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Social Security and Medicare Cuts in the President’s Budget
ELLEN SHAFFER
Shaffer is co-director at the Center for Policy Analysis. She said today: “President Obama has announced that he will propose a budget plan on April 10 that would cut Social Security benefits and increase Medicare deductibles.
“Congress and the President must protect these lifelines for seniors, people with disabilities. These cuts would be especially harmful to the health of women, who live longer but have lower incomes. The “chained CPI” would cut payments to women in their 80s by the cost of three months of groceries a year. Additionally, women of color, who already experience a host of health disparities and difficulties in accessing critical health services would be disproportionately impacted by any erosion of Medicare or Medicaid. Such cuts would force women ages 65-67 to neglect needed health care, worsening chronic conditions throughout their lives. Reduced income support would force many elderly women without family or friends as caregivers to spend down to qualify for Medicaid, and experience medically unnecessary confinement in nursing homes as a result.
“Social Security has absolutely nothing to do with causing the deficit, so cutting it won’t help to reduce the deficit. The Social Security Trust Fund is entirely solvent through 2038, requiring only minor tweaks in the interim to extend into the future. Medicare and Medicaid are affected by health care cost increases, but cutting benefits will not solve those problems.
“On Nov. 6, women and communities of color gave the margin of victory to a President and members of Congress who promised to fight for higher taxes on the wealthy, for more public investment and for careful cuts in spending, while revitalizing the economy. It is unconscionable to ask those who are barely making it to be squeezed even tighter at a time when corporations and the wealthiest 2% are not paying their fair share of taxes, despite soaring profits.”
Recent Blog Posts
What We Should be Talking About: Romney’s Foreign Policy Advisers
John Kennedy used to say, “Domestic policy can hurt us; foreign policy can kill us.”
But despite the fact that lives (American, allied, and civilian) continue to be lost in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israel is blustering about attacking Iran before the US election (in order to drag in a reluctant Obama administration), much more time will be given to domestic policy rantings then foreign policy. In the 2000 election, there was very little debate about foreign policy, though anyone who looked closely might have guessed that Bush’s foreign policy advisors (who called themselves “the vulcans,” and had complex and long-standing links to groups and think tanks pressing for war on Iraq, would undertake that project at the slightest provocation.
This year, with less excuse (given the large deficit and two ongoing military operations), we have had very little discussion in the media about Romney’s foreign policy advisors. Yet, they are a far more coherent group of militarists than the Bush team.
Dying to Live in Mexico
Cuernavaca, Mexico — In 2011, some 12,000 people were murdered in situations presumably related to the drug trafficking industry in Mexico. In 2010, the number was more than 15,000 killed. Between December 2006, when Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) took office and declared a “war on drug traffickers” and January 2012, depending on the source, some 47,000 to 60,000 people have been slain, and some 5,000 disappeared. This grim fact has become the centerpiece of Mexican politics and an inescapable force in daily life throughout much of the country.
But neither the number of people killed nor the cruelty of the killings can be understood without simultaneously taking account of another pair of figures. First, Calderón has repeatedly said that more than 90 percent of those killed were involved in “the struggle of some cartels against others.” Calderón does not cite a source for this estimate. The underlying logic, however, is clear: if you’re dead, you’re guilty. The perennial official refrain is “en algo andaba,” or, they were up to something; they were in the game. [more]
THE PAYROLL TAX CUT: Talk about a Ponzi Scheme!
Is President Obama trying to kill Social Security without explicitly saying so? He put Social Security “on the table” for consideration by his Deficit Commission — even though Social Security has not contributed to creating or sustaining the deficit/debt in the first place. He kept Social Security on the table when he made a deal to delegate deficit reduction authority over entitlements to an undemocratic Super Committee. Now, in a speech reportedly about jobs, he proposed to extend and increase the ill-considered FICA tax cut he embraced last December — a tax cut that directly undermines the financial integrity of Social Security.
According to the White House Fact Sheet on “The American Jobs Act” the FICA tax holiday for workers will be increased to a 50% reduction, lowering it to 3.1%. Under the 2010 tax deal, the payroll tax for workers was reduced from 6.2% to 4.2%. In addition to expanding the tax cut for workers, the President proposes to extend the FICA tax holiday to employers by cutting in half the employer’s share of the payroll tax through the first $5 million in payroll. [more]
Stop the Cuts to the Social Safety Net!
Medicaid cuts will injure communities of color disproportionately. 11 percent of Asian Americans, 14 percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, 27 percent of Latinos, and 27 percent of African Americans gain access to health care through Medicaid.
Medicaid cuts will injure women disproportionately. Women account for 70 percent of Medicaid participants.
Social Security is survival income for many older women, especially older single women. Fifty percent of women over age 65 rely on Social Security for 80 percent or more of their income. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research: Unmarried women living alone aged 65 and older are three times more likely to be living in poverty than married women aged 65 and older (16.6 percent compared with 4.8 percent). Without Social Security benefits, more than two-thirds of these unmarried women would live in poverty. [more]
In The News
James Henry on NPR
IPA expert, former chief economist at McKinsey and lead researcher of the Tax Justice Network’s report, “The Price of Offshore Revisited” featured on NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show” speaking on international tax havens.
Norman Solomon Debates Ex-Powell Aide Lawrence Wilkerson
Following his inclusion in the IPA news release “Colin Powell’s Infamous U.N. Speech, 10 Years Later: Deceiving Public, Ignoring Whistleblowers Led to War,” Norman Solomon was featured in a debate on Democracy Now!, “Decade After Iraq WMD Speech at UN, Ex-Powell Aide Lawrence Wilkerson Debates Author Norman Solomon.”
‘Two Anaheims’
After an IPA news release highlighting police brutality, economic inequalities, and lack of Latino representation in the Latino-majority city of Anaheim, Al Jazeera English’s ‘Faultline’ produced a 24 minute documentary, ‘Anaheim: A Tale of Two Cities.’
Ray McGovern in Al Jazeera English
Following his inclusion in the IPA news release, “After Petraeus,” Ray McGovern was featured in the Al Jazeera English article “Obama backs Allen as Petraeus inquiry widens.” He said, “If people see these folks as being unfaithful in small things, how can you expect them to tell the truth about progress in Afghanistan? You cannot expect them to do that. What we have here is a situation where the troops know that they cannot trust their superiors.”
