California Senator Dianne Feinstein has joined a group of Senators threatening to allow the nation to default on its debt unless a commission to "fast track" cuts to Social Security is created.
Talking Points Memo
describes what is going on,
Moderate and conservative Democrats want to empower an outside
entitlement commission to reshape major domestic spending programs like
Medicare and Social Security, and they're threatening a truly nuclear
option to get their way. If Congress does not create this commission,
they say, they will vote against must-pass legislation to raise the
nation's debt ceiling, which would trigger a default, and, perhaps,
economic calamity.
"I will not vote for raising the debt limit without a vehicle to
handle this," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told McClatchy. "This is our
moment."
About this commission,
As proposed, it would hand a significant amount of Congressional
authority over entitlement programs to an outside body. That body would
make recommendations that Congress would have to vote on, up or
down--no filibusters.
That's a bridge way too far for liberals, who see the commission as a backdoor approach to gutting Social Security.
Here's the problem. Many people believe that there is a problem with Social Security - that it is "going broke." But the fact is that Social Security has a huge reserve in the bank. Social Security runs a huge surplus, and that surplus has been added to this reserve every year for decades. Social Security will continue running a surplus until at least 2017, and can then draw on that trust fund to make up any shortfalls for at least the next 30-40 years.
Ah, but where is that trust fund? According to a recent Washington Post story,
The Treasury Department has for decades borrowed money from the Social
Security trust fund to finance government operations. If it is no
longer able to do so, it could be forced to borrow an additional $700
billion over the next decade from China, Japan and other investors. And
at some point, perhaps as early as 2017, according to the CBO, the
Treasury would have to start repaying the billions it has borrowed from
the trust fund over the past 25 years, driving the nation further into
debt or forcing Congress to raise taxes.
So there is the problem in a nutshell. They spent it. They spent it on tax cuts for the rich, and now that people are retiring and want that money, Senator Feinstein and the others don't want to raise taxes on the rich to pay back what was borrowed from the nation's retirement account.
This is the same as the situation in California. They cut taxes and made up the shortfall with various gimmicks, until the gimmicks ran out. So now that the bill is due the protectors of the wealthiest talk about "spending" - which is government coming through for the people - as the area to cut, instead of turning to the people who received all the benefits of the earlier actions.
Senator Feinstein, keep your hands off of my -- and everyone else's -- retirement account. You borrowed that money, now pay it back. Don't think you can solve this problem by asking me to accept less than what I was promised because you handed that money out to the wealthy. The people who got it should be the ones paying it back, not the people it was taken from. You already took money from the taxpayers to bail out the wealthiest, don't do it again.
