Repeat After Me: There is NO Social Security Crisis

As Dave Johnson explains at OurFuture.org, Social Security is a) not in crisis, b) not part of the deficit and c) solvent to 2037 and easy to tweak after that.

What happened was, everyone made fun of Al Gore when he suggested that the government should not be allowed to borrow SS money for other purposes. They reduced his well-thought-out arguments to derisively repeating the word "lockbox" to the tune of "nyaa nyaa nyaa nyaa nyaa" as though that made him wrong. And then proceeded to borrow the hell out of SS to fund wars and tax cuts for the wealthy.

Now, when the US Govt borrows, it's not like your cousin Ernie. There's collateral, in the form of US Treasury Bonds. Not IOUs. These are interest bearing financial instruments, the kind we all used to buy for our kids to help build a college funds. And yet morons like Tom Coburn are spouting nonsense like this:

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“We have stolen $2.6 trillion from it. We put paper money in there...[snip] ...There's no question that there's an IOU in there,” Coburn said. “But our country’s borrowing $4 billion a day. There’s no question, if we had the money, we could wait 10 or 15 or 20 years to fix Social Security.

It's like this: suppose you put a bunch of cash in your checking account. The bank uses that money to buy bonds. Then when you go to pay the mortgage, they say "sorry, we stole your money, all that's left is an IOU." Then they foreclose your house.

That's essentially what they're trying to get away with.

No, No, No; It Is Just Not True

Time to debunk another lie about public unions: It simply isn't true that if a union has bargaining power then they are not answerable to the taxpayers and can just raise their salary any time they want. It is a lie.

See, it's called bargaining power because they have to .... wait for it ....... BARGAIN. As in negotiate. And with whom do they negotiate? Why, with elected officials. Taxpayers' representatives. And since public unions are almost always prohibited from going on strike, guess where the upper hand often sits at that table?

OK, so they don't have to ask each and every taxpayer for a raise. Their salaries aren't put up for a vote every two years. What kind of quality employees would you end up with if that were the case? Who would want a job with pay and benefits changing from year to year depending on how generous taxpayers felt at the lever?

But they DO answer to taxpayers through elections.

It is similar to the way that every other government contract is negotiated. You may vote for someone who does or does not support a bill to build an off-ramp from the interstate in your neighborhood. But once that service is decided on, taxpayers really don't get much say in how much it's going to cost. That's why it's called representative government.

So don't let anyone tell you that the unions are running roughshod and are all powerful with no recourse to the voter. It just isn't true.

Grain of truth

Criticizing those in power is one of our most precious freedoms.

Criticizing those in our own party is one of our greatest responsibilities.

Why Obama Should Change His Shoes

The reasons that President Obama should stay away from Wisconsin are as simple as they are irrelevant. Obviously, he can't DO anything about the law stripping public unions of bargaining power. And of course the Fox Newswits will go nuts gleefully calling him a socialist and blathering about States rights. But these things don't matter. No one really wants the federal government overthrowing local laws (unless of course they are determined unconstitutional.) And the pundits will be calling Obama a socialist no matter what he does.

On the other hand, there are some good reasons that it would be the smart thing for him to do. Even if he only showed up for an hour and left Biden behind to carry a sign.

The first and somewhat obvious reason is that he said he would do so. Now, I'm not suggesting for a minute that every hyperbolic or allegorical promise a politician makes in a stump speech has to be followed literally. Obama could support the unions from the Oval Office and not be tarred as a flip-flopper or traitor. But Obama needs a grand gesture. He rode into office on a powerful wave of popularity and hope, and failed to keep that wave rolling. The Tea Party wasn't victorious in 2010 because the whole country suddenly changed their minds and decided they didn't want progressive reform after all. They won because Obama was so busy trying to accomplish things that he forgot the importance of exciting people. He admitted as much himself when brooding that income taxes actually went down for Middle Class America, but no one knew about it. Getting out on the street in Madison and showing his comfortable shoes to the camera would go a long way toward helping congressional races in 2012.

The second reason is to help the recall movement, and flip another state to a Democratic governor. While the president can't (and shouldn't) call on a state's residents to kick out their governor, he CAN and SHOULD encourage them to stand up for their rights. He needn't ever mention a recall, or even bring up Walker's name. It looks more and more like Wisconsinites are already supporting a recall - assuming the sentiment not only holds but builds. And Obama can be an incredibly motivational speaker when he sets his mind to it. Imagine Obama quoting the same letter that the right wing has misappropriated to claim that FDR was against public unions. You know, this one, congratulating and agreeing with the national federal workers union in which FDR says

The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities for fair and impartial consideration and review of grievances, and other objectives of a proper employee relations policy, is basically no different from that of employees in private industry.

Which brings me to the third reason Obama should literally stand with the workers. It would be a video op that the media could not pass up. I'm not talking about Fox or CNN or even msnbc. I'm talking national broadcast news and talk. You know, the big audiences. What better platform to debunk the lies being spread by the right?And who better to debunk them? He's done it before. He's smart - almost as smart as I, and far more personable. The nice thing is, the lies are so stupid and easy to counter. Someone just needs to get the nation's attention and do so.

Finally, it's an excellent opportunity for Obama to begin securing his place in history. It's not enough to be the first African American president. That's an interesting statistic for the record books, but it isn't the way to be remembered. FDR isn't remembered for being the first disabled president - he's remembered for the things he did. If Obama wants to be great, he'd better get moving before he misses his chance.

Death of a Thousand Cuts

It seems overwhelming. They own the banks. They own the media. They own the government. Soon they'll own the internet. We're not even sure who "they" are. We watch in horror as one state passes a law allowing their governor to dissolve local government and hand towns over to corporate ownership - conspiracy theories are so quaint compared to actual law. We're nauseated when the man we elected with the hope he'd change everything attacks civilians with unmanned killer drones, declares his right to assassinate citizens on his command and indefinitely detain suspects without trial. What can we do?

National Boycotts? Take a look at Koch Industries product list. There's hundreds of them, and no big banner on the packaging saying "Koch - The Fascist Brand." Every napkin you get at a fast food restaurant may be putting pennies in their pockets. How do you keep people motivated dor something like that?

Stay at Home Day? Great, emulate a three day weekend. Withhold votes from Blue Dogs? Wonderful, get Rand "The Toilet" Paul elected. Vote straight party line? Take a look at 2009. Besides, it's not really elected officials that are the root problem - it's the money underground that's fertilizing this crop of noxious weeds.

A real General Strike? Are we really ready for all out war in the streets against such gargantuan opponents?

But maybe there is a way. The dust-up between Madison firefighters and M&I bank gives me hope, and an idea. To hit them where it hurts, and maybe get some attention and engender some fear without being mown down in the streets.

A Thousand Cuts. Flash mobs that don't go away. Pinpricks to deflate the zeppelins. Pebbles to start an avalanche.

Here's the deal: firefighters charged that M&I helped finance Walker and thus the overthrow of public union bargaining. So they started an action to withdraw $600k in savings from one branch. After $192k was withdrawn, the branch closed to avoid a run, and M&I came out with a statement that the bank itself doesn't engage in politics and its employees are free to contribute to whomever they want. My point is, so what? M&I is probably no worse than Bank of America or Chase or any other bank. But we can't bring down the whole industry at once (we need it in some form.) Maybe we can't even bring down a whole bank. But we can close one branch. And that hurts. A little. Especially if it never comes back.

So my advice to the firefighters is to stay at the one highly visible branch. If it tries to open, go back in and withdraw those funds. From that branch. Don't go into other branches at all - for any kind of business. But keep the focus on one point. And when that branch closes permanently, pick another. Don't even ask for concessions to stop it - who cares if they fire their chairman, the next guy in line is exactly the same. Public apologies or admissions are not enough. Keep it up until real change starts to happen.

Now, let's expand on that. It's really hard to boycott Koch. Because it's hard, less people manage it. So the boycott is ineffective. So less people stay with it. But what if we picked one product, until it disappeared from the shelves forever? Let's say Brawny paper towels. It' easy - plenty of alternatives out there, whether its a competing brand or just using washcloths. The effect will be obvious immediately - imagine every supermarket carrying a glut, slashing prices to dump the stuff, warehouses in Georgia filled with excess capacity. A measurable reduction in inventory. People urging their local grocers to take it off the shelves and replace it with something customers want.

And then, when it's gone from the shelves, pick another one. It' good to target companies that have been most egregious, but it doesn't even matter. They are so interconnected, almost any product from any company will do. It's partially the uncertainty that might just get some of the crime bosses to lean on the one that went too far.

Turn off Fox News? Nah, they just turn it on in every hotel lobby and sport bar. Better, pick ONE upcoming movie from Fox Searchlight or 20th Century and don't see it. Don't go to the theaters, don't buy the DVD. It doesn't matter which movie or what it's about. As long as the one picked has already been made (and therefore paid for.) Sure, it's a sacrifice, but we can handle it - we'll get to see Paul Rudd in his next movie, they're all the same anyway.

Pick a stock. Any stock (ok, probably not an oil company, but any other stock.) Dump it. For whatever we can get. Let the wealthy pass it back and forth amongst themselves and a far lower value. Kill a company - if it was doing anything worthwhile, someone else will step in and recreate the jobs, eventually. This one will hurt a little more, but we can stand it. Suck it up.

It can be done. The hardest thing will be finding a central place to announce the actions and some mechanism of picking the next target. But if we could pull it off, and if we don't give up, we might actually be able to apply pressure to the right points and be rewarded with some movement.

Because if we don't, we're headed towards a massive breakdown of everything.