FDR signed the first Social Security Act into law in 1935. Thirty years later, that part of FDR’s New Deal became part of the President Lyndon Baines Johnson's (LBJ) Great Society and established Medicare when LBJ signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law.
Only half of Americans 65 and older had any health insurance at the time. The bill LBJ signed also created Medicaid, the public health insurance program that today covers over 60 million people, including one in three children, eight
million people with disabilities and nearly six million low-income seniors. Each state administers its own Medicaid program. Republicans have scorned the entitlement programs of the Great Society ever since, now more so than ever.
Here is how we pay for those programs. Social Security and Medicare entitlements are paid for by the FICA [Federal Insurance Contributions Act] tax. The rate is 7.65 percent of our pre-deduction [gross] earnings. 6.2 percent goes for OASDI [Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance]. 1.45 percent goes for Medicare. The Social Security system pays for old-age, survivors, and disability. Hospital insurance is funded by Medicare. Income tax funds the government. It is called revenue and is a separate and different issue. Republican rhetoric obfuscates that point.
While the public may be somewhat divided about the debt ceiling, they are not so confused when it comes to entitlements. “The public decisively supports maintaining the status quo,” according to the Pew Research Center. “Six-in-ten (61 percent) say it is more important to keep Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are; only about half as many (32 percent) say it is more important to take steps to reduce the budget deficit.”
LBJ argued that helping the poor was in the best interest of business by
providing stability to society. GOP disdain for Johnson’s Great Society and its War on Poverty continue. Republicans demand sharp cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Programs for the poor and the aging are the “reckless spending” recitations of Republican rhetoric that compound the deficit conundrum that confronts House Speaker John Boehner.
At a recent press conference Boehner said, “I agree with the president we cannot allow our nation to default on our debt.” He added, “But to prevent a default, a bill must pass the Congress.” For that to happen, “the bill must include spending cuts in excess of the increase in the debt ceiling.” He faced a similar challenge in April with the government shut-down threat. He also faces factional opposition within the Republican House majority and its fame-seekers, like Reps. Cantor and Ryan.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clavos
You say that the intransigence of Republicans in the House imperils, among other things, Boehner's job as speaker. I say, no loss there.
Also, in your subhead you note that a default would..."flush the US economy back into the toilet of recession."
With unemployment above 9 percent (the official number -- counting "discouraged" workers, some put the actual number north of 16 percent) and the economy at a virtual standstill, we haven't emerged from the first one yet.
2 - handyguy
The GOP is devouring itself. Boehner allows himself to be the prisoner of the fringiest fringe members of his party.
By the way, although jobs are being added way too slowly, they are being added, and the economy is growing, also slowly. A recession is defined as two quarters of shrinking GDP. The recession ended many months ago. Like the recession of the early 1980s, this one has been followed by a long slow slog of a recovery.
The worst possible time to be playing chicken with a debt default.
3 - Clavos
So it's not officially a recession and jobs "are being added." Unfortunately, since the unemployment figures continue to rise, jobs are obviously being subtracted faster than they are added.
And I'm sure the millions of unemployed (including the "discouraged workers" the government won't even admit to) are all comforted by the fact that "jobs are being added."
And they're printing money; inflation is rearing its ugly head, but hey, "the recession ended many months ago."
Sure it did.
4 - handyguy
A recession ending doesn't mean instantaneous sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.
Like myself, you are old enough to remember the 1981-82 recession, which the most recent one resembled. The recession started in July 1981 and ended in Nov 1982. But high unemployment continued for many months. It was over 10% from Sept 1982 through June 1983. It was 9.2%, same as now, in Sept 1983. It didn't fall below 8% until Feb 1984 -- 15 months after the recession ended.
And our current inflation [3.6% in May] seems pretty tame compared to the early 80s. [14.8% in Mar 1980!]
Anyhow, recession and high unemployment are not identical in terms of time and shouldn't be used interchangeably.
5 - Baronius
Tommy, I was expecting a different article today. I thought you'd write about the President walking out of the budget talks. I remember when Cantor and Kyl walked out of the talks, you had a pretty lengthy article about it. You said that Boehner was a failure. Apparently, when President Obama walks out of the budget talks, it compels you to write another article saying that Boehner is a failure. At least you're consistent. A more partisan person would harp on which party was walking out, but you're so objective that you don't let the theatrics distract you from denouncing Boehner.
6 - Tommy Mack
My dear Cardinal Baronius, once again you have misread me and objected to your own misreading. I fail to find the denunciation to which you refer. You will find the word “failure” twice, neither time referring to the Speaker. I referred to Boehner four times: 1) “. . . the deficit conundrum that confronts House Speaker John Boehner.” 2) “At a recent press conference Boehner said,” 3)” Mr. Boehner was a teenager when . . .” and 4) “which threatens Boehner’s speakership.”
Let me make my position abundantly clear. When members of congress are sworn into office, they take an oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
The partisan Congressional Republicans I have referred to deserve to be impeached for breaching that oath to support and defend Article 14 section 4, as do Democrat members who insist on default as an option for the United States. There is no partisanship in that.
Tommy
7 - handyguy
Baronius accepts the words of the brazen partisan Eric Cantor as gospel truth. Dems at the meeting say he is exaggerating, to put it mildly.
According to biographer Jonathan Alter, among others, Obama's style is to say, "That's it," and move on to the next appointment. This abruptness apparently applies even to meetings with his own staff -- and is only slightly more curt in style than other presidents have been.
But if the prez got annoyed with the utterly annoying Cantor, who can blame him? Eric is brown-nosing the Tea Party shamelessly as he vies for the speakership.
8 - Baronius
Tommy, you're right that Kyl and especially Cantor took the brunt of criticism in this article (and in the last one), rather than Boehner. The President goes practically unmentioned. That seems like a logical inconsistency.
A similar inconsistency occurs on the first page, where you say that the debt limit is meaningless, then cite an example of the debt limit causing calamity, followed by a story about FDR that deprecates the debt limit. Which is it?
9 - Baronius
Handy, you claim to want to be objective. Every bit of news we hear from these negotiations is coming from one side or another. For all either of us know, they're having ice cream parties. I do know that the rumored $2.4T became the rumored $2T, and I think it's now the rumored $1.6T, and as these things are typically spread out over 10 years, we're probably looking at an average $160 billion per year, most of it weighted to the late 2010's. In other words, pocket change. I don't think there have been any official statements made.
10 - handyguy
No doubt there is plenty of spin and posturing on both sides. But it would be out of character for Pres. Obama to "storm" out of anything; he's known for being cool, even-tempered. His 'testiness' could well have been premeditated, for effect.
And Cantor seems to be relishing a sort of 'bad cop' bulldog role, now even saying "no deal is possible." There's a reasonable negotiating stance for you.
The fact remains that debt ceiling increases have been routine for decades. [As has been repeated often this past week, the 4 top Republicans between them voted a total of 19 times in favor of raising the debt ceiling during the Bush administration.] The only reason this one is different is the newly inflexible ideological stance of the GOP, sparked by its most extreme members.
11 - Clavos
[Obama]...known for being cool, even-tempered.
Mostly, he's just boring, and is being tuned out. As James Taranto notes in his WSJ column today, "The World's Greatest Orator is almost always uninspiring, condescending, self-aggrandizing, peevish and grim."
Taranto goes on to quote The New York Post's Michael Goodwin on Obama's much-ballyhooed "centrism:"
The biggest media myth is that he is a centrist. Oh, please. It's a theory without evidence, for there is not a single example on domestic issues where he voluntarily staked out a spot in the American middle.
Sure, on occasion, Obama will be to the right of the far, far left, but that is not the center. That just means he's not Michael Moore.
12 - zingzing
"Mostly, he's just boring, and is being tuned out."
when did you spend time with him? you see the public image he wants you to see. that's all you have any hope of knowing. james taranto has his opinion, but he also has a hairy butthole. there are those who would not see eye to eye with either. as for goodwin, i can't really name a domestic issue where he's been far enough to the left to appease the left or far enough to the right to appease the right. that's not a very good combination, but it certainly isn't anything like what goodwin (he of the new york post, a fucking murdoch rag that should only be used as kindling or toilet paper,) has to say. don't fucking quote the new york post. ever. it's not a newspaper. it's a tabloid. and those aren't opinions. they're lies.
13 - Tommy Mack
It is kind of like citing Wikipedia as a source.
Tommy
14 - Baronius
I keep thinking of the analogy of a compulsive gambler. You give him money a dozen times maybe, but eventually you've got to say "no more". He'll tell you that the problem isn't his gambling; the problem is the guys who are going to break his legs if he doesn't come up with ten grand by tomorrow. He's right, but he's wrong.
I'm not singling out our current President in this analogy. In fact, I'll say this in support of him: he's allowed Congress to take the lead in budgeting, as they're supposed to. The results were unprecedentedly bad, though. But again: either party, House, Senate, or White House, ever since the expansion of Medicare a dozen years or so ago there hasn't been any sense of restraint.
I heard a comment on the radio today that I liked. Someone said that a good definition of bankruptcy is when you're borrowing money without a plan to pay it off. That's where we are. The problem for the gambler, or for us, may be the next payment, but the real problem is in our thinking.
15 - Baronius
Let me just take another run at the numbers: we're taking in somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.2T, and spending in the neighborhood of $3.6T. If you're earning $22,000 a year and spending $36,000 a year, and you're carrying $142,000 debt, someone's got to step in and tell you that you're overdrawn.
16 - Tommy Mack
The President of the United States is legally bound to uphold the Constitution. The office is not required to have the congress approve much more than presidential appointments. Senate Minority leader McConnell, one of the Republicans complicit in the economic disaster created in the previous administration, knows this. At the end of this tedious episode the President can raise the debt ceiling and order the Treasury to pay US obligations and let congress try to override the authority of the presidency in court.
The House majority leader has made himself vulnerable. In his vanity and self-absorption, he appears to have forgotten that just because he was elected 10 years ago from a middle-class white Republican district, he does not necessarily have a safe seat. His constituency may be conservative but that does not mean that they are stupid. Their Representative is not working for them and their best interests. He seems to be working for himself and his own interests, taking the 7th District that elected him for granted.
Mr. Cantor’s short-sighted ignorance of history and its consequences, coupled with ideological intransigence is self-serving at best. His tea party sycophants remind me of the Student for Democratic Society (SDS) when I was in college, 1968. The SDS excelled at organizing rallies and disrupting meetings on campus to protest. They succeeded in making noise and drawing attention to themselves. But they were ineffective in student government and were easy to walk around and blow-off. After the Nixon landslide in 1972, they pretty much disappeared. The Honorable Mr. Cantor wouldn't know about this. He was only 9 when President Nixon began his second term.
Tommy
17 - Baronius
President Obama was 11.
So what.
18 - Clavos
The office is not required to have the congress approve much more than presidential appointments.
really?
What about declaring war??
Budgets?
Treaties?
19 - Clavos
when did you spend time with him?
Non sequitur, zing. I've listened to plenty of his speeches.
He's boring and full of himself.
20 - handyguy
1. The debt ceiling increase should be a separate issue from future spending. Period.
2. FY12 starts on Oct 1. That budget is the appropriate frame for debates on spending and taxes. It's not like it's so far away.
3. Suddenly putting on the spending brakes now, in the middle of a sluggish recovery, could have devastating economic consequences. The bigger spending cuts shouldn't kick in until 2013 or later
4. Without significant cuts in defense and entitlements, deficit reduction is impossible. With those cuts plus appropriate revenue increases, it can be done. This is how it happened in 1993-2000, when we successfully moved from deficit to surplus spending.
The 'mother of all grand bargains' would require both Dems and the GOP to show some political cojones. I think Obama was serious about the $4 trillion deal; Boehner should be smart enough to take it.
5. The left has been peeved at Obama for many reasons. [See any of Realist's many articles from the last two years.]
One of them is his post-2010-elections focus on deficit reduction. Tim Geithner is a major proponent of this.
You can continue to repeat this nonsense propaganda that the president only wants to spend like a drunken sailor and impose gigantic tax increases. Those are lies. Bunk. Without substance. Unsupported by facts. Baloney. Horse puckey. Prove it or stop saying it.
21 - Baronius
Who said that? I didn't. Clavos didn't. Me, Clavos, and the straw man are the only ones here.
22 - zingzing
he's the president, clavos. one of the most powerful persons on the planet. gotta have an ego to even want to be in that position.
but you (probably deliberately) miss my point. you know him through his speeches, which are orchestrated to give off an image that isn't a complete (or maybe even accurate) picture. you do not know the man. you do not know if he is boring. in fact, how you perceive him probably says more about you than it does him. you disagree with him politically. that's your image. he could be any number of things and you'd place your political opinion on him. simple as that. amazing how this "boring" man galvanized millions of voters, isn't it? he certainly didn't bore some people.
besides, your opinion of him doesn't matter one little bit to those that disagree with that opinion. in fact, if you don't like it, it's probable that he's doing something right.
or... "haters gonna hate." wake me when you say something surprising.
23 - Clavos
Okay, zing, I give up -- you're right; I don't know the man.
HIS EFFING SPEECHES ARE BOOOORRRRIIIINNNGGG!!!
Better?
And yes, he did "galvanize" millions of american voters, once again proving the truth of H.L. Mencken's famous observation that, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier that his demeanor when giving those boring speeches is condescending.
24 - handyguy
This is all subjective obviously. But many, many of us, not just liberals, have been deeply stirred by his speeches...more frequently during the campaign than since, but still.
I even seem to remember once upon a time [like say, 2007], Clavos himself toying with the idea of liking Obama, and praising his rhetorical style. Now he can't think of enough nasty insults to repeat about the prez. Whatever.
25 - zingzing
"HIS EFFING SPEECHES ARE BOOOORRRRIIIINNNGGG!!!"
they're presidential speeches. what do you want, a conan o'brien monologue? this is so damn transparent, clavos. bush was jaw-dropping stupid. clinton was smarmy. bush the former was an annoying robot. reagan was most likely suffering from alzheimer's.
i don't find obama's speeches particularly boring, for what they are. he's got a wit when the moment asks for it. but a presidential address to the entirety of the american people is not the time or the place for such things.
"Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier that his demeanor when giving those boring speeches is condescending."
i don't find that to be so. but if he seems like he wants to make you feel stupid, maybe he just doesn't agree with you. what may seem obviously true to him does not to you, so you get condescension. it's more likely disagreement, but you, for some reason, choose to take offense.
your use of mencken up there is condescending. although, i guess if you believe the nonsense spewed by the right, you're fitting right into that quote from my end.
really, i don't see what the point is. you don't like the guy's politics. so you say he's boring? one would think that such a fascist socialist communist dictator type would hold your interest. but he BORES you? oh, heavens. it's too awful to bear...
i'm afraid you'll just have to take it like a man.