Bernie Sanders discusses his concerns with new Jobs bill

[bullwinkle428]

I'm listening to Bernie Sanders at the moment, as a guest of Thom Hartmann in the first hour of his show today.

http://tunein.com/radio/Progressive-1090-KPTK-s26619/

In the opening segment, Bernie discussed the concerns he had with the policy specifics of the bill, and I took some notes highlighting his major points. These include:

1. Major portion of the bill comes in the form of tax breaks.

2. While the payroll tax holiday extension is a good thing in that it puts money directly into the pockets of middle class workers, he does not like the idea of it coming from the SS trust fund.

3. Medicare & Medicaid DO have areas that could use reform, but is concerned with how this will be done. If Medicare eligibility age is raised from 65 to 67, it will be a "disaster". If Medicaid reform involves throwing people off of it, he will not support it.

[jpbollma]

1. Medicare/Medicaid worries me

I am worried to see what these reforms will be, but lets not jump the gun. Obama has been using the Health Reform bill to target Medicare fraud with success. This is a good reform.

I don't think you will see direct investment for a long time after it was shown in the stimulus that "shovel ready" didn't end up being so shovel ready in many cases, also projects in one person's district that were important there were unpopular to people outside those districts who didn't understand them, hurting the popularity of the stimulus. I think targeted tax breaks can put immediate money into the economy. Middle class people will spend it, and small businesses are not the ones sitting on hordes of cash and not hiring, that is the corporations, and they will not get a tax cut.

From what I understand the payroll tax cut is not taken from the trust fund, it is replaced with general funds and I have seen many progressive economists say this. I doubt the progressive caucus would support the gutting of social security.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. Do you have any references to the payroll tax cuts

being replaced with general funds money? This has been my greatest concern since they started it, and I would be interested to know that my worries are unfounded. In fact, I would be greatly relieved.

But even if this is true, the general fund is in possession of much of the trust fund cash, and they have spent it. This means that the general fund owes SS money that it does not have now to pay. Does that mean that the general fund is just issuing more IOU's for this tax holiday? And if that is the case, it will just lead to more alarmist screeching about how SS is broke---and broke sooner than it would have been. The money that was coming in to SS from payroll taxes was being used to pay the current recipients, as well as some of the interest earned now. With less coming in, this means that SS will have to cash in more IOU's from the general fund if that cash is not being given directly to them for that 2% shortage in payroll tax collected.

What I worry about is that the shortages in SS receipts will give a new soap box for the Repugs.

[jpbollma]

6. Here is one link

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-payroll-tax-cut-did-not-cost-security-revenue

I share your concern on social security, however, I'm not sure of any other way but the general fund that this could have made it through congress, and without jobs being created less and less people are paying into the Trust Fund at all.

[Curmudgeoness]

12. I will keep looking for more info on this.

That link is just a blog of a few lines with no references regarding where the information comes from.

But I will believe this unless I see otherwise. The problem is still that it will fuel the fire that SS is killing the country and costing too much. I worry. We will look back on this and say "but that is not true" again to all the lies in the future.

[ProSense]

2. Here's a good clip of

Bernie Sanders on Ed Schulz: video

[lumpy]

8. I wish more people on this forum would listen to Sen. Sanders.

People go off the deep end without knowing the details of Obama's plan for Medicare. It is a mistake to claim there will be financial 'cuts'without knowing those details. There are ways Medicare can be reformed; cut out the medical fraud that exists; cut out unnecessary medical procedures, cut out irresponsible insurance carriers to streamline billing procedure. There's more to be done without raising the eligible age or cutting out necessary medical procedures.

[bullwinkle428]

11. ProSense, I specifically made this post simply as a way of sharing Bernie's

thoughts, without any kind of spin from me as the OP. I understand there would be a variety of reactions to this, but just wanted to let everyone know some specific concerns that he was expressing to Thom.

[William769]

4. K&R.

[EFerrari]

5. K&R

[mmonk]

7. Bingo.

Why do so many not understand this? Politics isn't a football game, it's real life, sometimes life and death.

[mike_c]

9. seems to me that the payroll tax holiday is just another raid on SS...

...and not really a tax break for the middle and working classes after all. I mean, FICA deductions do not go into the general fund, at least not until they're properly stolen from the SS trust by congress, so rather than a "tax break" the holiday is really just a reduction in workers' savings for their own retirement. The treasury loses nothing. Just as SS doesn't contribute directly to the deficit, reducing SS payroll deductions does not affect the federal budget. And, as others have pointed out, reducing SS payroll deductions will only hasten the time when the SS trust cannot support its expenditures-- again because congress has "borrowed" the "surplus" from SS of decades, but that debt will never be repaid.

[mmonk]

10. It's insidious because it is touted as a benefit to the underemployed,

middle class and the poor.

[Broderick]

13. Trickle down economics doesn't work.

Yet we continue to do it.

Trickle down stimulus doesn't work.

Yet we continue to do it.

[mike_c]

14. because the people who DO benefit...

...are the ones who run the system. Trickle down voodoo works GREAT for the 2% or so at the top!

[Broderick]

15. Precisely!