Top Social Security Myths: Don't Drink the Kool Aid!

¡Hola! Everybody…

Dang! The Neocon Zombies are back again. I swear! You can’t kill this plague of failed ideas no matter how many time they fail. Who's next? Milton Friedman?!!

Today, perhaps emboldened by the recent elections, the goobers, with the help of some very powerful people, are spreading misinformation about one of the most successful government programs ever (and not just in the US, but globally) in order to scare people into passively accepting benefit cuts. Even so-called “liberals” such as Lawrence O'Donnell (who calls himself a socialist ::cough::) and Dylan Ratigan, are framing the social security debate in a way that makes it a foregone conclusion that cuts must be sustained.

Truth be told, O'Donnell is a dyed-in-the-wool corporate democrat cut from the same Rahm Emmanuel (and now Obama) cloth. The assumption that SS must be cut/ taken apart/ given as a gift to Wall St. to mangle is pure, unadulterated bullshit. Don't be a sheeple (<-- same as teabagger). Check out this list of Social Security myths and share it with your friends, family and coworkers.

Stop. Look. Listen...

Myth: Social Security is going broke.

Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.3 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever. After 2037, it’ll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits--and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers retirement decades ago. Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.

Myth: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.

Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than did 70 years ago. What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly -- since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half. But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.

Random Thoughts of a Radical Progressive Puerto Rican

-=[ Ramblin’ Man]=-

I don’t mean to poke fun at such a serious topic, and I should add that I once seriously considered the same route, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that a NYC man yesterday jumped off his high rise building, plunged 40 stories, landed in the backseat area of a Dodge Charger after crashing through the windshield... and survived. Broken legs, critical condition.

When I made the commitment to jump, a strong wind from an early November Nor’easter knocked me on my skinny, seriously malnourished, drug addicted ass as I attempted to scale the Brooklyn Bridge’s pedestrian walkway (yes, a drama queen to the end, no regular rooftop for yours truly. I was going out in style, muthafuckas!). Some would say that the wind was a blessing or a gift from some God (who apparently had nothing better to do that day), but my state of mind was such that I considered the event the worst of insults: I was such a loser; I couldn’t even commit suicide successfully. I became convinced that with my luck, my suicide attempts would only manage to leave me crippled, so I stopped all thoughts of taking the short cut. I did try to get other people to do it for me, but that’s another story.

So today, as I reflect on this man's actions as well as my own, I wonder about his thoughts, his state of mind, and I have to wonder if he's regretting having survived his actions... I wish him some measure of serenity and clarity.

Oh yeah, President Obama... the speech last night is now being eviscerated for not being celebratory enough by the same chickenhawk pundits and politicians who cooked the evidence in creating that Mess in Mesopotamia in the first place. I’ll be honest and admit that I didn’t watch the speech, but I getting some chuckles from people like Chuckles the Clown (Charles Krauthammer), and that Wolfowitz twit (the latter stating that we should stay in Iraq, like, forever).

Well, people? How the fuck do we celebrate the cluster fuck now known as the Iraq War? It was a mistake from the get-go; incompetent men who had never fought a war bungled it from the beginning. Moreover, let’s not forget that we shouldn’t have been there to begin with. And you know what? This ain’t over yet, you bloodthirsty imbeciles. Rachel Maddow does a great job of listing the lies that took us there: