Control of the Weather (Discussion)

My last post "Control of the Weather" was distributed on March 23. I was greatly gratified when Eric Offner, impresario of Jazz concerts, author and lecturer on the law, humanist and mental health advocate (See here for a description of Offner in Who's Who in America) seconded the compliments from Pearl Duncan writing:

I agree with Miss Duncan. I learn a lot from your articles.

And then added:

Today I disagree with you. The price of gas is set by speculators. I would outlaw speculation on most commodities.

To which I responded:

I am glad to receive your disagreement. I receive disagreements so rarely, and yet differences of opinion are useful in arriving at intelligent conclusions.  

Your view on speculators is not unique and you may have noted that in the discussion on the PBS NewsHour referred to in my post and accessible here, Daniel Weiss, of the Center for American Progress (a left wing think tank) mentions Wall Street speculators as one of the causes for the high prices, and speculators are a favorite target of the Left for everything that may go wrong in our economy. But who are speculators? They are the people who buy and sell stocks and commodities. They are people like me, who invest in the stock market in the hope of making a gain, but sometimes sustain a loss. They are the union and other pension funds who invest in the market. They are as much to blame, or rather deserve credit when prices go down. Without them there would be no market in anything, because all traders, and that in effect means all merchants are speculators. You say you "would outlaw speculation in most commodities,” but you can't do that without outlawing all trading in commodities. 

They are a convenient scapegoat whenever anything undesirable happens in the market, but they reflect market conditions, they don't create them. 

What I have not mentioned, heretofore, and which needs mention, is that another factor that drives up world oil prices is the saber rattling about Iran. Netanyahu with his threats drives up the price of oil, and so do the Republicans with their demands that we use military force, again. They play a clever political game, because the are complicit in driving up the price of oil, and then seek to profit politically from the higher prices, which they helped to generate, and finally Obama himself, when he says we will use military force if that is necessary to stop Iran from getting the bomb, a position he was forced into, as the only way to keep Netanyahu from his own military action. And of course Iran, every time they talk of closing the Strait of Hormuz. 

Surprisingly, OPEC, which used to be the culprit in past oil rises, is not complicit this time.  

Next time I want to tackle a very important and complicated subject, i.e. the role that race plays in American life and politics. It will be entitled: “It’s All About Race”, but I am postponing that discussion because it will, of necessity, be long, and multi-parted, and so, rather that append it to this concluding discussion on the price of oil, I will let it go till next time.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Control of the Weather

My last post "The Culture Wars Resume" was published on March 16, 2012. For those who may want to re-read it, just click on the title above and it will appear.

In response thereto I received a message from Pearl Duncan of Manhattan, NY which read:

You columns are fabulous. Your column about the culture wars was not only insightful and enlightening, it was educational, especially for young people who just started voting and were too young to have noticed the last go round. Keep writing. 

And then added:

Because I write about culture and you express such keen political insights in your article, I forward them to my nephews and nieces who are in college and to other readers and young people on my list. Keep writing. Your insights and analyses are very valuable. 

Let me say that this comment is particularly appreciated, because I get so few comments of encouragement and it is very hard to keep researching and writing without a clear indication from my readership that my efforts are appreciated and that they serve the purpose of being informative and mentally challenging. But I particularly appreciate the kind words from Ms. Duncan, because she holds the distinction of being a published author of poetry and short stories, has been written up in the New York Times and is a recognized expert and lecturer on the use of DNA in research on genealogy. Other references to her work appear here and here and many others references which a search through Google quickly reveals.

This post’s title, “Control of the Weather,” will undoubtedly cause the reader to wonder what the weather has to do with a column that concerns itself with politics. I chose this heading to illustrate the irrationality of the voter going back to 1858. The story is told about Queen Victoria and the then Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, as related on the following web site. I want to quote from it because it is so apt.

Queen Victoria tells Disraeli that she is proud to have him as her friend. Dizzy tells her that he is afraid that he will not be her Prime Minister for long. No, not because of his health. The nation has had five bad harvests in a row and the voters can't forgive the party in power for not being able to control the weather. Victoria says that this means that she may have to put up with you-know-who:  that opinionated, half-mad, fanatical, old man Gladstone. Disraeli says the worst part of it is that Gladstone believes God has put him in charge. 

But I guess that is a lot of verbiage to make my point, that in fact in often made by our punditry; namely that the President will be blamed for whatever is amiss in the country, regardless of whether it is in his control or not.

Right now much is made of the rising price of gasoline and the media has pointed out that as the price of gasoline goes up, the President’s approval rating goes down. Republicans, led by their putative candidate, Mitt Romney, have made every effort to reinforce such irrationality and as I have pointed out in my addendum to my post "Social Security – An Honest Evaluation."

The reader should note that in 2008, near the end of the Bush Presidency, gas prices were higher than they are now. They then dropped precipitously at the beginning of 2009, just as Obama took office, as a result of the recession. As the economy recovered the price went back up, so that now it is almost as high at it was before the recession.

What we can quickly see from this is that the price is tied to demand and supply like all commodities. When the economy is strong demand goes up and so does the price of gas, when the economy tanks demand goes down and so does the price.

But of course the demand/supply is not limited to the US. It is a worldwide phenomenon. Whether we give more drilling rights to the oil companies, or build more pipe lines, may some day have an impact on oil prices, but it is, and always has been far in the future. The fact is that oil production in the US has increased substantially since Obama became President, as can be seen from the graph below which can be accessed on the web along with a good discussion here.

The credit for this increase in production cannot be claimed by the Obama Administration, though it has granted more permits than the environmental community feels comfortable with. There is always a substantial lag of time between permits granted and actual production, but it does show, that increased production does not necessarily produce lower gasoline prices. In fact, strange as it may sound, the opposite is true. When prices are low many wells are not profitable. When prices rise such wells become profitable and more oil is produced.

As for the Republican drive to gut environmental laws, this recognizes the importance of energy to our economy, but it ignores that as important as energy is, the purity and availability of our water supply is far more important. We are even now running into clean water shortages and this is leading into fights between cities and farming communities vying for the diminishing supplies of clean water, even as our aquifers run down and in some places run dry. As for the purity of our air, it is hard to imagine anything more important. Just one aspect of the Clean Air Act, which by the way was the proud achievement of a Republican Congress led by President Nixon (oh how times change) would according to Earth Justice prevent up to 8,100 premature deaths, 5,100 heart attacks and 52,000 asthma attacks every year, and that is just from cleaning up industrial power plants and that does not even begin to address the dangers faced by future generations from global warming.

Can anything be done about the high price of gasoline at the pump? The PBS Newshour had an interesting discussion on this, which you can find on the web here beginning at 2 minutes and 11 seconds into the video or of the reader prefers set forth in the transcript, where Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute, (a Right Wing Think Tank) sets forth how prices at the pump could be lowered. He summarizes this as follows:

About 75 percent of the price of gas is the world price of oil, reflects the world price of oil. But there's a federal gas tax that can be changed. There are EPA requirements for specific fuel blends that can be changed. So it's not quite true to say the president has no power, but it's not as big as some people might like.

First it should be noted that he agrees that the President's power to effect the price of gasoline is limited. But then he sets forth two ways that the price of gas can be effected and he is absolutely right. As he says the: “federal gas tax that can be changed.” That tax is now 8¢ a gallon so the repeal of the tax would lower the price of gas by 8¢, not a huge reduction, but it would help and in fact Ron Paul advocates this repeal. See here. But first of all it is not within the power of the President to repeal the tax – the power lies with Congress, but more important this tax is designated to go into the highway trust fund and it is falling short of its need, or as USA Today says in its headline: “Gas tax falling short in paying for transportation needs” See here. So while this could be done it is not desirable to do so.

As for the second suggestion: “There are EPA requirements for specific fuel blends that can be changed” this is again true but the effect on prices would be small and the impact on the environment large.

Which summarizes the situation better than anything that can be said by the Administration.

For those who might be interested in reading more extensively on this subject I would commend an article which an be found here and another that can be found here.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

The Culture Wars Resume

Just when everybody thought this election would be about the economy it has become a resumption of the Culture Wars.

Democrats have seized upon the issue of birth control as an “Attack on Women” and it may be of greater concern to women than to men, but men too are effected by any attempt to restrict birth control. Whether in the married state or absent matrimony, men are very much concerned about impregnating a woman, whether she is a wife, or a girl friend. In the married state additional unwanted children place just as much of an economic burden on the husband as on the wife and if single, what man wants to be responsible for an offspring which was neither intended nor desired.

To be sure a female is more immediately effected, since it is her body that carries the fetus, but to pretend that only women are effected is to blind oneself to reality.

But what has suddenly brought this to the fore. The media has made it appear that the ruling by the Obama Administration requiring all insurance policies to cover birth control is strictly about insurance coverage, and Republicans want it to appear as though it were a battle over freedom of religion. But it is neither! 


The issue was brought to the fore when Komen decided to defund Planned Parenthood. But that simply brought it above the radar. As I pointed out in my post "Contraception, Abortion and Komen," it was as early as last year that the “House GOP voted to zero out the entire $317,000,000 Title X family planning budget and in New Jersey, Planned Parenthood was completely defunded to the tune of  $7.4 million. More recently on March 5, 2012, Newsweek reported that Texas was defunding Planned Parenthood. (The New York Times reported the same thing two days later.)

In none of these cases was there even a pretense that religion was an issue. And besides since when can religion override public policy. Would Rick Santorum or even Mitt Romney take issue with the Supreme Court when it ruled as long ago as 1878 in Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. (8 Otto.) 145 that members of the Mormon religion could not claim exemption on religious grounds from the prohibition against polygamy, holding that “the Free Exercise Clause … protect(s) religious beliefs, not religious practices that run counter to neutrally enforced … laws.”

Would anyone argue that a physician, who is a Christian Scientist, can withhold medical care because it is against his religion, and for obvious reasons the argument that a pharmacist can refuse to dispense birth control pills on religious grounds has also been soundly rejected.

But the fundamentalists in the Republican Party (and I prefer to call them Fundamentalists rather then Evangelicals, because there are many Evangelicals who do not have Fundamentalist beliefs—Jimmy Carter it should be remembered is a born again Christian) want to impose their believes on the rest of us, and work toward a Christian theocracy.

They are now so dominant in the Republican Party that the Party in the Senate voted almost unanimously (Olympia Snow dissented) for the Blunt amendment, which according to the Washington Post “would have allowed not only religious groups but any employer with moral objections to opt out of the coverage requirement. And it would have allowed such employers to do so in the case of not only contraception but any health service required by the 2010 health-care law.”

Romney when asked about his position and worried about his general election chances first offered:

“I'm not for the bill, but look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, I'm not going there.”

But when attacked by Santorum quickly fell in line with a spokesperson explaining:

“Regarding the Blunt bill, the way the question was asked was confusing. Governor Romney supports the Blunt Bill because he believes in a conscience exemption in health care for religious institutions and people of faith...”

And when Rush Limbaugh attacked a Georgetown University student who supported a requirement for health insurance to cover birth control, calling her a “slut” who “wants to be paid to have sex… (and that) she was “having so much sex, it’s amazing she can still walk”; and (that) she was “having sex so frequently that she can’t afford all the birth-control pills that she needs.” Romney was so outraged that he said: 

“It's not the language I would have used." 

The Republican House speaker through a spokesperson expressed his outrage with 

“The use of those words was inappropriate.” 

George Will, the outspoken Republican intellectual, commented:

“Boehner comes out and says Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff…and it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”

But just possibly the Republican dilemma can be summarized by a letter that appeared in my local Newspaper, the Fort Lee Suburbanite:

An issue has been created where none existed. This takes the spotlight off of the economy, price of gas and unemployment. Birth control has never been illegal or unavailable. That is why this is a "non-issue." The powers that be are trying to blur the lines between abortion (infanticide) and birth control.

Because this is a contentious topic, women are being fed like sheep by the "wise" wolves. They do this under the guise of "women's rights." Birth control is a private matter. If your religion forbids it… it is between you, your conscience and God ... not you and the President of the United States or Congress. We follow our consciences everyday to do good and evil.

Why is that "cafeteria Catholics" do not make an issue of the other teachings of the Church? Yet birth control sends them into frenzy. We break the Commandments everyday. When the clerk at the supermarket charges you for red cabbage (at 29¢ a pound) instead of radicchio (at $4.99 a pound) do you tell her she made a mistake? No? That is stealing. Are you honest when filing your taxes? No? Mute point! We are all sinners. Look deeply and you will find this to be true, whether you gossip and ruin someone's reputation or tell a lie - look at those who govern. Too bad the Pinocchio factor doesn't work or small noses would be quite scarce in Washington D.C.

Let us all stop this chest thumping and get on with the issues that are important to the future of the United States.

To which I responded with the following Letter to the Editor:

Facts can be inconvenient! 

                     
Once again, as so many times in the past, I find myself writing in response to a Letter to the Editor, that treats facts as just an inconvenience. Get Back to Important Issues, which appeared in your March 2 edition, does that in spades. 

                     
The writer asserts, “Birth control has never been illegal or unavailable.” If that were true the Supreme Court would not have had to strike down a Connecticut law, in Griswold v. Connecticut, that did exactly that. As to availability, that has been, and continues to be a problem for disadvantaged women to this day. That is why Planned Parenthood is so important. Planned Parenthood spends a $1 billion a year providing services to poor and middle class women throughout the US, many of whom are married, but cannot afford the expense of additional children, or have other gynecological needs. 

                  
But what we are witnessing is a concerted war on contraception through defunding. Last year, the House GOP voted to zero out the entire $317,000,000 Title X family planning budget. Fortunately the Democratic Senate refused to go along. New Jersey under the leadership of our Governor, Chris Christie, defunded Planned Parenthood completely to the tune of  $7.4 million. Our President, conscious of the crucial need to provide gynecological services to all women, has made such services available by providing that they be covered in all health insurance policies. 

                     
It is definitely not a non-issue. 

                        

But the letter writer goes further and describes abortion as infanticide. If it were infanticide it would be murder and it would make one third of all women in the US, who have had at least one abortion in their lives, into murderers. That was never the law even before the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which empowered women to have control over their own bodies. 

                        

What is at stake is the right of people in general, and women in particular, to be free of the dictates of their government, and not to have the religious views of others imposed upon them. This is the essence of liberty, and the separation of church and state. It is the essence of our Bill of Rights. 

                        

It is definitely not a non-issue.

Comments are welcome and will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Social Security – An Honest Evaluation

In my last post entitled "The Truth is a Sometime Thing? (Discussion)" I moved from a focus of misinformation, resulting from outright lies in many cases, on the part of the Right, to the misleading, destructive and naïve opposition to all changes in the benefits provided under Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Yet the three programs are financed so differently from each other, have such different benefit programs, and have such different financing problems, that a discussion of the three does not lend itself to clarity.

Instead let me start by defining the three programs. Social Security is often thought of as a retirement program that only benefits those over 67. It is in fact a program that covers a large group of benefits, but for purposes of our discussion we need to focus on what is the main part of the program that is often referred to under the acronym OASDI, which stands for Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance or RSDI, which stands for Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance.

It is this program that I want to address today.

First some background. The Social Security Trust Fund has not been stolen for other purposes. It is intact and is invested in government securities, the safest in the world. The confusion about the fund derives from the fact that during the Johnson Administration (1968) the “unified budget” was enacted. The official purpose of the Act “was an effort to rationalize what the Commission viewed as a confusing budget presentation.” I have always thought, and continue to think that it was intended to hide the huge deficits that Johnson was incurring in simultaneously fighting the Vietnam war and pursuing the “Great Society”. At that time the Social Security Trust fund was running very substantial surpluses, and so including the Trust fund as part of the unified budget masked the size of the deficit. However, in 2010 expenditures, for the first time, exceeded income from the payroll tax, and will do so hereafter. See here. 

Nevertheless, the combined trust funds will continue to grow because projected interest earnings of $115 billion substantially exceed the non-interest income deficit. Beginning in 2023, however, net redemptions of trust fund assets with General Fund payments will be required, until its assets are exhausted in 2036. After trust fund exhaustion, continuing tax income will be sufficient to pay 77 percent of scheduled benefits in 2036 and 74 percent in 2085. Ibid.

But that means that even without any changes full payments of Social Security benefits would be paid to all those who are now 44 years old or older, which is better than the guarantee offered by the Ryan budget by one year, and unlike the Ryan budget benefits at a reduced rate would continue to be paid.

However I don’t believe that is good enough. We need to make sufficient changes so that people who are now 24 years old and are paying into the trust fund for the benefit of older generations are guaranteed full benefits. If we don’t do that, these younger generations will see little reason to support the system, and it will be doomed much earlier, simply because young people will insist that they not pay into a system from which they will not draw the full benefits of older generations.

What should we do?

Gail Collins writing in the New York Times posits:

The basic answer to fixing the long-term Social Security imbalance is just to eliminate the payroll tax cap, which currently exempts all income over $110,100 a year. Do that, and you have solved the problem. Politically speaking, you would probably have to agree to mix a limited tax increase with one of the fixes desired by fiscal conservatives, like reducing benefits for the wealthy, or changing the cost-of-living adjustment or, yeah, raising the retirement age a little. But the main answer is that cap, and anybody who refuses to even discuss the payroll tax cap is not serious about fixing Social Security.

She is right in every respect except one crucial one: Republicans are not serious about fixing Social Security. They are committed on the one hand to abolishing what they call “the Nanny State” and on the other to the proposition that under no circumstances must taxes ever be raised, and even that any “reform” of the tax system must never result in an increase in revenues. This even extends to enforcement of the tax laws. As recently as October of 2011 “The House Appropriations Committee … passed legislation cutting the IRS budget by $600 million, providing the IRS with $11.5 billion in fiscal year 2012. The Senate Appropriations Committee was more generous, providing $11.7 billion for the IRS, but both amounts would be far below what the IRS was given last year.” See here.

Furthermore the IRS enforcement arm falls under the rubric “discretionary spending” and is subject to spending caps under the Budget Control Act conceived as part of the 2011 debt ceiling deal. The Administration is asking that current caps placed on the IRS enforcement budget be lifted and that this enforcement budget not compete with other national priorities for funding.” See here. In making this request it was pointed out that: “The latest IRS tax gap report (January 2012) showed that American taxpayers under reported their taxes to the tune of $450 billion dollars in 2006;” Ibid. See also here.

If those $450 billion dollars were to be collected over the next ten years it would amount to $4.5 trillion, enough to substantially wipe out the deficit and put SS on a sustained basis. But it ain’t going to happen. Nor will Congress allow the cap on SS payroll taxes be raised, unless Obama were to win the election by a landslide so large as to bring with him a House with a substantial majority and a Senate with a majority above 60, so as to be filibuster proof. It ain’t going to happen, particularly since in the November election “Democrats will defend 23 seats, while Republicans will defend 10." See here.

The bottom line to all this is that Gail Collins recommendation is fine as a matter of policy, it is not politically feasible.

Which means - I hate say it – Social Security will have to be saved without raising the cap, or in other words, by cutting benefits sufficiently to make it viable well into the future. To do otherwise is to hold ones breath till Republicans give in – they don’t care. So we do nothing or we do what Republicans will allow, or as Gail Collins says:

...like reducing benefits for the wealthy, or changing the cost-of-living adjustment or, yeah, raising the retirement age a little.

And adding to that the following possibilities set out by the Social Securities Administration, revising the benefit formula, revising the benefit and contribution base, extending OASDI program coverage, and/or Changing the investment requirements for the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds.

And if the President can maneuver some increase in revenue, great, but (and this is essential) we must have his back. He must not have to worry about the support of his liberal wing.

The point I am making is the choices are stark. Nothing will happen unless Republicans allow it. The President needs room to maneuver. Liberals have attacked him when he tries to be practical. Unless they accept what must be accepted, Social Security (and Medicare and Medicaid) will die. Half a loaf is better than none, etc.

It is an unpleasant reality! But it is reality! Until such a day as the American people wake up to the fact that Republicans are not the friend of ordinary people, they can block all real reforms. To save something, we must have the wisdom to not allow the best to be the enemy of the “good.” The alternative could be the worst, i.e. the Republican plan that would end the safety net, or at the very least shred it to the point were it no longer serves its purpose. It doesn’t matter whether it is Santorum, or Gingrich, or Romney, on this point they are all on the same page. Time is running out.

Addendum: I can’t help noting that Newt Gingrich, in his Georgia victory speech once again attacked Obama for the rising gas prices saying they have doubled on the President’s watch. I found that startling and so I checked the facts and found the following graph here.

The reader should note that in 2008, near the end of the Bush Presidency gas prices were higher than the are now. They then dropped precipitously at the beginning of 2009, just as Obama took office, as a result of the recession, which lowered demand. As the economy recovered the price went back up, so that now it is almost as high as it was before the recession. See this Washington Post piece for an analysis of the facts.

Comments are welcome and will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

The Truth is a Sometime Thing? (Discussion)

On Monday February 27, 2012 I posted Paul Shapiro’s reaction to my commentary "Borrowing, Taxes & Deficits – A Discussion Continued" under the heading "The Truth is a Sometime Thing?" I urge the reader to re-read these posts for context.

Paul’s rather short observation prompted a lenghty retort from me that was not a disagreement, but rather an elaboration. I would like to share that with you.

I wrote:

I think it is important to distinguish between those who spread falsehoods and those who are their victims. In the case of Bunny42, I don't think she is wedded to her false impressions, and while people are very reluctant to change opinions, the effort is always worthwhile. I would rather address someone like her, than someone who shares my views entirely, though in the case of those who share my views, it is not a given that are familiar with the facts either. So in either case I consider my mission to be educational and to lay bare the facts.

                       

Lack of knowledge of the facts is not only the province of the Right, but is equally true of those who essentially share my views, and the liberal organizations often distort the facts in the name of their agenda. Thus, there can be no doubt that both Social Security and Medicare need changes (not those proposed by the Right, which would essentially gut them), but changes nevertheless. Allow me to quote from my post of October 28, 2011, entitled "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part VI)"

According to the Social Security Administration (I urge the reader to read this report in full.):

Projected long-run program costs for both Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable under currently scheduled financing, and will require legislative modifications if disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers are to be avoided. The long-run financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare should be addressed soon. If action is taken sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that those affected have adequate time to prepare. Earlier action will also afford elected officials with a greater opportunity to minimize adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and those who are already substantially dependent on program benefits. 

Both Social Security and Medicare, the two largest federal programs, face substantial cost growth in the upcoming decades due to factors that include population aging as well as the growth in expenditures per beneficiary. Through the mid-2030s, due to the large baby-boom generation entering retirement and lower-birth-rate generations entering employment, population aging is the largest single factor contributing to cost growth in the two programs. 

Thereafter, the continued rapid growth in health care cost per beneficiary becomes the larger factor.

Yet the liberal organizations representing the senior population are lobbying against any changes and are ready to savage our President if he should suggest changes. Please watch this ad from the AARP.

Or from CREDO: 

"Draw a line in the sand. Don't agree to any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits."

Or from the Alliance of Retired Americans: 

Whereas Social Security and Medicare are America's binding legal contracts with all workers and retirees that guarantee: (1) Protection against a poverty-ridden old age and health care at an affordable price. (2) Quality health care at an affordable price.  

Whereas tens of millions of senior Americans, who vote and have paid into Security and Medicare all their working lives, count on these programs providing guaranteed benefits.  

Whereas proposed "entitlement reform," "progressive indexing," and/or any cuts in Social Security benefits will adversely affect older Americans and constitutes a betrayal of seniors.  

Therefore Be It Resolved that I urge Congress to reject any and all proposals that would cut funding from Social Security and Medicare or impose any reduction in guaranteed benefits.

Or from the Citizens League: 

Pass 'The Social Security 'Bill of Rights: 

ITEM: Congress shall PAY Social Security recipients a MINIMUM annual Social Security COLA of 3%. 

ITEM 2: Congress shall CORRECT the way the Social Security COLA is calculated so it reflects the REAL increase in the cost of living, and GUARANTEE said COLA under law. 

ITEM 3: Congress shall PROHIBIT the payment of Social Security benefits based on illegally performed work. 

ITEM 4: Congress shall GUARANTEE, under law, that Social Security and Medicare benefits will be excluded from budget cuts and paid as promised. 

ITEM 5: Congress shall GIVE BACK the almost $3 Trillion they have TAKEN from our Social Security retirement reserves. 

ITEM 6: Congress shall IMMEDIATELY pass into law the $5,000 Lump-Sum Social Security Settlement for NOTCH VICTIMS. 

This makes it very difficult, if not impossible to even explore reforms that would make these programs viable into the future.

When one adds the fact that Republicans would jump on any reform suggestions as showing that the Administration plan is no different from their own plan, it becomes apparent that needed changes are not politically viable, and that the organizations that should be working with the President to make needed changes, are instead making it impossible to save them.

And then of course are the conspiracy theories of the left from the Kennedy assassination conspiracies, to the 9/11 conspiracies. See here. 

But what is most annoying is the mainstream media, which out of fear of being labeled "liberal" seeks a phony impartiality and joins in smearing Democratic Presidential candidates. What the mainstream media: The NY Times and the Washington Post did to Clinton, Gore and Kerry is worse than anything Fox could have done. See: "The Media! (Watergate/Clinton)," "The Media II - Falsehoods about Gore" and "The Media III - Falsehoods about Kerry."   

And the Washington Post with its vaunted fact checking tries to show its impartiality by twisting and turning to find equal lies on the part of Democrats for every lie by Republicans exposed by them, giving the Presidents State of the Union Address four Pinocchios. See here for the labored explanation for this absurd rating. 

Ditto for their rating on Democratic charges that Republican's want to abolish Medicare. See here, which argued that since Medicare would continue for those over 55, the plan would not end Medicare, which drew the following justifiably outraged letters:

I’ve unsubscribed from your mailing list, and I wanted to express my reason. Your sense of “balance” has troubled me almost from the beginning, particularly your tendency to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt when you could find any wiggle room to do so, while holding Democrats to a higher (the correct) standard. 

Today’s “fair and balanced” round-up of 2011 whoppers ["The Whoppers of 2011," Dec. 20] was just beyond the pale, with its forced (and patently false) equivalence between left and right. 

It’s not a secret that the lies are bigger, bolder, and far more numerous on one side than on the other. It’s not necessarily your job to point this out, but you shouldn’t be using editorial manipulation to cover it up, either. Your assertion that phasing out the current Medicare program and replacing it with a voucher system that will also be called “Medicare” is somehow different than “ending” Medicare, is a juvenile position you should be ashamed to have twisted yourself into.Imagine making that same argument if all the facts were the same except that the voucher system wouldn’t be called Medicare. You didn’t even mention the fact that “ending Medicare” is a popular idea among Republican legislators, an important piece of context, and the sort of thing you would certainly have included if you were talking about Democrats. But I suppose you had cover on that one from PolitiFact. 

                        - Dan Barnes Thousand Oaks, Calif.

 Your citation of Democratic claims that Republicans voted to end Medicare as one of the “Whoppers” of 2011 is really more of a partisan spin than a “fact check.” 

You can — and should — cite exaggerations with parts of the claim — yes, the Republican plan would only have ended Medicare for those currently under 55, and yes, it would have replaced Medicare with an (entirely different) “Obamacare”-type private insurance scheme. But it most certainly would have eventually ended Medicare. 

I am not a Democrat, but it seems to me that you increasingly measure Democratic claims by the standard of Republican spin, not by the facts, as you did in this case. 

                        - Holle Conley New York, N.Y.

 I found it disgusting that your organization would claim, “Republicans aren’t proposing to ‘end’ Medicare.” Vouchers dispensed to future seniors to obtain health care will not keep pace with ever rising health care costs. The current system covers fees for services rendered for all eligible participants. There’s no guarantee of this type of coverage in the future, and therefore, Republicans ARE proposing to “end” Medicare as it has been known over the decades. 

I find it reprehensible that your organization included this item as a whopper of 2011, and your having done so will only add more muddle to the health care discussion than the Republicans have already. Also, this only gives the Republicans your official imprimatur of this being a whopper told by Democrats.

SHAME ON FACTCHECK.ORG!

                        - Dennis Freeman Carmel, Ind. 

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