Open Letter To Alan Simpson & Erskine Bowles Chairmen Of The U.S. Deficit Commission - Regarding Proposed Changes To Social Security
Flashback:
Dear Esteemed Chairmen:
No huge surprise here. What's unfortunate for you is that for years, even decades - going back to Ross Perot - the American people have been prepared for and willing to accept changes (means testing the wealthy) to Social Security. You, the politicians never gained the courage to ask, but I think for the most part the general public has been ready. And since I've been screaming about these issues my entire adult life, and have always pushed the concept of shared sacrifice as a means to budget sanity and limited government, I'm not comfortable with what I'm about to write, but it's inescapable after watching and recording a 32-month orgy of fiscal mayhem dominated by trillion-dollar bailouts, trillions in wasted stimulus, and trillions gifted to the military-industrial killing machine.
Fast forward from the Perot deficit awakening 20 years ago, and finally, you, the generationally-irresponsible political class seem to be facing up to the unfunded entitlement budget nightmare of your own creation - or at least you're in the discussion phase of 'facing it' - and what is the societal backdrop? Seething anger over the recession, the wars, multiple failed stimulus, dollar destruction, QE, and the government bailouts of favored industries.
So against this backdrop, your Commission now recommends cuts to Social Security and a hike in the retirement age to help us on our merry way to a fiscally sane future.
Here's my recommendation for you.
The American people are willing to sacrifice as part of a shared effort at righting our budgetary path, but they are not prepared to be sacrificial lambs led to the 'benefits and promises slaughterhouse' while the Wall Street Banker Pigs gorge on trillions in stealth FED and FDIC bailouts, ZIRP giveaways and a record $144 billion in bonuses - an amount equivalent to the 49th largest GDP in the world - $144 billion in bonuses being paid by criminally insolvent banks that are only still operating due to a Wall Street financed K-Street lobbying tsunami that forced FASB to change the accounting rules that now allow these same insolvent institutions of usury and arrogance to apply Faustian valuations to complete shit assets all over their lying, godforsaken, Enron resembling, off-balanced, imbalanced, bs-balanced, sheets.
Banks exist in the lala land of leveraged deferred tax assets representing most of tier-1 capital at Citigroup, of hundreds of billions of helocs at Wells Fargo worth pennies, but marked at dollars, of hundreds of billions of fraudulent MBS pumped out by Countrywide, whose liability now sits with Bank of America. This is a mere glimpse of the great banking lie that provides cover for the $144 billion insolvent bonus river that bathes the Street, all supported and paid for by taxpayers, Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Therefore, ultimately, taxpayers.
In this environment, selling 'cuts to social security' is not going to work, and considering the role you both played in creating the irresponsible federal spending machine that now controls Washington and has bankrupted future unborn generations, fuck you for even bringing it up.
Signed,
The Daily Bail
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Jul 1, 2011 at 11:36 AM
Reader Comments (60)
gomp..yes that was a strange attack...i read it briefly and then left it knowing you would be along soon to firebomb...with skill...
I wonder how 80 Million Boomers will like these programs being messed with
but continuing BAILOUTS, $1.5 Trillion (?) total defense budget, SUBSIDIES for seemingly every business?
A lot of these OLD CODGERS have guns & WHAT THE HELL they may not have many years left.
S. Gompers, HELL, I have no idea of "MY" views !!!
First, there can be no talk of increased taxes (re: reducing SS payouts) of any kind until there is long-term sustained spending cuts. At this point, there is nothing happening economically to suggest we can expect an increase in revenues based on the current tax structure, and there are no historical instances that prove an increase in taxes will provide a long-term increase in revenues.
If this was a "natural" event, we would be discussing mother nature taking care of business. But it not a natural event. And much like the wild fires that destroyed Yellowstone 20 years ago after Man decided it could out-wit nature, we are living through an economic crises of similar proportion.
In other words, right on DB. Fuck them for even asking.
And Brad, Erskine Bowles "was the architect of the balanced budget initiatives that led to a budget surplus that actually existed up until 2002"? Really? You don't think the "man-made" .com bubble of the 90's, also a total fiction had anything to do with that? And before we get carried away, it was a small window when we didn't add trillions to the deficit, but it was preceded and followed by more intense destruction.
And Mark, there is no hypocrisy in a man that never sways from his beliefs. You can disagree with them, or argue their effectiveness, but he never sways.
well said oberon...i try to make this point as often as possible...clinton did nothing to earn his surlpluses...he just got lucky as tax receipts exploded in the y2k tech build out...and internet bubble...
August, 2010.
Here's a response in a letter from a unknown farmer in Montana.
I think he is a little ticked off! He also tells it like it is!
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"Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight.
1. As a career politician, you have been on the public tit for FIFTY YEARS.
2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).
3 My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus
bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.
4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission are proposing to move the
goalposts YET AGAIN.
5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.
6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that
you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.
To add insult to injury, you label us "greedy" for calling "bullshit" on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU.
1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?
2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?
4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?
It is you, Captain Bullshit, AND your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the "greedy" ones. It is YOU and YOUR fellow nut cases who have bankrupted America and STOLEN the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers.
And for what? Votes. That's right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers.
You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.
And you can take that to the bank, you miserable ASS.
If you like the way things are in America , delete this..
If you agree with what a fellow citizen says, PASS IT ON!!!!