{"id":5074,"date":"2011-06-11T02:08:51","date_gmt":"2011-06-11T09:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5074"},"modified":"2011-06-11T02:08:51","modified_gmt":"2011-06-11T09:08:51","slug":"bullseye-on-social-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/11\/bullseye-on-social-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Bullseye on Social Security"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wonder whether Republicans have charts in their offices, in which the parts of Americans\u2019 safety net and freedoms to kill are marked with bullseyes, like the one Sarah Palin used to mark Gabrielle Gifford\u2019s district.  If so, there is an especially big bullseye on Social Security.  Republicans have tried to kill it since its inception, and the latest round has begun.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"11SessionsHat\"Rep. Pete Sessions<\/strong><\/span>, R-Texas, is leading a group of GOP lawmakers to <\/font>privatize Social Security.<\/strong><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee<\/strong><\/span> (NRCC<\/strong><\/span>), introduced a bill on June 3, H.R. 2109, the Savings Account for Every American Act [Republican delinked], which would allow workers to opt out of Social Security and opt in to a private SAFE account–a move critics say is a revival of President George W. Bush\u2019s<\/strong><\/span> failed attempts to privatize Social Security through private accounts.<\/font><\/p>\n

Eric Kingson<\/font><\/strong><\/span>, co-director of Social Security Works<\/strong><\/span>, said in a statement that if passed, Sessions\u2019 bill \u201ccould reduce Social Security\u2019s income immediately by over 40% by diverting the full 6.2% of employee Social Security contributions to private accounts.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

After 15 years, he said, \u201cthe employer contributions could be diverted as well, reducing Social Security\u2019s income by around 85%.\u201d Session\u2019s legislation, he continued, would \u201ctotally undermine Social Security\u2019s financing <\/strong><\/span>and put at risk the benefits of millions of seniors, women, disabled beneficiaries and others,\u201d while creating \u201cimmediate windfalls in the form of billions of dollars of administrative fees for Wall Street.\u201d\u2026 [emphasis Original<\/em><\/span>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <AdvisorOne<\/a>><\/p>\n

Now as long as scandals are in order this week, Sessions is another of those Republican \u201cfamily values\u201d guys.  Consider this from last year:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"11sessions2\"The Republican National Committee’s<\/a> bondage scandal seems to have, ahem, legs. The GOP scandal that led to the firing of a female staffer who helped organize a $1,946 visit for donors last month to a sex-themed Hollywood club has foes and critics pouring over past news stories and Federal Election Commission reports for other sex club outings by Republicans.<\/p>\n

What they’ve turned up is a couple of fundraisers held by Texas Rep. Pete Sessions a while back. He currently runs the National Republican Congressional Committee, the top fundraising and candidate recruitment <\/strong>operation<\/strong><\/a> for House Republicans<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A House aide called the fundraisers old news and events that happened before Sessions took his leadership position.<\/p>\n

At worst, one of the fundraisers, held in 2007, was at a Vegas burlesque club, Ivan Kane’s Forty Deuce. FEC papers<\/a> show Pete PAC spent $5,378 at the burlesque club, which also that year hosted porn-star Jenna Jameson’s 33rd birthday party<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Inserted from <US News<\/a>><\/p>\n

Frankly, I wouldn\u2019t care if he were surrounded by 100 scantily clad ladies, were he not a family values hypocrite, one of Ralph Reed\u2019s crowd<\/a>.  He seems to say one thing and do another.<\/font><\/p>\n

Back to Social Security, <\/font>Cenk Uygur joins Rachel Maddow to discuss how Republican plans to privatize Social Security could become even more unpopular than their plans to kill Medicare.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Cenk makes an excellent point near the end.  Democrats cannot afford to give in to the terrorism of Republican blackmail.  In my opinion, to compromise one iota on either Social Security or Medicare is political suicide.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wonder whether Republicans have charts in their offices, in which the parts of Americans\u2019 safety net and freedoms to kill are marked with bullseyes, like the one Sarah Palin used to mark Gabrielle Gifford\u2019s district.  If so, there is an especially big bullseye on Social Security.  Republicans have tried to kill it since its […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}