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It doesn’t seem to be an amendment, but S. 2853 proposes a Bipartisan Task Force for Fiscal Action. I think they want to add the language of it as an amendment to debt ceiling increases, but it is not currently an amendment to anything (just a bill in the Senate budget committee). The only source I can find for any analysis of it is this article at heritage.org, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/bg2360.cfm.
It would create an 18-member “task force” to make a report in November of this year, with fast-tracked legislative proposals to address long-term financial shortfalls. The “without debate” part is that the proposals from this task force would not face a public hearing before their introduction, and with a small window of passage (between Election Day and December 23), there would not be a lot of time for public debate.

http://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/ This is a link to the National Committee to Preserve Our Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM)’s blog. This organization has been aware of and arguing against this proposal for a while now. It’s largely senior membership is strongly opposed to any such “commission.” Similarly, DKos, a popular progressive blog offers this recent diary http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/15/825625/-Threaten-To-Destroy-The-CountryMedia-Calls-You-A-Centrist.  Progressives are obviously against any such proposal. There is more out there, I assume. If y’all are interested, I’ll post what I find in comments on an open thread or elsewhere if it is pertinent.

Didn’t I say very recently that cuts would be one of the ways the problems would be dealt with? To hoots from others who disagreed? Somehow cutting benefits while spending billions and billions more on imperial wars seems crazy to me. But so many Americans are brain dead, it doesn’t seem to occur to them that this is beyond stupid.

Seems to me that I heard vague statements from media sources regarding “Social Security reform with discussions of benefit cuts” or words to that effect shortly after the President took office. Got my attention. It’s been perking away in the background for the past year. I associate this version of “SS reform” with Geihnert/Sommers/Bernanke’s economic policies.  Bernanke’s recent remark regarding deficits– SS is “where the money is”–is along the same lines.

“But I was hoping I could persuade him that if the honest Democrats get out in front of thsi by proposing an immediate raise in the payroll tax of one tenth of one percent they could suck the wind right out of the commissions sails.”

Or billow those sails through the ignorance and fear of the public.  I don’t disagree with your intent, but I do think that any tralk of tax increases, especially those that impact average wage earners the most, is fodder to those wh want to obfuscate the issue.  “See, those left wing fools just want to raise your taxes!!!”  Attention spans are short in the Congress because they are shorter amongst John Q. Public.  The words raise taxes has a profiund and immediate effecet.

Why not focus harder and louder on “it ain’t in need of a fix.”  The bi-partisan talk is BS and intended to cover the tracks of the usual suspects, ie Peterson and Comp.   Acting like a  fix is needed now for a problem that might be brewing to occur 30 years from now is a canard.  It ain’t broken.  It ain’t broken.  If it isn’t broken then why does it need a current payroll increase, even a miniscule one?  These are the questions that will be asked and they are proceded by the explanation that has to be emphasized.  It ain’t broken.  Leave it alone for the moment.  Adjustments should be made when they become necessary, not 30 years before hand.

The problem is not on the SS side, but that does not mean there isn’t a problem on the Medicare/Medicaid side.  This CBO analysis makes it pretty clear that SS is a manageable problem, but Medicare and Medicaid are not.

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/health.cfm

Does this mean Congress should cut back on Medicare & Medicaid and rely more upon private health insurance, as some conservatives argue?  Well, let’s look at the data:

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/tables.pdf

No doubt that Medicare & Medicaid costs are going through the roof, but not as fast as private sector health care costs.  So cutting back on Medicare and Medicaid might help the US govt deficit problem, but it will make your household deficit even worse.  The solution is to bend the cost curve itself rather than trying to shift costs from one account to another.

Well this is a tribute to my blogging effectiveness. I have been blogging about this all year, maybe people didn’t put together the pieces:
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/12/debt-vs-unfunded-liability-entitlement.html

Dean Baker, Nancy Altman, and Roger Hickey are the go to people on this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/does-congress-want-to-def_b_419243.html
http://www.wikio.com/themes/Nancy+Altman
http://www.ourfuture.org/ (Roger)

It is all of a piece. There has been a concerted effort to fulfill Peter G Petersons incessent desires to establish a Fiscal Responsibility Commission rigged in a way that its goal is to slash Medicare and more particularly Social Security. The effort has been sustained from day one. ‘Concord C

When Obama met the Blue Dogs last Feb they asked him to commit to the Cooper-Wolf SAFE Commission http://washingtontimes.com/weblogs/potus-notes/2009/Feb/09/obama-to-meet-with-conservative-dems-tuesday/

The Fiscal Responsibility Summit that month was in large part the result of the Blue Dogs and Pete Peterson backed groups trying to push a similar Commission long backed by Peterson and now represented by the Peterson-Pew Commission http://budgetreform.org/document/red-ink-rising

The first question asked at the Health Care Summit on March 5th was from Mitch McConnell who asked Obama is he would commit to Conrad-Gregg.

This effort was headed off by Nancy Pelosi only to be reborn last Fall when it was used to derail a longer term boost in the Debt Ceiling in favor of a short term one that would allow a Conrad-Gregg provision to be attached to the one coming up this week.

Really I don’t know how I could have thrown up more red flags on this.
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/12/conrad-gregg-modified-but-not-defanged.html

cantab

so why would you want to keep money in the bathtub?

inflow can match outflow easily.  needs a few small tax raises until we catch up with past outflow.  saying the country doesn’t have the money to pay its bills is dishonest.  what you are saying is that the people who have thousand and millions more than they need… even for investments they won’t make until the economy turns around… can’t afford a couple of hundred bucks to pay back the money they have been borrowing for the past 30 years.

for my part i am ready to raise my payroll tax twenty cents a week to pay for my share of social security benefits that i will need because i will be living longer.

Well DI is broken. That is a plain fact. On the other hand OAS is on the whole okay and will be until 2026 when it too will by Trustees standards broken.
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/04/di-sick-man-of-social-security.html

DI is already tapping into principal and will exhaust its Trust Fund probably by 2012. As a short term fix Congress could simply reallocate FICA between OAS and DI, that has been done before. But the NW Plan tackles this head on.

1. We adopt the Trustees numbers and methodology
2. Under those numbers DI is out of Short Term Actuarial Balance and in fact has been
3. We propose to put DI back in Short Term Actuarial Balance with an immediate increase of 0.3% of payroll plus an additional kicker in 2041 that puts it into Long Term Balance
4. We set forth a theoretical set of increases for OAS that would do the same thing, but would have actual implementation depend on a Trigger that is failure of OAS to pass the Trustees Short Term test. Currently 2026.

Politically we see it as such. The insurance program for the currently Disabled is broken, the insurance program for ‘Greedy, Selfish’ Boomers is not. Are you really going to begrude between $1 and $2 a week to help out disabled workers in a time of deep recession?

If the word ‘tax’ scares people then change it to ‘premium’.

Cantab

we have been over this time and time again.  you don’t understand and won’t learn.

there is no “need” for an immediate increase.  an immediate increase of 2% would put Social Security’s projected books into balance for 75 years.  I’d prefer a one tenth of one percent increase when it is actually needed.  It will add up to the same in the end.

2 slug

you are exactly right.  but let me add my 2 cents

even without reform in halth care costs, the “unsustainable” increase in Medicare would be far less in actual dollars than the expected increase in wages.  it would be easily affordable if people decided that’s what they wanted to with their money: pay twice as much as they had to for our sacred way of doing health care.   they would still have enougn money every year for that vacation in vegas and the new lexus. th eproblem is not the costs, it’s the stupidity.

The 20 cents a week is still an open question that does not seem consistent with the social security administration saying the need an immediate 2.01 increase in the payroll tax rate for long term solvency.

The bathtub model is a holistic approach for looking at financing. An important point  relating to social security is that the social security trust fund does nothing to fill the tub.  So if you got to 20 cents a week based on this fund actually contributing to social security then you are not looking at the problem the same way those with a holistic approach are. The latter are looking at the the inflows and outflows accross government and two senators, one from each party, are saying the budget is not on a sustainable path right now.

“You have to think of government financing as a bathtub. Money flows into the tub from tax revenue and borrowing and flows out of the tub to pay for government transfers, pay down the debt, and to pay for direct government programs”

Wrong. Excess money from Social Security does not pay down debt, instead it pays back borrowed funds and so drives down Debt held by the Public while increasing Intragovernmental Holdings dollar for dollar and so doesn’t not on net change total PUblic Debt, moreover subsequent interest effects makes total Public Debt higher. Which is to say that ‘pay down the debt’ actually means ‘run up the debt from interest accruing’.

You really have not been paying attention. Deficits and debt can run in opposite directions. In 2000 we had a large social security surplus, a small general fund surplus, a large pay-down in Debt held by the Public yet almost the same amount of increase in Public Debt.

On October 1, 1999, the first day of FY 2000 the U.S. had a Public Debt of $5.652 trillion. On Sept 29, 2000 that Public Debt was $5.674 for a small yet real increase in Debt Subject to the Ceiling of $22 billion even as the Unified Budget surplus of $273 billion. Until you can explain why the Debt Clock clicked up even as $273 billion surpluses came in the door then maybe you can try to talk down using simple metaphors. At a bare minimum your terminology is sloppy you seem to have no firm concept of the differences between debt and deficit or between Debt Held by the Public and Public Debt.

Maybe if you read some posts for understanding rather than trying to pick put what you perceive to be points of attack you might be farther on in class here.
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/12/debt-vs-unfunded-liability-entitlement.html

No Bruce…you are thorough.  But asking gets us all to look again and exchange info.

Cantab

we have been over this and over this.  you can’t seem to learn anything.

the two senators are wrong.  probably thy are lying.  the 2% increase is not needed now.  the 20 cent increase is in the payroll tax, not from the government.  though the government should enact a similar tax on the high enders to start paying the money it owes TO social security.

holistic is a buzzword that means “when you don’t look at the details, and wave your hands and lie to the public”.

Cantab that is precisely the narrative of crisis as it was developed and sold back in the 1980s by the liars at Cato.

One. Let Social Security is bound to go to smash at the height of Boomer Retirement
Two. Boomers are so selfish that they will demand full benefits no matter what the cost. (Or alternately I will pay in all my life and get nothing).
Three. Gen-X will have to work three jobs and forego educating their kids because of those selfish Boomers.
Four. Well fuck the Boomers, all they ever did was screw up the country, lets slash their benefits then.

Well that was always a cartoon narrative to start with and you putting it in Coberly and I’s mouthes show that you are indeed a moron.

The Northwest Plan suggests an immediate tax hike. That tax hike, paid entirely by workers would pay all benefits until 2026 plus ten years after that meaning a new immediate tax hike, paid entirely by workers, each year for ten years. The end result is to vastly REDUCE the amount needed in transfers from the General Fund and so the rich.

Only a moronic liar could apply the following words to the NW Plan which contradicts it at every fricking point. Cantab you ain’t no God damn mind reader, why don’t you go by the plan we actually have proposed?
“This is what I think you want. No new payroll tax, let the system run along as it is, at the point it can’t pay benefits  make up the shortfall from general revenues, and since the rich pay the bulk of the taxes in this country this will shift the burden on them.”

Not only are you projecting here, I think we may need to stop back lest we get splattered by that which you are projecting.

Jack

worth a try.  got an address?  would we feel better about it if we all agreed to do it?

separate letters would be best.  but they will throw one or two letters away.  ten or twenty might get their attention.  a hundred or thousand might worry them.  with a million we wouldn’t even have to buy the tar and feathers.

Coberly and Bruce,
I had made this statement before after reading Holling’s book.  He wrote specifically about this issue.  However, I did find this history at:
http://www.ssa.gov/history/BudgetTreatment.html

At the end:
So, by 1986, Social Security was technically off-budget, but it was still being used in the deficit calculations. Absent other legislative change, this would have continued until 1993. However, in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1990 the law was changed to stop the use of the Trust Funds for any function in the unified budget, including calculations of the deficit. One sub-part of OBRA 1990 was called the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA), and it was this sub-part that specified this change in the law.
The BEA budget treatment of Social Security basically remains the law to the present day. Specifically, present law mandates that the two Social Security Trust Funds, and the operations of the Postal Service, are formally considered to be “off-budget” and no longer part of the unified federal budget. (The Medicare Trust Funds, by contrast, are once again part of the unified budget.) So where matters stand presently is that the transactions to the Social Security Trust Funds and the operations of the Postal Service are “off-budget” and everything else is “on-budget.”

If we could do the same with medicare (make it off budget), then we could actually deal with it’s problems and get the health care system we need.

cantab,

This statement is so full of errors and nutso logic (as is your entire commentary on SS) that it goes above and beyond even ilsm’s rants from the otehr direction. You just may have set a new high (low?) in discourse on this site.

“This is what I think you want. No new payroll tax, let the system run along as it is, at the point it can’t pay benefits  make up the shortfall from general revenues, and since the rich pay the bulk of the taxes in this country this will shift the burden on them. “

1) If/when SS runs through all of its current revenue AND the IOUs owed to it from the general fund (borrowed by not taxing all the rich to cover general fund deficits) then it will only take a small increase in the payroll tax to get back into the green. SS won’t be raiding the general fund.
2) The general fund deficit can be handled, yes by soaking the rich – heck kill them all and confiscate all their wealth if you wish. But that has zero, zip, nada to do with SS. Its two seperate bathtubs in you parlance. 

Have you read the tab at the top? If not, please stop commenting until you are at least up to speed on the basics. I may not agree with Bruce and coberly on much but this is a no brainer.

Lastly, if you do still want to argue the point can you at least be intelligent about it??? Bring at least some logic to your argument and preferably data. Your getting to be even more stupid than MM.

(BTW I now understand what the Overton Window really means, compare ilsm and MM)

Islam will change

Buff

you agree with coberly about more than you think.  but i’ll never tell.