Haley Dissembling

Suspending his presidential campaign and endorsing Donald Trump on January 21, Florida governor Ron DeSantis stated "We can't go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.

Of course, a second Trump Administration would be warmed-over corporatism, yet with a large dose of authoritarianism mixed in.  On the heels of praise for the ex-President from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, James Downie notes a President Trump "would deliver these millionaires and billionaires more massive tax cuts. He would reverse the Biden administration's moves for stronger bank regulations. And he'd end President Joe Biden's efforts to rein in monopolies, help organized labor and safeguard workers' rights."

Nevertheless, DeSantis is right about Haley. Moments after DeSantis bowed out, CNN's Dana Bash asked (at :23 of the video below) Haley

O.K., when he dropped out, part of what he said was he reminded everybody that he "signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee. I'll honor that pledge. "He," meaning Donald Trump, has my endorsement because we can't go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear or repackaged form of warmed- up corporatism that Nikki Haley represents. That's tough stuff on his way out the door.

The former U.N. ambassador responded

You know and it's interesting because there's no proof of that. These fellas say this because they wat people to believe it. But what's amazing to me is they think they can lie to the American people and the American people are going to believe it.

Prove it. Prove the fact that Donald Trump says I want to cut Social Security or raise the age. I've never said that... Prove the fact that Ron DeSantis says I'm a corporate whatever he says I am.

 I've never done that.

That corporate whatever" would be "repackaged form of warmed up-corporatism." The candidate bet that few in the pro-Haley center and left media would go to the videotape and for the most part, she seems to have won that bet. However, the tape does in fact exist. At the recent debate held prior to the Iowa caucus, Haley promised (beginning at :25 of the video below)

And the way we fix it is that no one has to worry that you're going to lose what you paid in or what you gave. America should always keep her promises and we have to live by that. But what we will do is make changes to those like my kids in their '20s, those coming into the system. We will change their retirement ae to reflect life expectancy. We Will change, rather than doing cost-of-living increase, we'll do increases based on inflation. We will limit the benefit on the wealthy and we'll expand Medicare Advantage plans that seniors love that create competition.

Some elderly people opt for Medicare Advantage because Medicare benefits are inadequate. Haley proposes to expand Medicare Advantage, which primarily advantages profit-seeking private companies, in the obvious hope that public support for the Medicare program dissipates.

And that's her plan for Social Security. After raising the age at which benefits can be received- which she explicitly told Bash she had not proposed- Haley would apply a less generous formula for calculating benefits. Thereafter- if not before- she would eliminate benefits for the wealthy, thereby converting the program into a welfare program, which gradually would erode support for its continuation.

Haley's stated plan was not merely impulsive, a debate faux pas. A few months earlier (:29 of the video below), the South Carolinian had asserted

So the way we deal with it is we don't touch anyone's retirement or anyone who's been promised in. But we go to people like my kids in their '20s when they're coming in to the system and we say the rules have changed. We change retirement age to reflect life expectancy. Instead of cost-of-living increases, we do it based on inflation. We limit the benefits on the wealthy and we expand Medicare Advantage plans.

            

It wasn't for nothing, as the saying goes, that Americans for Prosperity, the political arm of the Koch Foundation, last November heartily endorsed Haley of President. She has been both consistently wrong about earned benefits and brazenly dishonest in claiming that she hasn't advocated raising the retirement age or cutting benefits.

Ron DeSantis' prescription, election of Donald Trump to the presidency, is ridiculous, as we are inadvertently reminded by Jamie Dimon.  However, the moderate image of Nikki Haley does not capture the reality of an extremely conservative political figure.

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That Third Rail

When the New York Times/Siena College poll of six swing states was released approximately ten days ago, the main storyline was that Donald Trump was ahead in a one-on-one matchup with President Biden in five of them. The secondary story was that Nikki Haley was ahead in all six.

Of course, polls twelve months ahead of the presidential election are virtually worthless. We don't know whether by then Donald Trump will have been convicted or acquitted in a court)s) of law or whether there even will be a verdict by then. Twelve months ago, there wasn't even a war in the Middle East, and the status of that conflict and that between Russia and Ukraine is unknowable.  It's even more uncertain when we add to that such things as the unpredictable nature of the economy, of the political effect of Republican efforts to roll back reproductive freedom, the impact of third party candidates, the dishonest persuasiveness of artificial intelligence applied to social media, and the outcome of the presidential election.

That has not prevented many of the stars, hosts, pundits, and others, in the mainstream media to speculate that other GOP hopefuls, especially Nikki Haley, would be stronger candidates than Trump.

Bring it (her) on.  Below, the ex-South Carolina, ex-United Nations ambassador can be seen remarking

Social Security is going to go bankrupt in ten years. Medicare is going to go bankrupt in eight. So the way we deal with it is we don't change anyone's retirement or anyone who has been promised in.

This has been the right's mantra for many years now. Conservatives know that Social Security is very popular with the elderly, who know how important it is- and they know that the elderly vote. And they know- or should- that Social Security is not "going to go bankrupt" in ten years.  As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted earlier this year

Social Security is largely a “pay as you go” program, meaning today’s benefits are funded primarily by the payroll taxes collected from today’s workers. For over three decades, however, Social Security collected more in payroll taxes and other income than it paid in benefits and other expenses, and the Treasury invested the surplus in interest-bearing Treasury securities, ultimately reaching a total of $2.9 trillion in trust fund reserves. In 2021 Social Security began redeeming those reserves to help pay benefits. Payroll taxes from current workers will continue to pay for the bulk of benefits. The trust fund reserves will make up the difference between income and costs until the reserves are depleted. At that point, Social Security’s income will still be able to pay roughly 80 percent of promised benefits — even in the unlikely event that policymakers fail to act.

She continued

But we go to people like my kids in their '20s when they're coming into the system and we say the rules have changed. We change retirement age to reflect life expectancy. Instead of cost-of-living increases, we'd do it based on inflation. We limit the benefits on the wealthy and expand Medicare Advantage plans.

Nikki Haley tells Bloomberg News "65 is way too low" for the retirement age, advocates attaching it to life expectancy pic.twitter.com/E3yxPl0LIC

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) August 24, 2023

Understandably, Haley did not explain the difference between cost-of-living increases and inflation, an explanation which would have been enlightening. However, the "change retirement age" is a fairly clear recommendation that we increase the eligibility age..

Haley suggests "we limit the benefits on the wealthy" not because they're unneeded by the rich but because that approach would turn Social Security into a welfare program, at which time support for Social Security as we've known it would diminish.  That would give corporate-friendly Republicans such as Haley an excuse to move to privatization of the system.  Were Haley interested in limiting assistance only to the needy, she'd argue that tax loopholes for the wealthy be eliminated, which she will advocate once Miami receives a major July snowstorm..

Haley hinted at her motive when she recommended the federal government "expand Medicare Advantage plans."  Yet as a Medicare advisory group has explained, the

over-reach of private Medicare Advantage plans is called what it is: Fraud. Medicare Advantage overpayments threaten Medicare’s fiscal sustainability. At the same time, these private plans block access to necessary care with baseless prior authorization and on-going Medicare denials. In short, Medicare Advantage costs the Medicare program and taxpayers more, but provides beneficiaries less when they really need care.

Haley claimed "sixty-five is way too low"  for eligibility for Social Security. That may go over with her conservative buddies in the professional-managerial class, individuals who are physically able to work into their 70's (and occasionally beyond) because the work takes little toll on their bodies. But tens of millions of Americans, most in the working class which Republicans insist they're so concerned about, have no such luxury. If they do not receive Social Security, they must keep working for a living, and that retirement age which has increased will take a blow along with the lives of the families involved.

If there were any will whatsoever among Republicans, the decline in Social Security solvency could easily be reversed. The cap on contributions toward Social Security not only would shore up the system in the short run but would probably end any revenue shortfall forever. 

But there is no interest among Republicans, including among those such as Haley who are sometimes characterized by the media as "moderates," for taking this obviously needed step. They would prefer to undermine the system. If the former South Carolina governor is nominated, she would play right into what we learned in January is President Biden's wheelhouse.

 

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Sunset

This is how politicians should be interviewed- not only Republicans but also Democrats, and not only by CNN's Kaitlan Collins. But in this case it was she and in the wake of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday, Scott was the a prime, and deserving, target.

In this interview, Florida senator Scott insists that President Biden has cut Medicare, though he is careful not to say “cut Medicare benefits.”In a fact check on Thursday, CNN noted that deputy director of the Medicare policy program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, Mark

Cubanski explained that the Inflation Reduction Act’s projected prescription drug savings of $237 billion will largely come from three particular provisions. None of these provisions cuts Medicare benefits.

One provision allows the federal government, starting in 2026, to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over the prices of certain high-cost drugs for Medicare. Another requires the drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare if the price of certain drugs rises faster than inflation. A third provision delays, until 2032, the implementation of a Trump administration rule that had never taken effect and already been postponed until 2027. That rule, which would have effectively banned rebates from drug companies to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, had been expected not only to increase Medicare spending but to force Medicare beneficiaries to pay higher premiums.

So, again, not even the cost-saving parts of the law are Medicare cuts. And then there are the additional provisions Cubanski mentioned above, which will add expenditures to the government but save seniors money – such as the new $35-per-month cap on out-of-pocket spending on insulin and a new $2,000-per-year cap, starting in 2025, on out-of-pocket prescription drug spending in Medicare Part D.

Scott insists that he hasn't endorsed benefit cuts. At 6:10 of the video with Collins, he states

I've been clear. I will not reduce Social Security or Medicare benefits. Alright? I've been clear. And I was in my plan. Congress needs to fix Med- make sure that Medicare and Social Security survive.

Sen. Rick Scott says "no," it wasn’t a mistake to propose a plan that would require all legislation, including that relating to programs like Social Security and Medicare, to sunset unless Congress reauthorizes them. Our full interview this morning: pic.twitter.com/wOxxApUCpR

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 9, 2023

It is an article of faith- or at least, it seems to be- of Republicans that Medicare and Social Security will die on the vine (i.e., not survive) unless benefits are slashed. There is a little bit of logic there. Scott, as with some of his GOP colleagues, says he will never vote to raise taxes. If Congress does not increase the maximum annual wage- now $160,200- that's subject to Social Security tax, the trust fund eventually, in a matter of decades, will run out.

The cap, as Senator Bernie Sanders and other Democrats have long advocated, could be increased or (as it should be) eliminated altogether. That's a bridge to decency Republicans will not cross.

Senator Scott knows that cutting, or decreasing, benefits won't fly politically. Therefore, he wants to sunset "entitlements" (earned benefits) which- in the short term- does not necessarily cut benefits.  A lot of voters don't know what sunsetting is (and it's not an actual word). Elderly individuals, the Florida senator believes, may believe it wouldn't happen for awhile, and Republicans have been trying for years to condition young people to accept as inevitable that Social Security, if not Medicare also, won't last forever. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, if he's not lying through his teeth, is not keen on Scott's plan. That's for now, though. Republicans in the House of Representatives, which the GOP controls, are unpredictable, and ghastly.  So it becomes essential for President Biden, as he did in his State of the Union address, to tell the public that some Republicans want to sunset the program and tie that to a decrease in benefits. And it can only help if journalists, such as Kaitlan Collins did one fine Thursday morning, persist in asking the uncomfortable questions.

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Of Biden's Finest Moment

Lauren Boebert was "seriously disappointed" by President Joseph Robinette's State of the Union address.

She has reason to be. There were a few issues Biden did not handle particularly well but his segment on the two most popular entitlement programs- Social Security and Medicare- was a tour de force.  Amid cheers from Democrats and jeers and various expressions of disapproval from Republicans, Biden stated

Let’s commit here tonight that the full faith and credit of the United States of America will never, ever be questioned.

Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage — I get it — unless I agree to their economic plans. All of you at home should know what those plans are.

Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans, want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I’m not saying it’s the majority.

Let me give you — anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I’ll give you a copy — I’ll give you a copy of the proposal. That means Congress doesn’t vote — I’m glad to see — no, I tell you, I enjoy conversion.

You know, it means if Congress doesn’t keep the programs the way they are, they go away.

Other Republicans say — I’m not saying it’s a majority of you, I don’t even think it’s even a significant — but it’s being proposed by individuals. I’m not — politely not naming them, but it’s being proposed by some of you.

Look, folks, the idea is that we’re not going to be — we’re not going to be moved into being threatened to default on the debt if we don’t respond.

Folks — so folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right? They’re not to be — all right. We’ve got unanimity.

Social Security and Medicare are a lifeline for millions of seniors. Americans have to pay into them from the very first paycheck they started.

So tonight, let’s all agree — and we apparently are — let’s stand up for seniors. Stand up and show them we will not cut Social Security. We will not cut Medicare.

Those benefits belong to the American people. They earned it.

And if anyone tries to cut Social Security, which apparently no one’s going to do, and if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I’ll stop them. I’ll veto it. And look, I’m not going to allow them to take away — be taken away.

Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. But apparently it’s not going to be a problem.

Not now, it's not.  In the video below, Representative Boebert can be seen claiming the President "lied about Republicans wanting to cut Medicare and Social Security. We made it very clear tonight that is off the table." President Biden had noted "some Republicans want Social Security and Medicare to sunset. I'm not saying it's the majority."  A moment later, he even conceded "I don’t even think it’s even a significant — but it’s being proposed by individuals."

Those individuals would include Wisconsin Senator Ron "Moscow" Johnson, who in a podcast last summer

suggested that Social Security and Medicare be transformed into programs whose budgets are appropriated by Congress on an annual basis. He pointed out that budgets for the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments are approved as discretionary spending.

“What we ought to be doing is we ought to turn everything into discretionary spending so it’s all evaluated so that we can fix problems or fix programs that are broken, that are going to be going bankrupt,” Johnson said. “As long as things are on automatic pilot, we just continue to pile up debt.”

More radically, Utah Senator Mike Lee, in remarks he had made at a campaign event in 2010 and revealed in a video resurfacing last year, had stated (at 2:48 of the video below)

I'm here right now to tell you one thing you probably have not heard from a politician: It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up from the roots and get rid of it.  People who advise me politically always tell me it's dangerous and I tell them "In that case, it's not worth my running.' That's why I'm doing this, to get rid of that. Medicare and Social Security are of the same sort, they need to be pulled up.

 

That seems pretty clear, but more significantly- and in line with Johnson's position-

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Wednesday defended his proposal to sunset all federal legislation after five years and slammed President Biden as “confused” in response to Biden’s claim at the State of the Union address that some Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare.

“In my plan, I suggested the following: All federal legislation sunsets in five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” Scott said in a statement following Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress. 

Scott last year rankled Republicans when he rolled out a 12-point policy agenda that included the sunset proposal, which Democrats promptly began using as ammunition in the midterms.

“This is clearly and obviously an idea aimed at dealing with all the crazy new laws our Congress has been passing of late,” Scott added, denying Biden’s claim Tuesday evening that Republicans want to end Social Security and Medicare. 

Biden said that “instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” eliciting loud boos from GOP lawmakers in the chamber. 

Some House Republicans have floated the idea of reforms to entitlement programs as part of debt ceiling negotiations, though Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and others insist cuts aren’t on the table.

Speaking over the raucous response, the president insisted, “Anybody who doubts it, contact my office, I’ll give you a copy — I’ll give you a copy of the proposal.”

“It is being proposed by individuals. I’m politely not naming them, but it’s being proposed by some of you,” Biden said. 

That barb infuriated Scott, the former chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who called the claim “a lie” and “a dishonest move … from a very confused president.” 

“I will not be intimidated by Joe Biden twisting my words,” he declared and pushed back by arguing that Democrats effectively cut Medicare when they gave the federal government power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices in the Inflation Reduction Act.

This was a position Scott advocated as the chairman of the NRSC. Nonetheless, he accuses Biden of twisting his words while Scott acknowledged that he proposed "that all federal legislation sunset(s) in five years. So he quotes his own report proposing exactly what the President maintained (some) Republicans want to do, a magnificent self-own.

Late last month, Kevin "don't call me Joe" McCarthy was asked on Face the Nation whether he would "consider any reductions to Social Security and Medicare" and responded "No. Let's take those off the table."

Nevertheless, when a few details of the secret deal negotiated by McCarthy to win the vote to become Speaker leaked, Vox's Andrew Prokop reported

McCarthy commits that House Republicans will create a plan for a balanced federal budget within 10 years, including “long-term reforms” to mandatory spending programs (entitlements like Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid), as well as capping discretionary spending where it was during the first fiscal year of the Biden administration.

The long-term reforms pledged by McCarthy certainly sound like an effort to reduce outlays for Social Security and Medicare benefits over the long term. On Face the Nation, McCarthy, agreeing to take reductions "off the table," was probably referring to immediate cuts to appear in the upcoming budget. However, he was not foreclosing the likelihood of those "long-term reforms" in earned benefits, or what Republicans like to label "entitlements."

"Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever," the President vowed.  The GOP knows not to advocate reductions in benefits for today's senior citizens because old people vote.  But they've been talking for decades about "strengthening" or "protecting" those pesky "entitlements," which to everyone involved in the issue is shorthand for pulling the rug out from under future beneficiaries.

Whether Lauren Boebert is aware of the recent politics surrounding the matter, and thus intentionally deceptive, or is merely a useful idiot is undetermined. But taking a knife to the programs long has been on the Republican's wish list, a little less attainable after Tuesday's State of the Union address.

 

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Prime Target

The Independent reports

Republican Representative Rick Allen of Georgia defended his position on raising the age when seniors can receive Social Security by saying people want to work longer.

Advocacy group Social Security Works posted a video of Mr Allen walking through the tunnels of the House of Representatives where he was asked about why he wants to raise the age of retirement.

“You know, that’s interesting that you ask that question,” he said. “People come up to me, they actually want to work longer.”

Currently, senior citizens collect Social Security and Medicare at the age of 65. But some have proposed the idea of raising the age to 67.

The person asking him the question asked if that proposal was on the table at the moment.

“Well, you know, if people want to work longer, maybe you need an incentive to do it,” Mr Allen said. “That’s the way to solve every one of these problems, by the way, and actually grow wealth at the same time.”

Mr Allen sits on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, which deals with health care legislation. Mr Allen’s remarks come as Republicans took control of the majority in the House of Representatives earlier this month.

Responding to Allen's comments, at 1:39 of the video below, The Young Turks' Ana Kasparian remarks

When they say they want to raise the retirement age, don't be tricked into thinking that this isn't cutting Social security. It's just raising the retirement age because Americans are living much longer- except that's actually not true. The life expectancy of Americans has actually been going down in recent years and life expectancy in the United States is comparable to that of people living in Cuba.

 

To paraphrase a old saying, nobody died and made me a fact checker. However, if I had to rate the accuracy of the latter statement of Kasparian on a scale of 0 to 10 (with D. Trump at 0.5 and G. Santos at 0.0), I'd give it an 8.

Life expectancy in the USA had been rising until it declined in 2020. It declined further in 2021, and appears to have remained the same in 2022.  Presumably, that is due to SARS-CoV-2. However, we can be sure neither that it will rebound after the pandemic vanishes nor that there will not be repeated coronaviruses into the indefinite future. Moreover, in 2021 "life expectancy at birth began to rebound in most comparable countries while it continued to decline in the U.S.," suggesting that a decline in life expectancy is not inevitable after the peak of a major health crisis has passed.

Worse even than being "comparable," life expectancy at time of birth in 2021 was 2.9 years lower in the USA than in Cuba. That may be unsurprising because the single-payer health care system in Cuba is superior provides significantly greater benefits than provided in the USA, with its largely market-based system. Undoubtedly unsurprising is the lower age at death in the USA than in other, comparable developed nations.

The fallacy that Americans are living dramatically longer lives than ever before is central to the effort to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.  On January 12, House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, fresh off selling his soul and more to be elected to the position, vowed "one thing I will tell you, as Republicans, we will always protect Medicare and Social Security. We will protect them for the next generation going forward. But we are going to scrutinize every single dollar spent."

Hold on to your wallet.  It may be a nod and a wink, but when politicians threaten to protect Social Security and Medicare, it means the programs are on their hit list.  The theory is that the programs are on the cusp of  bankruptcy (they're not) so the only way to "protect" them is to reduce benefits, raise the eligibility age, lower the cost-of-living adjustments, or means-testing benefits. The "scrutinize every single dollar spent" makes it obvious. (McCarthy is not talking about the defense budget or corporate giveaways.)

So when Republicans balk at raising the debt ceiling, it's not only to try to bring the nation's economy to its knees. It's a continuation of a decades-long effort to uproot the social safety net and if the elderly are among its casualties, so be it.

 

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Of Distractions

In the video below from October of 2022, The Young Turks' Ana Kasparian slams Republicans because they want to force a debt showdown to cut what conservatives luxuriate in calling "entitlement programs."  At approximately 1:58, she shows a graphic from New York Magazine noting

Bloomberg's Jack Fitzpatrick interviewed seven Republican contenders to lead the House Budget Committee. They all said, with varying levels of specificity, that they plan to instigate a debt ceiling standoff to force Biden to accept cuts to retirement and health-care programs.

Those would be, respectively, Social Security and Medicare, which Kasparian recognizes as vital lifelines for most individuals and families. She adds (at 14:07)

I hope people understand why it's that they spend all of their time crying about CRT, which doesn't exist in grade school. Crying about trans athletes, when they can't even name a single trans athlete that's impacting anyone in their state. The reason why focus on these made up boogie men is to scare their own voters and distract from the fact they want to rob their own voters of programs they've paid into.

So true- and yet, in their own way, Democrats do something similar. They're not trying scare people to distract the attention of their voters from what party officials want to do. However, they try- successfully- to distract their own voters from what they should be doing by giving them some red meat- their own culture war hot button issues.

Today we protected marriage equality in the U.S. Senate.

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) November 29, 2022

Putting aside the Senator's obvious problem with English grammar- the concern was not marriage equality in the US Senate but marriage equality in the country- the emphasis Klobuchar and some other Democrats placed on this was remarkable, and telling.  

On November 29 the Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act with 61 votes, including those of twelve Republicans. The Democratic-controlled House then passed the legislation, which was quickly and signed into law by President Joe Biden at a "triumphant White House ceremony." Notwithstanding Klobuchar's boast that the action "protected marriage equality," prohibition by any political jurisdiction of same-sex marriage already had been outlawed (in Hodges v. Obergefell) by the United States Supreme Court. The Respect for Marriage Act provides assurance that if the Supreme Court were to take up the same issue again and reverse its decision, a state which outlaws the union would be required to recognize the marriage of two men, or two women, conducted in another state. The law guarantees full faith and credit for same-sex and interracial marriages, and does little if anything else.

But that didn't stop many Democrats, Biden and Klobuchar only two of them, from touting the law and ignoring a far more urgent matter. Eight days prior to the Senator's triumphant tweet, Peter R. Orazag, former director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, explained

In October, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) warned that Republicans are planning to use the debt limit as leverage to demand spending cuts, potentially including Social Security and Medicare — cuts that President Biden will not accept. Now that Republicans have won control of the House and McCarthy is potentially the next speaker, the threat is real....

The debt ceiling — now $31.4 trillion, a level that stands to be pierced by the third quarter of 2023 — is an anachronism. Congress enacts changes to tax law and entitlement programs (such as Social Security and Medicare), and sets non-entitlement spending each year. These decisions, in turn, exhaust the policy levers available to control the level of U.S. government debt. (The evolution of debt is also influenced by the economy, market interest rates and other factors, but those are mostly outside the control of policymakers.) So having a separate limit on the permitted level of debt is redundant.

As the Government Accountability Office has written, “The debt ceiling does not control the amount of debt. Instead, it is an after-the-fact measure that restricts the Treasury’s ability to borrow to finance the decisions already enacted by Congress and the President"....

There are two ways to de-risk the situation in the lame-duck session of Congress. One is regular order, which would require the cooperation of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a number of sitting Republican senators wise enough to join Democrats to address the issue now. But this may well not happen.

The other option involves a new budget resolution, which would facilitate using the reconciliation process to raise the debt limit, as was done in 1990, 1993 and 1997. This approach would require two votes — the first on the budget resolution and the second on reconciliation. It would take up about two weeks of Senate floor time, but it could be accomplished with only 50 votes.

Any Democrats averse to taking such a painful vote now should consider how much leverage their party will lose once Republicans control the House — and how much higher the risk of default will be then. It’s generally not a good idea to enter a negotiation with a ticking time bomb and a counterparty willing to let it go off.

The next two years will be turbulent in any case. The president and Congress can make them less risky by addressing the debt limit in December.

Nonetheless, the President and Congress did not address the debt limit then. Instead, as was reported a few days later, Senate Majority Leader Chuck

Schumer said last week that he would like to “get a debt ceiling done in this work period” but insisted that it would require Republican support, effectively ruling out a go-it-alone approach that would allow Democrats to unilaterally raise the debt limit. Speaking to reporters on the same day, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said he didn’t think Congress would take up the issue until “sometime next year”.

At that point and in the lame-duck session, Democrats- not Mitch McConnell's GOP- controlled the Senate, in which an extension of the debt limit could be approved by reconciliation, and the House of Representatives. Yet

Schumer said the Senate will take a final vote on legislation to protect same-sex and interracial marriages when the chamber returns after the Thanksgiving recess. Earlier this month, 12 Republicans joined all Democrats to clear a major procedural hurdle that put the historic measure on track to passage.

“Passing the Respect for Marriage Act is no longer a matter of if but only of when,” he said in recent remarks. A version of the bill passed the House earlier this year, with support from dozens of Republicans.

Schumer believed the Respect for Marriage Act would have passed in the following Congress, anyway. By contrast, the earlier the debt limit is effectively addressed, the less likely Republicans (who have taken control of the House, as was expected) will be able to hold it hostage, threatening the global economy, to cut Social Security and Medicare.

The Republican Party is responsible for this problem. Taking anyone or anything hostage is an impotent gesture unless the threat is credible, and Republicans may be willing to take the economy down if Democrats don’t meet their demands for policy which would slice and dice Americans who need Social Security and Medicare. As Kasparian probably understands, Republicans may go on and on about critical race theory, trans athletes, or the other sexy issue of the moment, but they keep their eye on the prize, consolidation of wealth for the donor class.

The Republican Party is responsible for this problem. Taking anyone or anything hostage is an impotent gesture unless the threat is credible, and Republicans may be willing to take the economy down if Democrats don’t meet their demands for policy which would slice and dice Americans who need Social Security and Medicare.

But, hey, priorities are priorities. Democrats, who would like to protect the country from the mischief Republicans are planning, nonetheless focus on cultural issues of race and sex to keep their own base of voters engaged .  And there are fewer greater priorities for them than making sure that the sanctity of a same-sex marriage is respected. 

Now, if the Supreme Court takes up those unions, rules that states may prohibit them, and conservative states such as Mississippi re-institute a ban, the marriage of a couple which decides to move from Massachusetts to Mississippi would still be recognized. And if next year the economy tanks or earned benefits plummet, we can still celebrate Amy Klobuchar’s tweet, triumphantly.

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The Elderly, Targeted

 Good question with a simple, sarcastic answer.

what do you mean, they plan to cut Social Security and Medicare. They've said this. That should fix inflation.

— Dean Baker (@DeanBaker13) October 18, 2022

 

The Washington Post reports 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that if Republicans win control of the House the GOP will use raising the debt limit as leverage to force spending cuts — which could include cuts to Medicare and Social Security — and limit additional funding to Ukraine.

“You can’t just continue down the path to keep spending and adding to the debt,” the California Republican told Punchbowl News in a recent interview. “And if people want to make a debt ceiling [for a longer period of time], just like anything else, there comes a point in time where, okay, we’ll provide you more money, but you got to change your current behavior.”

“We’re not just going to keep lifting your credit card limit, right,” he added. “And we should seriously sit together and [figure out] where can we eliminate some waste? Where can we make the economy grow stronger?”

Pressed on whether changes to the entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security were part of the debt ceiling discussions, McCarthy said he would not “predetermine” anything.

The debt limit — the country’s borrowing cap — will need to be lifted next year to protect the country’s credit score and to prevent the United States from defaulting on its debt. But McCarthy suggested that his party would be willing to hold the debt limit up for policy changes.

The debt limit is the total amount of money that the government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds and other payments. The debt limit is not new spending but rather allows the government to finance existing legal obligations.

It is right there in the proposed budget plan from the Republican Study Committee, which proposed “raising the eligibility ages for each program, along with withholding payments for individuals who retire early or had a certain income, and privatized funding for Social Security to lower income taxes.”

As Steve Benen notes,  If Republicans gain the majority, "they’ll demand changes to Social Security and Medicare, and if the White House balks, GOP lawmakers will simply refuse to raise the debt ceiling." Worse come to worse, they reason, at least they'll  crash the economy, and that's not nothing.

When Kevin McCarthy asks "where can we eliminate some waste?" his crew won't stop at earned benefits. The idea is to put on the table anything for the elderly, the poor, even the middle class. And they plan, if they don't get their way, to wreck the economy because that would pave the way for a GOP presidential victory in 2024.

We will need more than the occasional, though valuable, warning from President Biden:

 

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Crime is the Message, But Only the Message

NBC News notes

Inflation and the economy may be the centerpiece of the GOP sell to voters ahead of November’s elections. But in recent months, the party has doubled down on the issue of crime, running ads across the country in key races accusing Democratic messaging and policy of failing to combat crime.

The harshest example of where that rhetoric has led may have come over the weekend, when Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville claimed Democrats were “pro-crime” because “they want to control what you have” and want “reparations” for “the people that do the crime.

Crime, with its insinuations about race, is uppermost in the mind of Republicans as candidates- and Democrats as, well, Democrats.  However, it is not paramount in GOP thinking as legislators or public officials. Rather, as Jonathan Chait writes

Bloomberg’s Jack Fitzpatrick interviewed several Republican contenders to lead the House Budget Committee. They all said, with varying levels of specificity, that they plan to instigate a debt-ceiling standoff to force Biden to accept cuts to retirement and health-care programs. “Our main focus has got to be on nondiscretionary — it’s got to be on entitlements,” said Representative Buddy Carter. Representative Jodey Arrington said he wants “eligibility reforms,” which means raising the eligibility age and imposing a means test for Social Security and Medicare benefits. “We should ensure that we keep the promises that were made to the people who really need it, the people who are relying on it,” said Representative Lloyd Smucker. “So some sort of means-testing potentially would help to ensure that we can do that"...

With means testing, the GOP would turn Medicare and Social Security into welfare programs. Then, of course, the GOP would attack welfare and urge voters to reject Democratic politicians wanting to hand out "free stuff."

Chait adds

Last June, the Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus that includes more than three-quarters of the House Republicans, released a sweeping domestic-budget plan. It received little attention in the mainstream media. The plan, notes Fitzpatrick, would

gradually raise the Medicare age of eligibility to 67 and the Social Security eligibility to 70 before indexing both to life expectancy. It backed withholding payments to those who retired early and had earnings over a certain limit. And it endorsed the consideration of options to reduce payroll taxes that fund Social Security and redirect them to private alternatives. It also urged lawmakers to “phase-in an increase in means testing” for Medicare.

Conservative media, wary of public backlash, ignored these planned cuts to earned benefits and instead celebrated the other proposals of the NSC, including ones pertaining  to energy production, immigration, China, and transsexuals. Chait concludes by explaining that Representative Arrington told Bloomberg's Fitzpatrick

he would prefer not to detail his proposals because “this can get so politicized.” Politicized, of course, is a term people use when they want the political system to advance their policy agenda without discussing it openly. The plan is to round up party support quietly, gain power without discussing it, then force the opposing party to make it happen.

The other bait-and-switch was almost inevitable in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests (uniformly applauded by Democrats and media centrists), which in a very few instances included violence perpetrated by a few participants. Video of the activism, seen endlessly by Fox News viewers and others, heightened fear to an irrational level. Thus followed the other bait-and-switch: crime! in Democrat cities! 

This is an election year in which Republicans can win only if Democrats allow them to hide their overarching goal of pandering to their donors, curbing the middle and lower classes, and reinforcing rule of, by, and for the economic elite.

 

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Misbegotten Strategy

In late February, Florida senator Rick Scott, chairperson of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, issued an 11-point "Plan to Rescue America." There are two items which, broadcast widely, would undo much of the gain Republicans have made in the middle- and lower-middle classes the past few decades

Section 5 included "All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax." 

They represent poor individuals and families, and those of modest means, who have benefitted enormously by the earned income tax credit, extremely popular across the electorate.

And included in section 6, "Government Reform and Debt," "all federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again." As this reporter explains

Here is the language from page 19: “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” [There are a number of promised changes on that page all under the rubric of “Government” but this one is quite a doozey!]

Now among the many federal laws on the books is a law called the Social Security Act. This law was originally passed in 1935 to create Unemployment Insurance, Aid to Dependent Children (cash welfare for widows and orphans --- later extended to cover all poor single women with children renamed Aid to Families with Dependent Children [AFDC]), and Old Age and Survivors Pensions (what is commonly thought of today as “Social Security.”). Since then, the law has been amended many times and expanded dramatically.... Included in the current law is an entire section covering Medicare which is administered by the Social Security Administration. (Medicare was passed as an amendment to the Social Security Act in 1965.)

So --- if Scott actually understood his own proposal, the entire Social Security Act --- including Medicare and the Social Security Pensions almost all Americans over 70 are receiving monthly --- would either disappear (that’s what “sunsetting” means, by the way) or have to be re-enacted by Congress.

We must applaud Rick Scott for reminding us not only of the GOP's harsh cultural agenda, but also of the economic plan for destroying the middle classes. So with Scott handing Democrats a prime talking point and obvious campaign issue, in a speech on May 8

“Let me tell you about this ultra MAGA agenda,” Biden said, using former president Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan — “Make America Great Again” — as a pejorative. “It’s extreme, as most MAGA things are.”

Then, in the subsequent days, Biden and his team continued to hammer Republicans in aggressive terms, attacking them as “MAGA” and “ultra MAGA.” Biden even dismissed his predecessor at one point as “the great MAGA king"....

Biden’s attempt to appropriate the “MAGA” brand as a political attack was hardly accidental. It arose from a six-month research project to find the best way to target Republicans, helmed by Biden adviser Anita Dunn and by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal group.

The polling and focus group research by Hart Research and the Global Strategy Group found that “MAGA” was already viewed negatively by voters — more negatively than other phrases like “Trump Republicans.”

It's hard to believe any political party could be this stupid.  Conjured up by a GOP strategist, it would be a brilliant tactic to move the Overton Window to the right.  If the bad position is ultra-MAGA, surely MAGA is in the sensible middle.

One Republican strategist noted "Biden and his folks" are "taking the most iconic, successful political slogan of all time and trying to turn it into something derogatory. I mean, who doesn’t want to make America great again?” And leftist (in the best possible way) David Dayen remarked "Excuse me, I have to pick up my head after it ejected from its body and found the nearest wall to explode into."

Hopefully some Democrats are listening to the tweeter with a mere 57 followers who understands

Rick Scott handed them their midterm message on a silver platter. Why aren't they talking about his threat to sunset SS and Medicare?

— Nancy Migdall (@Nancymigdall) May 13, 2022

Rick Scott handed them their midterm message on a silver platter. Why aren't they talking about his threat to sunset SS and Medicare?

But few are, and the reason may lie in the criticism of Scott's plan by The New Republic's Jason Linkins, who has written 

.....the real value in Scott’s proposal is that it exposes that when it comes to policy, the GOP hasn’t embraced some new “Trumpian” portfolio. For all of Trump’s rhetorical and attitudinal contributions to the party, the extent to which he diverged from Republican orthodoxy in office has always been overrated and overstated. His campaign promises to bring middle-class populism to Washington were left wrecked and abandoned within his first 100 days in office. Hell, beyond allowing shadow president Leonard Leo to install three Supreme Court justices, Trump’s main accomplishment in office was a tax cut for the wealthy.

Trump innovated nothing, and while Scott’s plan is dressed up like something new under the sun, at its core it is just the same old reversion to the same old Republican mean. Scott has no real new ideas, and some of the ones on which he’s placed a big bet aren’t as popular with the public as the media often makes them out to be.

Joe Biden in 2019 referred to the Trump presidency as "aberrant moment in time" and boasted "if we defeat Donald Trump, you're going to see, as we say in southern Delaware, an altar call. You're going to see people all of a sudden see the Lord." (Note: "altar call" is used throughout the USA and maybe elsewhere.)  Admittedly, Biden wasn't alone.

 

Now he is discouraged. However, he still believes the problem lies with a faction of the Republican Party. Thus, the President rails against the "ultra MAGA," as if the entire Republican Party isn't embarked on the crusade it began over forty years ago.  The wing of the Democratic Party which Joe Biden ostensibly leads, which the mainstream media assures us is far more sensible than the progressive wing, is (or pretends to be) under the delusion that the nation is threatened only by the crazies of the GOP.

"Kick me" (or "us") reads the sign on the back of Rick Scott, at one time CEO of a company which perpetrated what was at then the largest Medicare fraud in history. The "epiphany among many of my Republican friends" which Biden predicted in 2019 would occur after the defeat of President Trump hasn't come, and time is running out. And Joe Biden believes they're still his friends.

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