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Bachmann: abolish Social Security and Medicare

by: The Big E

Mon Feb 08, 2010 at 16:23:00 PM CST


Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is at it again.  She repeated her stance that she would abolish social security and medicare if given the chance.  ThinkProgress has the details:
Speaking to a small group of conference attendees and ThinkProgress during lunch on Saturday, Bachmann outlined how the Republican Party and its 2012 nominee must address the national debt. Bachmann referenced Glenn Beck, who falsely warned about a $107 trillion in supposed "unfunded liabilities" from Social Security and Medicare. She then called for a "reorganization" of entitlements where people "already in the system" would continue to receive benefits, but "everybody else" would be weaned off:

BACHMANN: Is the country too big to fail? No, the country can fail. We can, we're not invincible. And we're so close now to being at that point because the thing is, as Glenn Beck said last night, it is true. The $107 trillion that he put on the board. We're $14 trillion in debt, but that doesn't include the unfunded massive liabilities. That's $107 trillion, and that's for Social Security and Medicare and all the rest. You add up all those unfunded net liabilities, and all the traps that could go wrong we're on the hook for, and what it means is what we have to do is a reorganization of all of that, Social Security and all. We have to do it simply because we can't let the contract remain as they are because the older people are going to lose. So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system, that don't have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off. And wean everybody off because we have to take those unfunded net liabilities off our bank sheet, we can't do it. So we just have to be straight with people. So basically, whoever our nominee is, is going to have to have a Glenn Beck chalkboard and explain to everybody this is the way it is.

I guess it's a good thing that she's never actually passed a solitary bill in her 9 years in politics.

The Big E :: Bachmann: abolish Social Security and Medicare
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Bachmann (0.00 / 0)
I don't usually swear, but *$&#^@^!&%$ blankety blank Bachmann...

My blog: http://www.aprilknight.blogspo...

Semantics are important (0.00 / 0)
One of the things no one ever calls these folks on is the fact that SS and Medicare are not entitlements. People pay their hard earned money in order to receive the benefits later on. We don't consider insurance, investments, or retirement plans entitlements. They make it seem like social security and medicare are entitlements for those lazy Americans who aren't willing to work two jobs until they are 89.

Medicaid or disability social security are entitlements because they are benefits based on a persons status. Medicare and regular Social Security are not entitlements. They're earned.


social security disability (0.00 / 0)
SSD is NOT an always an entitlement--it is piad to persons who become disabled based on how much they earned in employment and how many quarters they paid into the system.  A disabled child, for example, who has never earned an income, wouldn't recieve any social security disability, but would receive SSI (an entitlement based on need).  Disabled adults who never worked also would receive SSI or SSA if they qualify.

bluecollardaughter

[ Parent ]
also (0.00 / 0)
BTW thank you for saying that!

bluecollardaughter

[ Parent ]
Thanks to you (0.00 / 0)
Thanks for the additional info

[ Parent ]
unbelievable (really, even for her) (0.00 / 0)
Touch the New Deal legacy and flame out and die in politics, right?  That's the rule, right?  Please, God, are you listening?

bluecollardaughter

Don't mean to sound overly negative.... (0.00 / 0)
....but the damage done to Social Security and Medicare will be done under the aegis of a bipartisan committee by a Democratic Adminstration, like what the current adminstration is proposing.

Much like how a Democratic president "reformed" welfare in a manner far more radical than anything Ronald Reagan ever dreamed, the demise of Social Security and Medicare will be an inside job.

"...if my thought-dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine..."----Bob Dylan, 1965.


Clinton (0.00 / 0)
essentially governed as a conservative in domestic policy, except for a few social issues.  His presidency gets rated way better than it was because the ones surrounding it (Reagan, Bushes) were so miserably wretched.  

[ Parent ]
All relative... I was born during the Eisenhower (0.00 / 0)
presidency... the Clinton years were the best White House administration that I saw in my lifetime. That's because (whatever their mistakes, in view) you can only compare the Clintons to other actual presidencies...

...as opposed to comparing their agenda to the never-realized agendas of more progressive candidates who never made it to the White House.


[ Parent ]
LBJ was no prize, (0.00 / 0)
but with the civil rights and 'Great Society' legislation that happened, I'd have to rate him significantly higher than Clinton.

[ Parent ]
There's an argument to be made there, but (0.00 / 0)
I tell you--if you could somehow go back in time to the 1960s during the LBJ presidency, and ask Dems, liberals and the left of that day to compare the Clinton presidency to the LBJ presidency--and ask them which they'd prefer if they were forced to choose--

--the Clinton presidency would win with them, hands down because the weekly civilian casualities in the Viet Nam and because of the low reputation of the Johnson government and congress on race issues (a fact, despite LBJ's civil rights reform.)

Very few people of my generation or the generation before are nostalgic for the Dem government of the late sixties. Despite the fact of the Great Society legislation and the civil rights reforms (which I love and admire LBJ for gambling on.) This is just anecdotal, but I've never heard anyone anywhere say that "it was too bad that LBJ never ran for a second term, as he was entitled to do." Not once, have I heard that.

The administration was considered a disaster by informed Americans all over the political spectrum. It fractured the Dem party on the issue of the war, and LBJ chose not to run again because he knew he'd lost the confidence of the nation. Contrast the state of American politics at the end of LBJ's tenure, with the state of America at the end of Clinton's term of office--and you'll see what I'm talking about.

But as I say: it's all relative to the performance of other, actual administrations. Anyway...back to the topic of the post...  


[ Parent ]
Could be an important development here (0.00 / 0)
for those who are sure the way to beat Bachmann is "on the issues" (not on the "she's a nut, bigot and liar" stuff.

Here is a quote, very clear, out of her mouth (the best kind of stuff to use on her) that essentially says: everybody except the older people, off social security and all that--kill the contract.

A political opponent can quote this passage, exactly, and use to tell voters that she does indeed want to destroy Social Security, slowly but surely:

"What you have to do is keep faith with the people that are already in the system, that don't have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off."

So there it is, if Clark wants to stay on the path of "I'll beat her on the economic issues." (Personally, I don't think that's what Clark should do, but that's what Dems are inclined to do in the Sixth.)

There's already a lot of Bachmann stuff like that (the home foreclosures angle, for example), but more ammo is always welcome and Bachmann just passed some out.


 

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