Is this why SS and Medicare are being destroyed? The DLC agrees?

[madfloridian]

Is this why they have been permitted to get to the point of destruction....by playing word games and by tacit permission and active participation of the DLC? I found this at MyDD in the comments, and I just got livid. We are starting to sound like Republicans on this issue, and I am furious.

From another blog, a post which is parroting the talking points of the Heritage Foundation in their attempts to destroy this system.

SNIP..."We need to be honest about Social Security.
The system isn't supposed to be your retirement. It's supposed to make sure that in the worst case scenario the elderly don't have to eat dog food.

We need to understand though that there are people worried about their retirement. It's hard to put aside money and save up enough for your golden years. We need to help expand that opportunity to all people.

Gephardt was talking about universal pensions during the primary, and even the DLC has their proposal on the subject.(http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=250238&kaid=85&subid=108)

Why aren't more Democrats focusing on this?..."END SNIP
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=250238&kaid=85&subid=108

Ah, indeed. Are these the IDA's which Fightin Dem the blue dog was advocating? I am afraid to hear the answer.

:shrug:

[ConservativeDemocrat]

1. Gee, another anonymous post that eliminates ALL credibility.

Just like in the D.U. too!

Hey! I've got an idea! Why not submit this to the Gray Lady? Maybe you can get this posted in their op-ed?

In case anyone is actually interested in what the real DLC is saying about Social Security, here are a few articles for your perusal:

New Year, Old Problems

<snip>
Here at home, the president was forced last month to reassure jittery international financial markets that he would at some point in the near future deal with the increasingly dire fiscal situation of the federal government. Yet his political team is gearing up for a full-court, multimedia campaign to promote a partial privatization scheme for Social Security that will make that fiscal situation far worse, in no small part because Bush is taking the pain-free approach of promising future retirees they can stay in the old system with full benefits even as a portion of the payroll tax that finances it is diverted into private accounts.

And if there was any doubt whatsoever that the GOP intends to govern without any real gestures towards compromise or bipartisanship (other than the bogus bipartisanship of demanding total surrender), it has been laid to rest by the president's contemptuous decision to resubmit all the judicial nominations he was forced to abandon in the last Congress.

At the Summit of Economic Incoherence

There won't be any real discussion of the federal budget deficit this administration has engineered, or of the one-to-two-trillion-dollar transitional costs associated with Bush's free-lunch, defer-the-benefits-cuts approach to Social Security reform. There won't be any acknowledgment of the GOP's determination to permanently shift the burden of self-government from wealth to work. And given the White House's continuing inability to admit any mistakes, there certainly will be no admission of the fundamental weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the U.S. economy that have accompanied a relatively weak business cycle recovery.

Many of the private-sector participants in the summit appear to have been chosen for their robust financial support of the Bush-Cheney campaign. "This is payback time for Bush contributors," conservative economist Bruce Bartlett told the Los Angeles Times. "They get invited to a White House conference. They get to pretend they have some influence. They get their picture taken with the president. That's it."

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[madfloridian]

2. My links were to the DLC...I only quoted the poster for the outrage.

I am sorry, but those two programs are a part of our country. If this goes through those on the programs already will be cut.

This is not funny. It goes to the core of the fact that our nation has a responsibility to its citizen.

The DLC sounds like Reagan to me......take care of yourself and don't look at me.

For those who planned well, already on it...there will be hell to pay for them and their families while you are here attacking me.

[madfloridian]

3. Did you not know the ndol link was DLC? Really?

.

[FightinNewDem]

4. Learn before you whine.

Your lack of knowledge of public policy is indeed astounding. Every major anti-povery agency I have ever dealt with STRONGLY supports IDA programs. The mere fact that you have not educated yourself on the details does not alter reality.

[madfloridian]

5. You tell me why the DLC wants to do away with our social safety net.

And stop being rude to me.

[FightinNewDem]

13. There's no crying in baseball!

Nor in politics. Toughen up, and quit snivelling every time someone disagrees with you.

[Tinoire]

6. Kind of hard to care about Medicare when your board is made up of

While the DLC will not formally disclose its sources of contributions and dues, the full array of its corporate supporters is contained in the program from its annual fall dinner last October, a gala salute to Lieberman that was held at the National Building Museum in Washington. Five tiers of donors are evident: the Board of Advisers, the Policy Roundtable, the Executive Council, the Board of Trustees, and an ad hoc group called the Event Committee--and companies are placed in each tier depending on the size of their check.

For $5,000, 180 companies, lobbying firms, and individuals found themselves on the DLC's board of advisers, including
British Petroleum,
Boeing,
Bristol-Myers Squibb,
Coca-Cola, Dell,
Eli Lilly,
Federal Express,
Glaxo Wellcome,
Intel,
Motorola,
U.S. Tobacco,
Union Carbide,
and Xerox,

along with trade associations ranging from the American Association of Health Plans to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. For $10,000, another 85 corporations signed on as the DLC's policy roundtable, including
AOL,
Blue Cross
Blue Shield,
Citigroup,
Dow,
GE,
IBM,
Oracle,
UBS PacifiCare,
PaineWebber,
Pfizer,
Pharmacia and Upjohn,
and TRW.


And for $25,000, 28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC's executive council, including
Aetna,
AT&T,
American Airlines,
AIG,
BellSouth,
Chevron,
DuPont,
Enron,
IBM,
Merck and Company,
Microsoft,
Philip Morris,
Texaco, and
Verizon Communications.

Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC's executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively--meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.

The DLC board of trustees is an elite body whose membership is reserved for major donors, and many of the trustees are financial wheeler-dealers who run investment companies and capital management firms--though senior executives from a handful of corporations, such as Koch, Aetna, and Coca-Cola, are included. Some donate enormous amounts of money, such as Bernard Schwartz, the chairman and CEO of Loral Space and Communications, who single-handedly finances the entire publication of Blueprint, the DLC's retooled monthly that replaced The New Democrat. "I sought them out, after talking to Michael Steinhardt," says Schwartz. "I like them because the DLC gives resonance to positions on issues that perhaps candidates cannot commit to."

(snip)

http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V12/7/dreyfuss-r.html

Oh lol, can't wait to get home and start digging up some facts about the DLC and why they CAN'T support anything as populist as Medicare or SS!

[madfloridian]

7. Does the DLC want seniors off now? Help me here. Trying to understand.

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253094&kaid=131&subid=192

DLC | New Dem Daily | January 3, 2005
New Year, Old Problems

SNIP..."With the world appropriately focused on the horrifying tragedy still unfolding in South Asia, the Congress of the United States prepares to begin a new session tomorrow. But there's nothing new at all about the challenges facing our country, or, so far, the agenda being offered by the Bush administration and its partisan allies in the House and Senate.

As we all anxiously await the appointed day for elections in Iraq, it's not at all clear the president's new national security team has a plan B for what to do if the voting, the results, or the aftermath do not follow the best-case scenario the administration has been confidently predicting for much of the last year.

Here at home, the president was forced last month to reassure jittery international financial markets that he would at some point in the near future deal with the increasingly dire fiscal situation of the federal government. Yet his (Bush) political team is gearing up for a full-court, multimedia campaign to promote a partial privatization scheme for Social Security that will make that fiscal situation far worse, in no small part because Bush is taking the pain-free approach of promising future retirees they can stay in the old system with full benefits even as a portion of the payroll tax that finances it is diverted into private accounts.

SO, I am asking, what is the DLC answer to this problem? Sounds like they are criticizing Bush for not getting the seniors off the old program fast enough.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

[dolstein]

8. Whoever said that was EXACTLY RIGHT

Social Security is a SAFETY NET. It was a program that was designed to ensure that senior citizens would not have to live out their years in abject poverty by providing a minimum guaranteed income. It was never intended to be a substitute for private savings and employer-provided pensions, like some public pension schemes are in other countries.

Social security is not designed to make seniors rich. It has the more modest goal of keeping seniors from falling into poverty. And it has been incredibily successful at achieving that goal.

Sorry, but if people around here believe that social security should be the sole source of retirement income, they obviously don't understand the program.

[madfloridian]

9. Heritage Foundation talk.

Most people save and plan, but the dog food thing is over the top.

I think it is time we take back our party from these guys. We are better than that.

[dolstein]

10. Puh-leeze . . .

If you had any idea of what things were like for many seniors before social security, you'd realize the speaker wasn't being the least bit over the top.

[madfloridian]

12. The DLC seems to want to kill the programs even before Bush does.

Is this true? Please tell me why they are so much worse than the Republicans about it, tell me if I am reading it right?

[FightinNewDem]

14. TheTwilight Zone

Only someone who has worked themself into a bizzare frenzy of hatred for the DLC could possibly come to the conclusion you have reached. It is so detached from reality that you undercut your own credibility.

[madfloridian]

17. Let the good Mother speak on this.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1996/11/dreyfuss.html

[madfloridian]

11. Dolstein, could you answer my question in post 8, please.?

It sounds like they want to take senior who are already on the system off. Could you tell me that without talking down to me, please.

[IrateCitizen]

15. Gosh, I can't believe I'm siding with the DLCers on this one...

The quote that you pulled regarding the true purpose of Social Security, while lacking in taste and over-the-top, is nonetheless accurate. Social Security was not designed as a retirement plan for seniors. It was designed as a plan to prevent seniors from slipping into crushing poverty -- a problem that was quite widespread at the time of its creation.

One of the myths that has created itself through the years is that Social Security is a retirement plan. This has also solidified as seniors have lived longer lives, and now many demand Social Security is a just entitlement -- even if they don't need it.

I'm about the furthest thing from a fan of the DLC on these boards, but I recognize in this instance that they are factually correct regarding the true purpose of Social Security.

As for the universal pension plans, although I think that allowing the shift from defined benefit (pension) to defined contribution (401k, 403b, etc.) plans was a calculated screwing of the American work force, there are many reforms in that proposal I can agree with. It's not an attempt to transform Social Security -- it's an attempt to place greater control of defined contribution plans in the hands of the individual employee. One reason I would welcome such a plan is that it allows employees to invest their money as THEY want after 3 years of employment. As it stands now, I have to keep my 401k in funds that invest in companies I do not do business with, like Wal-Mart and McDonalds. The proposal on the PPI website would allow me to instead switch my retirement to socially responsible funds, like the better-performing Ariel Fund.

Completely misportraying DLC positions does not assist those of us who largely view the DLC as a Trojan horse, because it discredits the critics of the organization. Let's instead stick to criticisms that can be backed up with fact and cognitive analysis.

[madfloridian]

16. I will let Mother Jones speak on this. "The End of SS as We Know It"

First I never said it should be a savings account. My concern is that those on the system now will not survive, as the money won't be there. It is cruel to do this to people who planned their lives, tallied in the SS and Medicare...which they of course had to take...they are not choices but forced on seniors. We are lucky enough to have good pension plans and annuities as well, and I hope I never lose my compassion for those who do not.

Mother Jones spoke to this in 1997, regarding the goals of the Democrats, mentions Bob Kerrey in particular leading the way. It mentions the statement by Rob Shapiro, former DLC president

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1996/11/dreyfuss.html

SNIP..."Many within the Democratic Party are beginning to lean toward privatization. "The party that created Social Security is best equipped to redesign Social Security for a new generation," argues former Democratic Rep. Tim Penny."

"Rob Shapiro, vice president of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), agrees. "Only a Democrat can lead the effort for Social Security reform. The Democrats will just kill any Republican who tries to mess with Social Security. So, next year, we are going to run a big project on Social Security." (According to the Wall Street Journal, State Street is planning to help fund the DLC's think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute.)END SNIP

It is long and involved, and mentions the intents of many groups on the subject.

"Only a Democrat can lead the way..." says it all. Maybe then we won't squawk so much because we won't believe it.

[madfloridian]

18. And to be fair, this week they said they will oppose Bush's plan

http://www.pacificviews.org/weblog/archives/000825.html

The DLC announced that it would oppose private plans. If they do, and this is true, I thank them.