OBOF TYMHM & MORE Vol 15 - No 01

 

OPINOINS  BASED  ON FACTS (OBOF)

&

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)

YEAR ONE

YEAR TWO

YEAR THREE

YEAR FOUR

YEAR FIVE

 

OBOF YEAR FIVE INDEX
OBOF TYMHM	Jan. 07, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 1	Jan. 19, 2015

 

 

Agenda

 

1.  Hello: from Floyd.

2.  Day One - - GOP fires shot at SS.

3.  2015 is the year to build - together/

4.  Obama's budget and State of the Union

                   address Tuesday 1-20-15.

 

 

HELLO

from

FLOYD

 

Well, I guess this show you how out of it I have been.  I have just discovered, as I posted OBOF 15--02 that I never posted 15--01.  I wrote it back on Jan 19, but that is as far as I got. 

 

It is important, particularly the first article.  I am going to post it now - Feb. 03, 15.

 

Hi, to all who are still with me.  I know that it is hard for you to stick with a blog that isn't on a regular schedule, but I am grateful to those who have stayed the course.  To those that haven't, if you happen to look at this one, let me say that I am going to try harder to provide you information that I think you need to know. 

 

Now, I guess that sounds opinionated and I guess it is, because I am deciding for you what I think you need to know, which, I guess, is will almost always be slanted toward what I think is so important to all of us.  If any of you disagree with me, all you have to do is give me a shot at the end of any posting.

 

From a personal standpoint, I have been having a real rough time every since Thanksgiving.  I think I am starting to improve and I will try to be a little more reliable. 

~~~

 

New GOP Congress Fires Shot At Social Security

 On Day One

 

 

ByDylan Scott 

Published January 16, 2015

 

FROM FLOYD:

 

As you read the following article, keep in mind that there are two bad flaws, from my view point.  First, this is a new back door approach by the Republicans to move Social Security closer to privatizing Social Security.  It is well pointed out in the fifth paragraph of the article, which I have set in red type.

 

The second is, and this really floors me, they talk as though Social Security is loaded with money, when actually the SS program is flat broke.  While it is true that there has recently been some increase in the SS Premium payments, commonly  and incorrectly referred to as "Pay Roll Tax," it has not been enough to meet the out go for benefit each month.  SO, how can they talk about taking funds from the SS retirement fund and relocate it to the SS Disability program when it can't even pay it's primary responsibility. 

 

In case you wonder how I can say that the SS program is broke, let me quickly point out that starting in 1987, when Ronald Reagan was President and every president and congress since, the surplus revenue in the SS Trust Fund was used for tax cuts to the wealth and finance two wars.  In the place where money was supposed to build a surplus to meet the needs when the Baby Boomer generation began to draw SS, a special Government Bond was issued.  These bonds have no financial worth.  They are nothing more than an accounting record of how much the Government owes the SS Trust Fund. 

 

The annual report by the Social Security Trustees show these bonds stated amount as though the Fund had this much in reserve, when actually it has no funds at all.  I suppose that there are very few in Congress who are familiar with the true value of the Trust Fund. 

 

 

the fact of the  matter is that in order to meet the monthly benefit payments for SS, funds from the General revenue have to be used.  To my way of thinking, that amount from General Revenue is simply payments toward the amount that has been borrowed, if you want to be nice about it.  Actually, I think it is plain fraud and there has not been any intention to pay it back. 

 

Keep all this in mind as you read the following.

~

 

With a little-noticed proposal, Republicans took aim at Social Security on the very first day of the 114th Congress.

 

The incoming GOP majority approved late Tuesday a new rule that experts say could provoke an unprecedented crisis that conservatives could use as leverage in upcoming debates over entitlement reform.

 

The largely overlooked change puts a new restriction on the routine transfer of tax revenues between the traditional Social Security retirement trust fund and the Social Security disability program.  The transfers, known as reallocation, had historically been routine; the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said Tuesday that they had been made 11 times.  The CBPP added that the disability insurance program "isn't broken," but the program has been strained by demographic trends that the reallocations are intended to address.

 

The House GOP's rule change would still allow for a reallocation from the retirement fund to shore up the disability fund -- but only if an accompanying proposal "improves the overall financial health of the combined Social Security Trust Funds," per the rule, expected to be passed on Tuesday.  While that language is vague, experts say it would likely mean any reallocation would have to be balanced by new revenues or benefit cuts.

 

House Democrats are sounding the alarm.  In a memo circulated to their allies Tuesday, Democratic staffers said that that would mean "either new revenues or benefit cuts for current or future beneficiaries."  New revenues are highly unlikely to be approved by the deeply tax-averse Republican-led Congress, leaving benefit cuts as the obvious alternative.

 

The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees estimated last year that the disability insurance program would run short of money to pay all benefits some time in late 2016.  Without a new reallocation, disability insurance beneficiaries could face up to 20 percent cuts in their Social Security payments in late 2016 -- a chit that would be of use to Republicans pushing for conservative entitlement reforms.

 

"The rule change would prohibit a simple reallocation!  It will require more significant and complex changes to Social Security," Social Security Works, an advocacy group, said in a statement Tuesday.  "In other words, the Republican rule will allow Social Security to be held hostage."

 

Policy wonks who follow Social Security saw the GOP rule change as a play for leverage.

 

"Everybody's been talking about entitlement reform. Mr. Boehner and President Obama were pretty close to coming up with some kind of grand bargain, which ultimately fell apart," Tom Hungerford, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, told TPM.  "Maybe this could be used as a hostage to try to get back to something like that."

 

For their part, congressional Republicans were fairly transparent about their thinking.  Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), who has been outspoken on the disability program, co-sponsored the rule amendment.  The disability program has been a favored target for the GOP; members were warning last month that the program could be vulnerable to fraud.

 

"My intention by doing this is to force us to look for a long term solution for SSDI rather than raiding Social Security to bail out a failing federal program," Reed said in a statement.  "Retired taxpayers who have paid into the system for years deserve no less.”

 

Liberal analysts counter, however, that the retirement fund, which pays out $672.1 billion in benefits per year versus $140.1 billion for the disability fund, is more than healthy enough to allow for a reallocation, as has historically been done.  CBPP's Kathy Ruffing wrote that, if a transfer was made before the 2016 deadline, both funds would be solvent until 2033.

 

From Floyd:

This doesn't make any kind of sense at all, as far as I can see.  I want to look more into the claims that are being made here.  I have been following the status of SS for the past six years along with Dr. Allen W. Smith, who has spent the past 14 years of his life and about $50,000 of his own money trying to bring the truth about SS to the public.  He has written 4 books on the subject.  I put my trust in him.    

 

The Republican angle in preventing that move then seems obvious.

 

"By barring the House from approving a 'clean' reallocation in 2016, the rule will strengthen the hand of lawmakers who seek to attach harsh conditions (such as sharp cuts in eligibility or benefit amounts) to such a measure," Ruffing wrote.

 

About The Author 

Dylan Scott is a reporter for Talking Points Memo.  He previously reported for Governing magazine in Washington, D.C., and the Las Vegas Sun.  His work has been recognized with a 2013 American Society of Business Publication Editors award for Best Feature Series and a 2010 Associated Press Society of Ohio award for Best Investigative

~~~

 

 

 

2015: The Year We Build Power Together

 

 

 

Published: January 3, 2015

 | Authors: Kevin Zeese Margaret Flowers

 | Popular Resistance | Op-Ed

 

 

The major task for the social movement: 2015 the Year We Build Power Together.

 

In 2014 we saw tremendous growth of the movement across numerous fronts of struggle – worker rights and the wages, racism and policing, climate, the environment and extreme energy extraction, building a new economy and so much more.  We also saw how uniting and working in solidarity is essential for success.

 

“Building power together” means working together as a movement of movements to build on the progress of 2014 when people created a larger and bolder movement.  We build together because our issues are all connected and unified power is when we are strongest.

 

We have an immediate challenge in 2015 that threatens our progress. Obama and Congress are pushing to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  If we don’t stop it, our struggles will be set back and social, economic and environmental justice will be more difficult to achieve.  But we can defeat the corporate powers that exploit our communities if we unite and work together and doing so will strengthen us greatly.

 

Our Struggles Are Connected

 

The "#Black Lives Matter" movement, while focused on the urgent issues of police abuse and institutional racism, is also recognizing that economic injustice in black communities is pervasive.  The wealth divide between the top 1% and the rest of us is stark enough; but the wealth divide between African Americans and Caucasian Americans is extreme and growing rather than shrinking.  Whites have much greater wealth, with white median wealth at $142,000 to blacks at $13,700.
Black unemployment has been double white unemployment for 50 years, throughout that time black unemployment rates have averaged recession levels, 11.5%.  Also, during that time whites Americans have earned $20,000 per year more than blacks.  Poverty has been rising in the black community for 15 years.  Police are needed to keep unfairly treated communities in check.

 

When the bottom drops out of the economy or when wages are lowered, it is communities of color who feel the impact first and deepest.  That is why issues like global trade rigged for big business interests will most adversely impact these poorer communities. Global trade seems distant but it has impacts at the local level.

 

Communities will experience lost jobs and lower income, an expanding wealth and income divide.  They will find themselves competing with people in Vietnam where the average annual income is under $2,000 per year or Peru where it is $6,000.  How can the campaign for a living wage succeed with this reality? How can already poor and impoverished communities lift themselves up when big business seeks cheap labor abroad?

 

In St.Louis some are recognizing the need for a new economy where focus is put on black-owned businesses, cooperative businesses owned by workers and putting in place a solidarity economy.  However, trade pacts will make it more difficult for local governments to put in place a new economy. Transnational corporations will be required to be given greater access to local markets.  Practices like purchasing local or buying green will be seen as trade barriers and will be prevented.

 

The same is true for the climate justice movement. It will become impossible to ban extreme energy extraction in our communities because this will be a threat to corporate profits.  The global corporate trade agreements are pushing for more fracked gas and off-shore oil.  Europeans want the US to be exporting these climate-destroying fuels to lower their energy costs and diversify from their reliance on Russia to isolate it further.

We Can Win the First Big Challenge of 2015

 

President Obama and the Republican leadership in Congress have made it clear – their top priority is passing fast track trade promotion authority early this year.  Fast track is essentially Congress giving up its constitutional authority under the Commerce Clause “to regulate commerce with foreign nations.”  It gives almost all of their power to the president.  Obama will be able to sign trade agreements without Congress ever seeing them, and then Congress has to quickly vote – up or down, with no amendments – on these agreements that contain thousands of pages of complex legal language.  This is the only way that horrendous agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP, known as TAFTA) can become law.

 

When you see the first sentence above – Obama and the Republican leadership making this a priority – do not assume we cannot stop them, we can.  There is widespread opposition in both the Senate and House against fast track.  Democrats realize that these trade agreements will hurt their base.

 

And, Republicans, like Democrats, oppose fast track for several reasons.  First, they know that it undermines their constitutional responsibility to regulate trade.  Second, these agreements undermine the sovereignty of the US government as well as state and local governments by giving corporations veto power over laws they pass.  Third, they recognize that these trade agreements do not confront a critical issue – how countries manipulate the value of currency.  Finally, Republicans do not trust President Obama with that much power, while they give up their power.  More Democrats are agreeing with Republicans even on this issue as he continues to sell-out to corporations on issues like banking regulation and student debt.

 

The Congress is right not to trust the President on corporate trade agreements. Leaks have shown that the Obama administration is extremely pro-corporate when it comes to their proposals.  Documents show the main reason why countries have been unable to reach agreement is because the administration’s positions are distant from those of every other country who do not support such broad corporate power. Further, the leaks also show that enforcement of environmental protections is even weaker in these agreements than they were in Bush-era trade agreements.

 

All of the big Washington business lobbies are ready to push corporate trade.  They see billions in profits as well as a swelling of their power. They know they will become more powerful than governments if these trade agreements become law.

 

The fight over fast track is shaping up to be a fight between people power and transnational corporate power.  This is going to be a huge battle.  Opposition in Congress cracks open a door for the people, but if we do not force it open, corporate lobbyists will easily close it.

 

Stopping fast track will require all of us.  There is a path to victory but it will require the people – from all fronts of struggle – to mobilize, show our unity and stop the corporations.  You can join that fight by taking the solidarity, action pledge and sharing it.

 

We should all engage in this fight because the stakes are high. Every issue people are working on will be hurt by these agreements.  But, on the other side, if the people mobilize and stop fast track, corporate trade will be dead for the remainder of President Obama’s term in office.

 

If the people defeat transnational corporate power in the first big confrontation of 2015, we will be on our way to making 2015 the year we built our power together.  We will be freed to create the world in which we want to live and one that increases the chances of a livable future.

 

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are co-directors of Popular Resistance.  This article is based on their weekly newsletter.

~~~

Obama’s budget proposal will take aim at the wealthy

 

By Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin

 January 17 at 11:16 PM

 

President Obama plans to propose raising $320 billion over the next 10 years in new taxes targeting wealthy individuals and big financial institutions to pay for new programs designed to help lower- and middle-income families, senior administration officials said Saturday.

 

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Obama will propose raising the capital gains and dividend tax rates to 28 percent for high earners; imposing a fee on the liabilities of about 100 big financial institutions; and greatly broadening the amount of inherited money subject to taxes.

 

Obama will also seek to boost private retirement savings by requiring employers without 401(k) plans to make it easier for full-time and part-time workers to save in individual retirement accounts, which could assist as many as 30 million people.  The administration would provide small employers tax credits to cover costs.

 

Senior administration officials said that the package would highlight the president’s desire to boost taxes on the nation’s wealthy households and help lower- and middle-class families. New tax credits would help those in need of child care and households with two earners, they said, while other proposals — such as covering community college tuition — would help students.

 

The moves would “eliminate the biggest tax loopholes and use the savings to let the middle class get ahead,” said one of the senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity during a conference call with reporters to describe the plan before the president’s speech.  This person also said that 99 percent of the impact of the tax increases would fall on the top 1 percent of earners.

 

The ambitious — and controversial — proposals demonstrate the White House’s increasing confidence about the trajectory of the U.S. economy.  For the past year and a half, it has debated how much it could trumpet the recovery when so many Americans have not felt any change in their own economic outlook.

 

But the plan drew immediate fire from Republican — and could face criticism from some Democrats — who have in the past increased the amount of money exempt from inheritance taxes they branded “death taxes.”  Most Republicans have long opposed increases in capital gains rates, and many favor eliminating the tax altogether.

 

“This is not a serious proposal,” wrote Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in an e-mail late Saturday.  “We lift families up and grow the economy with a simpler, flatter tax code, not big tax increases to pay for more Washington spending.”

 

“Slapping American small businesses, savers, and investors with more tax hikes only negates the benefits of the tax policies that have been successful in helping to expand the economy, promote savings, and create jobs,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said in a statement Saturday night.

 

“The president needs to stop listening to his liberal allies who want to raise taxes at all costs and start working with Congress to fix our broken tax code.”

The administration tried to head off some of that attack by asserting that elements of the package resembled proposals endorsed by Republicans.  Officials also said that the capital gains tax rate was 28 percent during President Ronald Reagan’s terms in office. The Obama administration would also seek to limit the impact of the tax increases by saying the higher capital gains and dividend rates would apply only to couples earning more than $500,000 a year.

 

Officials said that the relatively low capital gains tax rate with a top rate of 20 percent has enabled the 400 highest-earning taxpayers — with $139 million or more of income — to pay an average rate of 17 percent when the top income tax rate is 35 percent.

 

The proposal to impose a 7 basis point fee on financial institutions with assets of more than $50 billion will also run smack into opposition from big banks and insurance companies. The administration compared the fee with a proposal by former House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) for an excise tax on large financial institutions. And last week, the House Budget Committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), proposed a 0.1 percent surcharge on financial market transactions.

 

One of the senior administration officials Saturday said that the goal of the proposed fee from the White House was to discourage big financial institutions from excessive borrowing. He said that despite banking revisions after the 2008-2009 financial crisis, highly leveraged financial institutions “still pose risks to the broader economy,” adding that “this fee is designed to make that activity more costly.”

 

The economic recovery has freed the president to push for more ambitious domestic policies, many designed to help those in the poor and middle class who are still lagging behind.  In the past week alone, Obama has announced new proposals on paid sick leave, free community college tuition and expanded broadband access.  And while he might have trouble pushing those through the GOP-controlled Congress, Obama could still end up defining key issues for the elections in 2016.

 

“The battle for the next American agenda is already on,” said Donald A. Baer, chief executive of Burson-Marsteller and formerly chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton.  “There’s this effort to define a new growth and share agenda — growth but not only growth alone, and sharing the growth but not just sharing the wealth.”  He said Obama’s college and broadband access are examples of proposals that could add to growth and give poor and middle-class people the tools to increase their share in it.

 

But Obama has to balance his rhetoric — between optimism and caution — by talking up the strong recovery while acknowledging that wage growth remains weak.

 

“There’s always been a tension between things are in fact getting better and people are not feeling great,” said Wade Randlett, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and major Democratic donor.  “One is economic fact, and the other is polling, which always catches up over time.”

 

Now the president is so comfortable with the idea of talking up the economic recovery that his advisers have branded it — “America’s resurgence” — and made it a regular talking point in Obama’s stump speeches and weekly radio addresses.  And it is likely to be a centerpiece of the State of the Union address.

 

In bragging about performance, Obama administration officials point to factors including the best streak of job growth since the 1990s, a recovery in the housing market and healthier balance sheets for households, companies and the federal government. And they have contrasted that performance with the anemic economies of Europe and Japan as evidence that the United States has regained its global economic dominance in what Obama has called a “breakthrough year for America.”

 

But wages have been a stubborn reminder of the recovery’s shortcomings.  In November, average hourly private-sector nominal wages inched up 6 cents, but in December, they fell 5 cents.  After adjusting for inflation, wages for the entire year crawled up 0.7 percent, a modest amount in an economic recovery.  It is a point that has been featured prominently in comments by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has emerged as a leader of the Democratic Party’s liberal wing.

 

“I’m feeling better about the economy, but I don’t think we have in place a set of policies that will assure that this recovery will be either sustained or fully inclusive,” said Lawrence H. Summers, a former top adviser to Obama, former Treasury secretary and now a professor at Harvard University.  “That’s why I think more needs to be done.”

 

The White House typically aims its messages directly at the middle class, but, partly in response to Warren, Obama administration officials are more comfortable talking about how some of its proposals benefit poorer Americans.

 

“We’re on offense on minimum wage and the environment,”

Randlett said.  “That’s the kind you only do when you have the leash of good economics.”

 

Steven Mufson covers the White House.  Since joining The Post, he has covered economics, China, foreign policy and energy.

 

Juliet Eilperin is a White House correspondent for The Washington Post, covering domestic and foreign policy as well as the culture of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  She is the author of two books—one on sharks, and another on Congress, not to be confused with each other—and has worked for the Post since 1998.

~~~

If the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again, hopefully, next week.  I am trying to get back to some schedule, but I have been having a pretty rough time health wise. 

God Bless You All

&

God Bless the United States of America.

Floyd