little squirrel cannot find a nut, he dies.”  I don’t want that to be our country’s approach to the poor.
5. Medicare — it should not be a voucher system.  You can read about my thoughts on Ryan’s plan for that here.

Watch Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) talk about the GOP budget plan.  He is also the Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee.

Originally this post was going to be solely about the Republican budget plan in the context of Ryan’s religious views. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) opposed Ryan’s budget last year and have expressed similar concerns with this year’s proposals.  Their opposition stems from cuts to programs such as food stamps, child tax credits and others that help the poor.  Their letters to Congress last year were in response to comments the Budget Committee chairman made:

“A person’s faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private,” Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said in the interview. “So to me, using my Catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a lay person?

“Those principles are very, very important,” Ryan said. “And the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life, help people get out of poverty, out into a life of independence.”  Source: the Hill.

A statement by the USCCB released yesterday laid out their case for including provisions to help the poor in any budget:

“We support the goal of reducing future unsustainable deficits, but insist that this worthy goal be pursued in ways that protect poor and vulnerable people at home and abroad,” said Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, chairman of the USCCB Committee on International Justice and Peace.

“The moral measure of this budget debate is not which party wins or which powerful interests prevail, but rather how those who are jobless, hungry, homeless or poor are treated. Their voices are too often missing, but they have the most compelling moral claim on our consciences and our common resources. The bishops stand ready to work with leaders of both parties for a budget that reduces future deficits, protects poor and vulnerable people, advances the common good, and promotes human life and dignity,”

The bishops also suggested the following three principles guide lawmakers:

• Every budget decision should be assessed by whether it protects or threatens human life and dignity.
• Every budget proposal should be measured by how it affects “the least of these” (Matthew 25). The needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty should come first.
• Government and other institutions have a shared responsibility to promote the common good of all, especially ordinary workers and families who struggle to live in dignity in difficult economic times.

Ryan responded to the Bishops’ concerns and argued that his budget proposals neither hurt the poor nor do they violate his Catholic faith.  From Town Hall Magazine.

“Our budget incorporates solidarity by recognizing a critical role for government in providing a strong safety net for those in need. And it restores the balance between solidarity and subsidiarity by returning a lot of power to individuals, to families and to communities. We are a nation that prides itself on looking out for one another—and government has an important role to play in that. But relying on distant government bureaucracies to lead this effort just hasn’t worked.

Some Catholics seem to mistake the preferential option for the poor for a preferential option for Big Government. When you look at the results of that approach—one out of every six Americans in poverty today, many of them mired in programs whose outdated structures often act as a trap that hinders upward mobility—that’s just not consistent with how I understand my Catholic faith. We need to break down the barriers to opportunity and attack the root causes of poverty. Informed by constitutional oath and my Catholic faith, this is a moral obligation I take very seriously.”

Ryan also defended the morality of his budget in The World Over with Raymond Arroyo, EWTN:

“These programs aren’t working the way they should. One in six Americans are in poverty today. We have the highest poverty rates in a generation. What House Republicans proposed in our budget was sensible reforms  want to do is put the kind of reforms in these programs – using subsidiarity, solidarity, local control, ideas that worked when we tried them in some other areas in the 1990’s. We want to reform these programs with the idea of getting people out of poverty onto lives of self sufficiency. Right! And there isn’t a monopoly. That’s my point. I can no more claim exclusive justification for my economic and political views than a liberal can for theirs within the Church’s social teaching. This is a matter for prudential judgment left to the laity to exercise their discretion. People of good will can disagree on these things. You have these hits come at you — like that letter — but we should raise the tone of the debate. We shouldn’t just try to shoot the messenger and try to nullify the notion that there are other ways in which to implement Church teaching. That just does a disservice to the kind of debate we need to have.”

Now, I do not doubt Ryan’s sincerity in this area.  I think he does believe that his plans will help the poor and I don’t think he cares more about the rich.  I cannot say the same thing about Mitt Romney — I do believe he thinks his wealth has more to do with how great he is and not so much to do with the incredible opportunities he has had that others have not.  Yes, I am aware of and appreciate the work he has done in his communities to help others, I don’t think he is a fundamentally evil or awful person, I just think he doesn’t get it.  I have read reports that Ryan had suggested the Romney/Ryan 2012 campaign spend some time in lower income neighborhoods in the cities they visited to educate people on how their policies would be more helpful to poor Americans than Obama’s.  These ideas were allegedly shot down because the campaign did not see the value as they did not expect to get any votes in those areas.

(Side note: if these reports are true, Ryan’s idea was a great one and should have been followed.  It may not have gotten a huge number of votes in those areas, though I am sure it would have gotten some, but it would have made the ticket more appealing to a number of people who may have been on the fence.)

The bottom line, however, is that Ryan’s budgets and Medicare plans violate what I think of when I think of Jesus’ teachings.  I am all for the idea that “if you give a man a fish, you feed him for one day but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime” but cutting off assistance to people in real need, won’t accomplish that goal.

And if you want to read more about Ryan’s views on how to help the poor and his religious ideology:

1. Op-ed “Government Must Refocus its Safety Net to Those in Need”.
2. Interview with National Catholic Register’s Charlotte Hays – Ryan: ‘We have pursued solidarity but abused Subsidiarity’.
3. National Catholic Register Op-ed:  Applying Our Enduring Truths to our Defining Challenges.
4.  Ryan’s Opening Statement at House Budget Committee hearing on reforming the safety net.

Thank you to everyone who helped with this by sending supporting materials and documents.  Also I was impressed that Congressman Ryan went out of his way to praise his staff (that’s the former Hill staffer in me talking) and with Congressman Chris Van Hollen for thanking Ryan for his professionalism.  I may disagree with him but we should be able to disagree with people while remaining civil and it seems these two men have.  Good for you.

I promise to do an analysis of the Senate Democrats’ budget proposal.

And now for something completely different… (and hopefully fun)

I write political satire as Alyson Durden for Pardon the Pundit.  I have written a number of pieces where I call Ryan a vampire.  Now, I know Ryan is not a vampire and truly hope his staff, who were most helpful when I was researching his response to Catholic opposition to his budget plans, will not be totally offended because I meant it all in good fun.

Some are:

1. Paul Ryan Denies Allegations He Is a Vampire.
2. Ryan Claims “Twilight” Success Means He Does Have a Mandate, Admits He Is a Vampire.
3. Revealed! The Real Reason Romney Picked Ryan Was to Woo the All Important “Twilight” Voters.
4. As the Markets Worry about the Fiscal Cliff, Washington Works to Reassure America it is Working to Save “Twilight”.

And here is a goofy, fake add I put together making fun of a Democratic commercial bashing Ryan for his Medicare plans.  I did send it to his staff and it has received at least one thumbs down so I do hope it wasn’t from them because I was actually trying to point out the absurdity of the idea that his goal is to kill old people.

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My mother has told me a joke she heard from someone when she went to South Carolina.  The SC resident and native told her, “South Carolina; too small to be its own country, too big to be a mental institution.”  I have spent some time in the Palmetto State and like it a lot but you have to admit, they have a way — at least with their politics — of making themselves look more than a little loopy.

Yesterday was no exception.  Remember former SC Governor Mark Sanford (R)?  In 2009, he told his staff he was off to hike the Appalachian trail but in reality he had taken the state plane down to Argentina to see his mistress.  He made his situation a bit worse when he went on TV and called the woman his “soul mate.”  His wife wasn’t too happy about that claim so she left him and he ended up resigning.

Last night, Sanford’s political comeback, in the form of a campaign for the state’s first Congressional district, gained some steam as he received 37 percent of the vote in the GOP primary.  He will now face a run off election on April 2nd as soon as the state figures out who the runner up is.   The winner of the run off will face Stephen Colbert’s sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch.

My problem with Republicans who commit adultery is not the act itself, it s the hypocrisy of it.  My party isn’t any more faithful to their wives than the GOP, we just don’t wrap ourselves in a whole lot of clap trap about “family values.”  And for the record, I worked for John Edwards (2003, 2004, 2007) and his exploits broke my heart so no, I don’t think they are any better.  (I also don’t think all SC politicians are bad – Senator Lindsay Graham has been remarkably rational, though I cannot say I think the same of former Senator Jim DeMint — read his greatest hits of craziness here.)

Oh, SC. This was only four years ago.

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For most of the country, March means one thing: college basketball.  This year, in Washington, DC it means something completely

This may be from “Alice in Wonderland” but it could be Congress.

different.  The madness to which I refer is what’s happening with our federal budget.  If you are not troubled by the fact that we are facing this fabricated chaos, you should be.

What’s the deal?  Every year, Congress passes a budget.  This is supposed to happen through the appropriations process where the various committees in the House and the Senate decide how much money each agency should get to do their business. When they cannot agree on this, they basically punt and just extend the budget from the year before.  This is called a “continuing resolution” or “CR.”  They have been doing this — in increments as short as days.

This by itself is amazingly stupid and makes for an incredibly inefficient way to run anything and the federal government is just a huge example.  On Morning Joe last week one military expert said they would save millions of dollars by just doing their job and passing a real budget.  Something they have not done since 2008.  We have been operating under CR after CR since 2009.  That’s right.  No real budget has been passed since President Obama was inaugurated the first time.

Question: if you failed to do your job for four years, would you still have it? If you say yes, is your company hiring?  Well, Congress’ main job is to keep our government running and they do that by funding it.  They need a budget for that.  Punting doesn’t count.

Now, you may be asking yourself, “What about the sequester?”  Good question.  You see the CR keeps funding at last year’s level (or rather 2008’s level) but the sequester changed that so does the CR cancel the sequester?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  That is the madness Congress now faces.  Some CR proposals include provisions to keep the sequester but maintain funding for the programs and agencies not impacted by the sequester.  But that may not be legal or doable under the CR rules.

And Alice thought she had stepped into a strange world.  So Congress, who passed the sequester and CRs and President Obama, who has signed them have created a universe where no one really can tell how much money they will have and cannot plan for the coming year in any reasonable way.  Way to go!  I don’t mean to be cynical but this is not the change I could believe in.

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The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From AP:

More than 10 weeks after Superstorm Sandy brutalized parts of the heavily populated Northeast, the House approved $50.5 billion in emergency relief for the victims Tuesday night as Republican leaders struggled to close out an episode that exposed painful party divisions inside Congress and out.

The vote was 241-180, and officials said the Senate was likely to accept the measure early next week and send it to President Barack Obama for his signature. Democrats supported the aid in large numbers, while majority Republicans opposed it by a lopsided margin.

“We are not crying wolf here,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., one of a group of Northeastern lawmakers from both parties who sought House passage of legislation roughly in line with what the Obama administration and governors of the affected states have sought.

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The Daily Banter Headline Grab (via The AP):

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday that he’s not confident Congress can reach a budget deal and avoid a downgrading of the U.S. debt rating.

Moody’s Investors Service said Tuesday that it would likely cut its “Aaa” rating on U.S. government debt, probably by one notch, if budget negotiations fail.

Boehner was asked at a Capitol Hill news conference how confident he was that negotiations would prevent the government from hitting the so-called fiscal cliff — an economy rattling set of across-the-board spending cuts and higher taxes caused by the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts that are set to hit in January.

“I’m not confident at all,” Boehner said.

The Ohio Republican reminded reporters that the House has passed legislation to both avoid the automatic, across-the-board cuts next year and to renew the Bush era tax cuts for one year as well. Republicans warned of the impact of the impending cuts on the military and implored Senate Democrats to act to avoid them.

The Senate, however, has deadlocked over taxes and failed to address the across-the-board cuts, known as a sequester in Washington parlance.

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By Bob Cesca: Technically, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to vote. It seems odd, considering all of the various other rights, guarantees and structural details enumerated in the document.

That said, there are amendments that provide reasons why certain groups of people can’t be denied suffrage. In other words, there’s nothing that says, “All Americans have the right to vote.” Yet there are passages that say “Americans can’t be denied the right to vote because of [race, gender, etc...]”

The 15th Amendment, for example, reads as follows: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Throughout a series of amendments, such as the 15th, 17th (popular vote for Senate seats), 19th (women’s suffrage), 23rd (D.C. vote for president) and 26th (voting age), the Constitution repeatedly deregulates voting — it expands rights to those who had been previously disenfranchised either by exclusion or state laws.

As I detailed in a series of columns last week, around 10 states have made it increasingly difficult for Americans without adequate financial means to vote through an array of restrictive Voter ID laws that force citizens to attain a government issued photo identification card, usually with a fee attached along with whatever losses are incurred due to missed work and the cost of transportation to and from the government office.

So what we’ve seen over the last two years are Republican lawmakers who have passed multiple forms of legislation that force Americans to get an additional license from the government in order to vote — on top of the pre-existing voter registration process. These new laws in effect add a second layer of government approval and regulation in order to vote.

But if we want to buy a handgun or a box of high capacity magazines loaded with deadly rounds of ammunition that allow us to fire at length in the direction of, you know, deer, turkeys and foreign invaders (yeah right) these exact same Republicans have told us that we should be allowed to do so without government interference and regulations.

In other words, the Republicans have actively been campaigning to make it easier to build an arsenal while making it more difficult to cast a ballot on Election Day.

It’s because of various legal loopholes and gaps in the system that James Holmes was able to stockpile his arsenal. He ordered his ammunition and ballistic armor online without restrictions, and he purchased his firearms from various retail gun stores. There aren’t any laws against buying bullets, save for armor-piercing bullets which remain illegal, so he was really able to stock up with enough ammunition to fill those controversially large magazines. The AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle that Holmes bought in a store following (we presume) a background check was formerly illegal under the 1994 assault weapons ban, but the Bush era Republican Congress allowed that law to expire in 2004, making it possible for Holmes and others to buy them anywhere.

The NRA and the Republicans have historically refused to allow more regulations to be passed, such as closing the gun show loophole that allows the unfettered purchase of firearms without background checks at various trade shows, while allowing old regulations to expire.

Why? The Constitution, they say. Specifically the 2nd Amendment. Let’s review the text: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The third word in the amendment is “regulated.” And not just “regulated” but “well regulated,” meaning thoroughly regulated. A variation of the word “regulation” is right there in the line of the Constitution that the NRA and Republican Party hold so sacred. So it can be argued that the 2nd Amendment calls for regulation of militias composed of citizens who own firearms. What else besides arms could the framers have intended to be regulated in the context of militias? The tri-corner hats? The pantaloons? The charming regional colloquialisms? Yes, people can “bear arms” (I don’t know if the framers envisioned AR-15 rifles and high capacity magazines) but they can’t bear arms without being well regulated, say nothing of the fact that government-raised militias are totally extinct making the 2nd Amendment almost completely irrelevant.

Bottom line: the Republicans are only selectively dedicated to the Constitution.

They see “the right of the people to bear arms” while they deliberately ignore everything else surrounding those words. Likewise, they’ve systematically passed new versions of poll taxes without bothering to read the 24th Amendment: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.”

And yet they’re passing Voter ID laws, which the attorney general of the United States has in no uncertain terms defined as poll taxes.

In a Republican world, it’s mandatory for government to regulate voting even though the Constitution repeatedly deregulates voting, while it’s a trespass against patriotism and the framers to regulate firearms, even though the Constitution explicitly calls for firearms to be “well regulated.” Anyone who tells us that owning an AR-15 assault rifle should be easier, while voting in an election should be more difficult needs to be repeatedly questioned about his or her utterly backwards priorities. Sadly, this is the direction we’re headed: a direction in which violent means are deregulated and non-violent means are restricted.

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George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld: Closet Socialists (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Ben Cohen: Listening to the rhetoric of Republicans, you’d believe they wouldn’t have the government do anything other than go to war on behalf of the American people (and sometimes even that isn’t true – Donald Rumsfeld spent years trying to privatize the military). Republicans believe healthcare, roads, education, and the environment can all be better taken care of with free markets, and they work around the clock to prevent government getting involved with pretty much anything.

The problem is, when free markets don’t work out so well for any of the industries that pay for their campaigns, Republicans become born again socialists and use government to redistribute as much wealth as they possibly can.

When the economy fell off a cliff in 2008 due to the housing market collapse, George Bush turned from free market evangelist to big government spender in the blink of an eye. “I’m a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention,” said Bush when asking Congress to pass a $700 billion bailout package. “These are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence. Without immediate action by Congress, America can slip into a major panic.”

Apparently understanding the concept that without government spending the nation could face, in his words, a “long and painful recession,” Bush urged Congress to pass the package without asking any questions.

What the president announced yesterday, is that somehow magically, if we just continue to prime the pump of taxpayer dollars, we’re going to see magically an economic recovery.

Indonesia had a huge financial crisis about ten years ago, and the instructions were the standard ones: “Here is what you have to do. First, pay off your debts to us. Second, privatize, so that we can then pick up your assets on the cheap. Third, raise interest rates to slow down the economy and force the population to suffer, you know, to pay us back.” Those are the regular instructions the IMF is still giving them.

What do we do? Exactly the opposite. We forget about the debt, let it explode. We reduce interest rates to zero to stimulate the economy. We pour money into the economy to get even bigger debts. We don’t privatize; we nationalize, except we don’t call it nationalization. We give it some other name, like “bailout” or something. It’s essentially nationalization without control. So we pour money into the institutions. We lectured the third world that they must accept free trade, though we accept protectionism.

Faced with empirical evidence that America is basically a socialist country that redistributes wealth upwards, one would have thought members of the media or political classes would stop lecturing everyone else on the virtues of the free market. But Mitt Romney, an original supporter of the bank bailouts and stimulus package under Bush, is running on an austerity platform for the Presidential election this year, because apparently, that’s best for the economy. Amazingly, Romney actually told the truth about austerity in a rare moment of candor in an interview with Mark Halperin in Time magazine. Here’s the exchange:

Halperin: Why not in the first year, if you’re elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you’d like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?

Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course.

Romney then walked back the statement continuing his line that austerity was the only way forward, no doubt realizing his party and financial backers would be having serious words with him afterwards.

As Upton Sinclair famously wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Sadly, in Romney case, he actually does.

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The Wall Street Journal: “Stress Rises on Social Security”

The Los Angeles Times: “Social Security is slipping closer to insolvency”

The New York Times: “Social Security’s Financial Health Worsens”

And you know, come to think of it, it’s not just Republicans and the press. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) tweeted yesterday: “SocSec to run dry in 2033 – Medicare by 2024. Trustees: ‘more options/time’ if Congress acts ‘sooner, not later.’”

All of these reactions would be acceptable if they even vaguely resembled what the Trustees reported.

They don’t.

Social Security does not “run dry” in 2033. It doesn’t. “Run dry” and “insolvency” mean dead. Out of money. Nothing left. The trustees, in fact, reported that Social Security will run a surplus until 2033. 21 years. I can’t emphasize this enough. Two decades! Can you imagine if any program in the federal government was projected to run a surplus for even half of that time? Budget hawks would crap their cages demanding immediate action to give back the taxpayers’ money by slashing the program to the line. (To be fair, the date was adjusted back in time due to the Great Recession. Other years, however, the Trustees move the date forward in time. Either way, 2033 is barely on the horizon.)

Are Republicans trying to kill social security?

And once 2033 rolls around, Social Security will be capable of paying 75 to 80 percent of total benefits in 2033 money, which, accounting for inflation, is more than Social Security recipients receive today. Furthermore, these are projections based on zero legislative action. In other words, if Congress does nothing by way of tweaking payroll taxes, Social Security will be perfect until 2033, then it’ll still be capable of paying benefits after that.

But, naturally, something will happen to tighten the loose ends. It always does. Preferably that “something” will be low-key and non-disruptive. For example, lost somewhere in the American memory hole, President Reagan raised the payroll tax.

In 1983, for example, he signed off on Social Security reform legislation that, among other things, accelerated an increase in the payroll tax rate, required that higher-income beneficiaries pay income tax on part of their benefits, and required the self-employed to pay the full payroll tax rate, rather than just the portion normally paid by employees.

Without touching benefits or raising payroll taxes, Congress could follow suit by entirely eliminating the income cap on the payroll tax (the FICA tax found on your paycheck stub), forcing everyone who earns more than $110,000 per year to pay into the system based on their full income. That’s around six percent of the population. According to experts, this would allow Social Security to pay full benefits until 2087. To put that date into perspective, in 2087, if they retire at age 65 and survive to their 100th birthdays, Tim Tebow, Bradley Manning, Hilary Duff, Ke$ha and every American born in 1987 could collect full Social Security benefits for 35 years each.

So why all the fuss and panic?

For starters, far-right Republicans have been trying to kill Social Security since it was established during the Depression. It’s socialistic commie pinko welfare, they say in private. And so they act like the world’s most duplicitous concern trolls by exploiting minor setbacks and lying about “bad news” in order to sell their unbelievably stupid privatization plan — a massive giveaway to corporate America. They twist logic and pretend to “rescue” Social Security by disbanding it — investing the trust fund in the totally safe and never unstable stock market.

They’ve been so good at framing and branding unmitigated fiction about this issue that they’ve successfully shoved the broader discussion well beyond reality into some kind of brutally dishonest phantom zone where “full benefits for 20 years, and much longer if we tweak the payroll tax” means, “OMFG! Social Security is DOOOOOMED! AAAAAAAHHH!” If they’re not pitching their awful privatization scam, they’re deliberately undermining the system by proposing things like raising the retirement age or cutting benefits. Both of these ideas only manage to hurt old people while simultaneously breeding disillusionment about the reliability of Social Security among younger people.

President Eisenhower once wrote:

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Modern far-right Republicans are aware of Eisenhower’s prediction and so instead of killing Social Security outright, they’re trying to kill it by a thousand cuts and even more lies. Sadly, it seems like the rest of the D.C. establishment is going along with their framing in spite of the reality from the Trustees themselves, making the “insolvency” panic-mongering the biggest lie being foisted upon the American people today.

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