What people at the White House have told me on Social Security — and what I wrote in the post she’s referencing — is that there’s no intention to touch Social Security in the foreseeable future.
In Robert Gibbs’ just concluded press conference, questions about Social Security reform were posed by five different reporters. Gibbs does not say that "there’s no intention to touch Social Security in the foreseeable future." The full exchange is after the fold, but here he responds to Helen Thomas:
HELEN THOMAS: Why tinker with Social Security when it’s solvent until 2040, there are other issues in front of us.
GIBBS: There are many issues in front of us, but we are not going to get ourselves onto a sustainable path of fiscal responsibility unless or until we address many of those issues. The president wants to…
HELEN: Why is it an issue?
GIBBS: I don’t know the exact year, but there is an inflection point in the funding where the trust fund is, if we haven’t already passed the line, we’re soon to pass the line where what is going in and what is coming out no longer adds to that solvency of the trust fund and is no longer equal to each other. I think that…
HELEN: Some people just want to take from it. And there’s great suffering going on now, so I don’t see why you ought to…
GIBBS: Well Helen don’t posit that what the President wants to do is institute great suffering. But understand that the way the program is structured, and although the solvency may go to 2040 or 2041, there I think is great concern that the number of people that are paying in, and the number of people — what is paid in no longer equals what is is going out, therefore in order to get to some sustainable path to fiscal responsibility the President understands that some hard choices are going to be made. And he’s going to…
HELEN: Raising taxes?
GIBBS: Well, the President talked about some specific ways to do that in the campaign. I think you can’t have a discussion without people bringing a lot of ideas to the table to hash through.
If "there’s no intention to touch Social Security in the foreseeable future," why doesn’t Gibbs say it? Why is he saying that we’re "not going to get ourselves onto a sustainable path of fiscal responsibility unless or until we address" it, and that "it’s going to be hard to address a lot of our challenges without dealing with all of them at the same time"?
GIBBS ON SOCIAL SECURITY:
REPORTER #1: Is it true that the President was considering announcing a Social Security task force, but decided not to? And can you talk a little bit about how he wants to, today, put meat on the bones of actually addressing some of these problems that carried through on his deficit reduction promise?
MR. GIBBS: Well, Jennifer, I think everyone has seen the President convene today a summit on fiscal responsibility here at the White House. And reports over the weekend about a budget — that will be outlined in greater detail on Thursday — that shows a deficit that was inherited before the stimulus of nearly $1.3 trillion that the President believes and the economic team believe that we can cut in at least half at the end of four years, the end of his first term. I think the American people are rightly concerned about the path of this economy, but also concerned that for many years we’ve had a borrow-to-spend attitude. And what the President hopes to get our country back on is a program that helps us save and invest.
[]
REPORTER #2: What about the Social Security task force?
MR. GIBBS: Well, let me, again, not get ahead of where the President is going to be over the course of this week. I do believe, getting back to that first phrase, I think you will be able to see, both in what the President says on Tuesday and ultimately what is forwarded to Congress on Thursday, will demonstrate clearly the President’s intention and desire to see our country return to a path of fiscal responsibility, and in doing so, through honest budgeting, making very tough decisions that the American people understand we have to make, and cutting this deficit in half by the end of his first term.
[]
CHUCK TODD: Robert, I want to follow up on Jennifer’s first question, which was, did you guys have a Social Security sort of task force or something that was going to be a part of this –MR. GIBBS: I’ll have to get back and — I will have to go back and read the article and see exactly what’s in there and check on that. Whether it is a — whatever you call it, the President — I think many of you –
TODD: So you’re not disputing the story?
MR. GIBBS: Well, let me — can you read back the — (laughter.) Let me go back and look through. But regardless of what you call it, Chuck, the President is committed to dealing with the rising costs of retirement security and health security in this country. You saw the President talk about, in Iowa and throughout the campaign, ways in which to strengthen the solvency and the longevity of Social Security. You’ll see the President talk about, as I just talked about with Chip, take actions to reform our health care system, which will add life to the Medicare trust fund.
[]
HELEN THOMAS: Why tinker with Social Security when it’s solvent until 2040, there are other issues in front of us.
GIBBS: There are many issues in front of us, but we are not going to get ourselves onto a sustainable path of fiscal responsibility unless or until we address many of those issues. The president wants to…
HELEN: Why is it an issue?
GIBBS: I don’t know the exact year, but there is an inflection point in the funding where the trust fund is, if we haven’t already passed the line, we’re soon to pass the line where what is going in and what is coming out no longer adds to that solvency of the trust fund and is no longer equal to each other. I think that…
HELEN: Some people just want to take from it. And there’s great suffering going on now, so I don’t see why you ought to…
GIBBS: Well Helen don’t posit that what the President wants to do is institute great suffering. But understand that the way the program is structured, and although the solvency may go to 2040 or 2041, there I think is great concern that the number of people that are paying in, and the number of people — what is paid in no longer equals what is is going out, therefore in order to get to some sustainable path to fiscal responsibility the President understands that some hard choices are going to be made. And he’s going to…
HELEN: Raising taxes?
GIBBS: Well, the President talked about some specific ways to do that in the campaign. I think you can’t have a discussion without people bringing a lot of ideas to the table to hash through.
[]
REPORTER #5: Back to Social Security. Any speculation about a task force or whatever aside, do you think that it’s politically and practically possible at this time to tackle major Social Security reform when you’ve got all these other big economic challenges that the president’s been talking about doing?
GIBBS: I think that the discussions…all of what we’re talking about, whether it’s fiscal responsibility, financial stability, health care, education, energy independence, recovery — are contained in the larger economic challenges that the country faces now. The President understands he wasn’t elected to preside over a series of fundamentally easy choices and decisions to get us from where we are to where he knows this country can be. Some of those decisions will be hard — he’s made many of them in a budget that you’ll see on Thursday — but I think the president understands that we have any number of big challenges that have to be addressed, and that we can’t shy away from.
REPORTER #5: Do you think your Democratic allies have the political stomach to deal with tackling major Social Security reform now?
GIBBS: I think that it is going to be hard…I think that it’s going to be hard to address a lot of our challenges without dealing with all of them at the same time.
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Gibbs is full of shit. The Social Security “Trust Fund” has been purposefully collecting a surplus for (What? 25 years?) specifically to cover the Baby Boomers. We have been paying in more than required for this reason.
He’s trying to play games and obfuscate. And in a battle of wits with Helen Thomas, he’s as unarmed as Dubya was.
This is change we can believe in?
Oh, I get it. The chessmaster wants to get us libruls riled up so we can “Make him do it?”
I am sick of the games already. WTF!
Suddenly, it is all so clear. Jane, how could you not understand this?
yea, and I haven’t seen his birth certificate either!
I wonder what the nuckin’ futz wing nutz would say about my birth certificate. I was born in June but my birth certificate was not filed with the state until September.
Good thing I don’t want to run for any elected office, much less Preznident.
bless helen thomas. bless her a thousand times.
commie rat
Well, I have lived in some Congressional Districts that were so conservative, I probably was viewed that way.
In contrast with the couple of times I lived in CDs so Librul, I could be considered a moderate.
FAr more of the former than the latter I fear.
Aw you know I was joshin!
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Sister Hamsher, while I support those folks who are ever vigilant and are watchin’ our elected officials to keep ‘em honest, I am wonderin’ why those same folks fall into the triangulation trap set by the monetarists and the corporatists and assume that the only alternative to the Peterson dismemberment of SS is the Orzag plan of public vivisection of the program. Why is it not a fruitful alternative and one that Obama may very well be lookin at givin his various statements on the campaign trail to propose reducin’ the FICA tax by 1% and liftin’ the cap entirely. This would isolate the corporatists because it would provide another middle and workin class tax cut, help small business and leveraged against the sunset of the Bush tax cuts it would bring revenues to the treasury immediately to deal with health care “reform”.
Why are progressives always reactive to the Trojan horses or straw men advanced by the triangulating bastards, why not counter with real progressive reform and force Obama to take a stand…Obama is not stupid, and the only way he gets away with emasculating SS is if the left allows ‘im to.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION AND KEEP YER EYES ON THE FUCKIN TARGET!!
Is it impolite and shrill of me to notice that we’re not going to be paying the Baby Boomers’ Social Security in 2041 because the youngest of them will be 80; i.e., most of them will have died?
and squeeze, don’t pull
Wouldn’t means testing and raising the cap on deductions qualify as changes that Gibbs is suggesting?
I would REALLY like someone to ask why the funds aren’t retrieved that were
stolenborrowed from the fund by reagan?why the HELL is no democrat talking about THOSE loans?
why are we talking about foreclosing on people’s houses when we SHOULD be talking about foreclosing on the loan reagan took to give rich people my money
I WANT MY MONEY BACK
I want a pony
Citizen amilus:
So would removin’ the cap and reducin the tax…
Thanks, Jane, and same to Helen Thomas and her colleagues. This sounds reminiscent of a real press conference. It hasn’t the usual paper shuffling, silent lipsmacking associated with what the Bush White House called a press conference.
If Norquist and the Blue Dogs have so frightened this White House that it won’t comment on Social Security, raising taxes, or the need to promptly reinstate the taxes Bush cut, no program or expenditure is safe (barring “Defense” spending).
Hey, Bobby — just say it:
See how simple that is?
Unless you don’t mean that?
I want a Clark Bar.
I will gift you a pony if you can get them to give me my money back
do you have a preferance on pony color?
I will add pony coral and feed for one years worth of pony eats
clark bar on it’s way, I will send you a clark bar even if you don’t facilitate me getting my money back from reagan recipients of it
At least Gibbs has the whatchamacallems to call On Helen Thomas
is pony coral like the back coral they sell in Negril?
black
Easy. You were three months post-mature.
“Fiscal responsibility” wouldn’t sound like such claptrap if he would properly qualify it. We’re recovering from eight years of profligate spending, with a laundry list of legacy costs unpaid for. We’re continuing to prosecute two wars and are entering what might well be prolonged depression. All in addition to widespread, permanent changes in the structure of companies and the jobs they offer. Oh, and this administration has radically different priorities from the last one, or so it claims.
What’s “responsible” fiscally under those circumstances is different than it would have been in 2001 or 1993. There are competing responsibilities, too, including widespread claims by taxpayers that their government recycle tax revenue back to them instead of through their former employers, predatory lenders or the Pentagon.
Citizen perris:
“I WANT MY MONEY BACK”
Exactly!! The point of all this is to find out where all the money is that the fuckin’ fascists have stolen over the last 28 years and tax it back into circulation…tha fact that the bank corporate parents took the first trillion dollar enema givin to loosen up the hedge fund profits and jest tucked it into their bedpans should maybe inform us that they aren’t gunna give it back…WE’RE GUNNA HAFTA TAKE IT!!!
Tax the fuck outta the bastrds and throw those that don’t pay up into a homeless shelter with folks who have jest lost their homes and their jobs.
what teddy said.
LOL
Citizen Raven:
They aren’t even sellin’ it anymore…at the deflated prices over the last year, they’re GIVIN’ the shit away!
/agrees
however I don’t think “taxing” should be the framing
it should be “foreclosing on the loan”
“debt aquisition”
something like that so they KNOW, we are NOT “taxing the wealthy” we are getting our frigging money back
Awesome!
I get the feeling Rahm Emanuel is trying to manage public expectations the way J. Edgar managed his Ten Most Wanted List. You didn’t make the list until Hoover’s boys were about to apprehend you, which is a great technique for managing the statistics of success, but it devalues the notion of what crimes are worthy of prosecution.
Emanuel doesn’t seem to want to admit to any goals until he’s struck a deal with the Rethuglicans about which ones they’ll accept. Who says Bush and his GOP don’t like the presidential veto power.
Hey norske, can you e-mail me at c42ch hotmaildotcom ?
Sorry Raven, I should’ve given you an e-mail addy besides Facebook.
D’oh. Perris is right about the “T” word. Recovering. Reclaiming. Returning to its rightful owners.
Norske:
If you’ve yet to review it, I think you’ll want to spend some time in this thread.
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/3820
I’d like to hear your perspective.
i’m sorry – i don’t believe it has anything to do with “fiscal responsibility.”
and here’s why: if revenue was a concern, then david cay johnson would be asked to advise. if pentagon budgeting and procurement costs were an issue, then chuck spinney would be asked to advise. if healthcare costs were an issue, then pnhp would be asked to advise.
do any of the these people have a seat at the table? or are they, like stiglitz, roubini, krugman, baker and galbraith left to send messages via carrier pigeon and the M$M?
i call bullshit on the whole “fiscal responsibility” characterization. because this looks like shock therapy to me.
If we assume Gibbs has been advised to keep on track and on message, it is possible that there are changes pending that may supercede some of the questions. I want to be positive about the likelihood of nationalization/marginalization of the banks, and then universal health care, add what follows….
Here’s the 800 lb Gorilla of entittlement programs. DoD.
Let’s here about some cuts here. A well armed militia for a start. Draft the 2nd amendment lovers. Send them to Iraq? Or keep them at home?
you and me speak the very same language selise
it’s not about “fiscal responsibility”, what they are trying to do is forgive the loans that were taken out against the fund
that shit can’t fly
has anyone figured out just how much money was really
stolenborrowed from our investments?those are assets my parents worked all their lives investing, they are assets I have worked all my life investing, I don’t want my parents investments embezzled by borrowers who are trying to get me to forgive that loan
I don’t forgive the debt, my parents want me to fight for the investments they made
Gibbs’s reference to an “inflection point” is a dead giveaway that Obama sees Social Security as a “paygo” program, and that they have no intention of recovering, much less protecting the Social Security “surplus”.
We need to generate some serious outrage over this, particularly the Boomers among us who have paid for both our parents and ourselves.
But why choose to do this now?
Jane has a new post up
yup, not only is there not enough outrage among the democrats, I see no outrage on the blogs
this is HUGE and we REALLY need to get everyone on board
I GUARANTEE we can get the wing nut base to be with us on that “we want our money back from people who borrrowed it” meme
Generating outrage is a lost art, it seems to me. Folks piss and moan but won’t do anything. Okay, maybe make a phone call, write an email. But something there is that does not love this public vacuum. Generate, baby! I’m in your boat.
he’s doing it now because now there is “shock” and you can get almost anything you want if there is “shock”
however knowledge is innoculation and we know about “shock doctrine”, we are immune thanx to bush
the LAST thing we need or will accept is a democrat using shock to steal from us yet again
this is so what we’ve seen happen again and again – only instead of the usa treasury via the imf doing it to some small weak country, it’s our own gov doing it to us.
I guess I don’t think or act the ways these guys do. I am over my head here. Above my pay grade or really dark.
pure shock doctrine.
the shock doctrine check it out
you won’t be disapointed
me too. major attempt at playing catch up these last few years. but if we won’t do it for ourselves, it won’t get done. as unsuited as we may be to the task, it’s us or nothing.
FDR was asked why he didn’t fund the Social Security program from revenues. He said that (paraphrase) no one will be able to manipulate or destroy social security if the people’s own money directly funds it. Social Security has always been The People’s own money. It is our money, not some government money.
I believe in good government, even if I have to twist its arm to get it to be good.
Thanks, that caused LOL
Take SS funds away from the ‘general budget’ and the alount of debt soars to where you can’t see it anymore.
I can barely stand these obfuscation and lies. I wonder if Obama was put in there to do exactly this…and quickly, before his starry eyed supporters could get hip to what hit them.
Shadow government indeed! The only change I wanna see is the cap removed so the poor don’t have to keep paying for the retirement of the wealthy…because that + the government theft of the funds is what’s wrong here.
I think they almost HAVE to cut bennies because if people found out Bush used SS to fund the wars, they would go ballistic. So…..it’s all a great,big secret! NOT!
What flavor lollipop do YOU like???
Then that’s what needs to be made ‘transparent’ in 12″ letters so everyone can see what went down.
“Who didn’t know that housing was over-evaluated? That stocks were overpriced? Who didn’t know that a system the makes the rich richer while the poor get poorer will someday face a curtain call? We all knew that at some level, just like we know we’re going to die. And yet our capacity to deny reality is huge. And I think that we don’t want to know what we really know because if we did, we’d have to change our lives. And now we have to change our lives because the whole thing is crashing down around our head.”
From here
And the effort by the ‘powers that be’ is to keep the population ‘denying reality’ ; so far they aren’t being too successful as evidenced by Helen Thomas’ response.
Thanks for the link.
Hey Jane,
Could we do a Salon with Helen? Especially about Social Security? She would be a great salon…
I’m ready to talk Social Security overhaul, so long as the new system is designed by the working people of this country, and not a bunch of dickheads in a think tank in Greenwich, CT.
Shetland? *G*
If anyone’s still langing about on this thread, a great one, again, by Jane The Riled . . . *G* . .
1) Gibbs ain’t talking, cuz it IS on the table
2) Present or future solvency is NOT the issue we up against
3) ‘THEY’ is gonna ‘alter’ the process
4) Said altering will include taking a mythical percentage of what we’ve paid in, moving THAT to a privatized system (stock market) and not only TAX it again, but force us to pay fees as we try and move our newly privatized SS money thru any of the shit options they’ll develop for us. Just like an IRA, or 401k.
That’s why they ain’t taking it off the table.
They won’t FULLY fuck with it, just a percentage. And they’ll claim it’s part of the economic recovery plan, when in all actual reality, it’s just more upwards funneling of our wealth into the hands of the few.
And to the person who made the VERY astute comment we’ll (boomers) all be DEAD by 2040 . . . our boomer aging is the REASON the bankers need to move on our SS money now, before we bequeth it all to children, grand children or our favorite charity.
That’s WHY ‘they’ want at it so bad, BEFORE it runs out.
I’m 56, and I’ll HAVE to work for at LEAST 15 more years. And more, if possible.
But that SS check at full value will mean a HELL of a difference to me and my wife. With it reduced, or privatized, it will disappear and shrink greatly.
And that’s life as we know it. Very little we can do to change it, at this point other than to resist it gracefully and adapt to it all mightily . . . . I see people sharing living situations more and more . . . in greater numbers per unit. Be it NY City 37th floor apartment or CA Suburban 4 bdr homes . . . . we’ll all be sharing a lot more as we age.
Those of you who are anti social will be making some HUGE changes, or going off to the woods by yerselves. *G*
Good point. The SS trust fund is Congress’ rainy day fund. But pay pack Congress’ frequent borrowings from it? Congress would have to admit its sleight-of-budget tricks and come up the money it was intending to take from SS in the first place. A lose lose for our Caiptal [sic] Hill budget mavens. That’s one reason the so-called Democrats must be playing with “reforming” SS.
It’s not just who takes a haircut, but who gets on the Committee to decide it.
Then make it up with military budget cuts, removing the FICA contribution cap, and/or increases in taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
I think you just found the rallying cry, Snarkie:
We aren’t talking about that because it’s more important to keep families in their homes than for you to have some money. Priorities.
Sad, isn’t it. Once you entertain the Truth you have to begin dealing with Reality instead of Fantasy and it’s a little harder.
Maybe Obama raised the SS & Medicare/Medicaid commission and it got shot down like a trial balloon when the idea of raising the tax cap was considered. Or, maybe Congressional leaders just told him to wait while they get a zillion other things dealt with.
Maybe the economic responsibility group will suggest something to be done a bit later. Who knows, maybe they’ll suggest we get onto a glide path to where the lock box idea can really be instituted.