Republican debt ceiling hypocrites and personal debt ceilings

"The country should not be in debt!  Don't raise the debt ceiling!  The Democrats spend wildly!  We need a balanced budget amendment!"

Such are the comments from the Republican extremists and deficit hawks about the ongoing debt ceiling crisis in Washington.  

But a little digging by the Chicago Sun-Times and CNN reveals that the personal finances of some of these deficit and debt hawks don't mesh with their extremist anti-debt philosophies.  

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Updated jobs numbers for July on Friday, August 5.

Check back then.

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Joe Walsh of Illinois, one of the new Teabagger darlings, apparently owes his ex-wife over a hundred grand in child support.  I've read that he hasn't paid any child support since 2008, though I have also read that he has started paying something since he began work as a Congressman in January.  He's got three kids, but only one is under age 18 now.  So someone has had to support these kids during the years that Joe has experienced "employment problems".

It would be nice if the voters held him accountable and tossed out his sorry hypocritical rear in 2012, thus giving him another "employment problem".    

And several other vociferous debt dragons in Congress have also amassed significant credit card debt, in excess of $15,000. Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Rep. Tim Griffin of Arkansas are among those mentioned by CNN.   I don't get it:  These guys make $174,000 a year?  How do you wind up with credit card debt when you make so much money?  I understand people without money with credit card debt, people unemployed putting things on credit cards while they try to find work, people who have had their wages or hours cut and are trying to make ends meet .

But Congressmen making $174,000 who then lecture the rest of us on "personal responsibility" and then accuse the Democrats of "wild spending"?  (Let's not forget that many of them are suddenly getting fiscal religion after supporting the wild spending of the Bush years.)

I would hope the voters throw these fiscally irresponsible and hypocritical debt dragons out on their collective rears next year as well.  

Voters:  If you are going to support debt dragon policies, at least support someone who doesn't run up personal credit cards while making an exceptional buck nor someone who somehow manages not to provide for his own kids.  

Why There is a Debt Ceiling Crisis

"We are having a debt-ceiling crisis because Congress has given the president contradictory commands; it has ordered the president to spend money, and it has forbidden him to borrow enough money to obey its orders."

So speaks Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law at Yale.  

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Updated jobs numbers for July on Friday, August 5.Check back then.

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I love his initial paragraph about why we are having this crisis, and I thoroughly appreciate his analysis of the various (creative) strategies that are available to Obama, including a discussion of the 14th amendment possibilities.  

What strategies are open to Obama?

Balkin talks about a trillion dollar coin and a mortgage from the Federal Reserve.  

Read about Balkin's ideas here.

The poor and the elderly in the debt ceiling mess

Who should be advocating for the poor and the elderly in the debt ceiling mess?  

An article at Huffington Post about what's next for the debt ceiling mess in Congress: 

"Democrats could propose some sort of trigger mechanism that would force deeper cuts later in exchange for a debt ceiling hike now -- an idea that GOP lawmakers may find agreeable, but which advocates for the poor and elderly believe would be devastating to the social safety net."

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Updated jobs numbers for July on Friday, August 5. Check back then.

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A great comment from "icstars":

See, I think all of these elected jokers should be advocates for the poor and elderly. I'm just old fashioned that way, but the rich individual­s and corporatio­ns don't need such fierce advocacy in Washington­. Fighting for oil company welfare while proposing to cut SS and Medicare..­..that is not leadership­, compassion or sanity.

Great comment!  Nothing to add.. Thanks!. 

Debt Ceiling Drama: America Held Hostage

America is being held hostage over the debt ceiling.


Tea Party Coalition Rejects Boehner's Debt Proposal, and our country continues to be held hostage by right-wing zealots.

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Updated jobs numbers for July on Friday, August 5.   Check back then.

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Posted be Ccee at the Huffington Post in response to Jennifer Bendery's article:

"Tea Party Coalition Rejects Boehner's Debt Proposal"

"Time to back away from the table entirely.. No Use Dealing with these people.. You can't give them everything they want - they won't allow it.

Just say – “We tried.. We practicall­y gave them everything they asked for besides Your Social Security or Medicare..­. We even stopped requesting for the expiration on tax cuts for rich people, stopped asking to close Corporate Tax Loopholes.­.. and it's not enough..

We are going to let the Congress do their job and avert an economic catastroph­e as they have been charged to do under the constituti­on by passing a clean Debt Ceiling Bill.

We will not sign anything else – there is no more time for these games and economic brinkmansh­ip..We cannot allow the Few to Dictate Policy in a Democracy.­. We cannot have the USA Taken Hostage by those with no grasp of the implicatio­ns of their actions outside of Idealism.

We’ll enact meaningful defect reduction – including letting the Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich Expire – AFTER the Congress has passed a clean bill for signature.­.. We will allow the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy expire.. We Will Close Corporate Tax Loopholes We NEED To do this To Save Your Medicare and Social Security – We will Do This After Congress have passed a Clean Bill to raise the debit ceiling.”

We CANNOT Deal with these Insane Right Wing Types, who have taken over the Congress..­. This is Our Democracy - Our COUNTRY... Not Play-dough for a few Zealots to Shape in Their Image...Enough Already. Walk away from the table...”

As much as I don't want to see a default, we, the people of the United States of America, are being held hostage by these rabid dog Teaparty followers, doing the dirty work of their very rich masters and thinking they are being "Patriotic".

I agree with CeCee:  Enough already! 

Why So Many on the Government Dole?

Why are so many people getting Social Security. Medicare, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and all of the rest?  1 in 6?     

An article in CNN Money today claims that the Debt ceiling impasse imperils safety net .

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Updated jobs numbers for July on Friday, August 5.

Check back then.

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Well, yeah, the debt hysteria in Washington, brought to us by our Republican legislators and their Tea Party friends, certainly does imperil the social safety net in more than one way:  

• First of all, if the debt ceiling isn't raised, it's unclear which of the many government benefits will be able to be paid and which ones won't. 
• Secondly, if a deal is worked out, it's unclear how much of the social safety net will be left.  It appears that the rabid Tea Party wants to extract many pounds of flesh from the American people.  

A decent strong social safety net is an essential component of a First Class country.

To me, the social safety net is one of the things that makes us a civilized first class country, unlike a place like Somalia with no government, no taxes, and no food.  Seems are current crop of Teabag people should love Somalia.  They could exercise their "personal responsibility" on the "food" part.

Anyway, I replied to this comment to the article about the Debt Ceiling:

"No wonder the country is going broke. Practically the entire country is on the government dole. How did it get to this point?"

I wrote in reply: 

Social Security: Don't Raise the Retirement Age!

Should we raise the retirement age for Social Security? Aren't we living longer?

Updated for November 2012--- with no changes; everything is still true.

Updated again in July 2015--  with minor changes; everything is STILL true. 

Found at the Nation of Change blog.

Some people, concerned about the financial future of Social Security and concerned about the national debt, are suggesting (again) that the retirement age be raised. They say that we now live 16 years longer than we did when Social Security was first implemented; therefore, we can certainly raise the retirement age a few years.

Except that this is not really true.

Life expectancy at birth vs. additional life expectancy at a given age: Two different things.

That 16 year difference is based on life expectancy at birth, which has gone up about 16 years since the late 30's. But, for people who survive birth and young adulthood and make it to 60, their life expectancy has not increased that much.

People who live to be 65 now only have about 4 or 5 more years of life expectancy than people who lived to be 65 back when Social Security was established. And we've already raised the retirement age by two of those years!

When they raised the retirement age in the 1980's-- 

We last raised the retirement age in the early 80's for those born in 1938 or later. The people these changes were going to hit, the Baby Boomers and the WWII kids, were decades away from Social Security at the time. 

I wrote the following in one of my earlier posts about Medicare (READ HERE):

When they raised the retirement age in the 80's...

We need the younger people to realize that you don't stay young forever. When they raised the retirement age a couple of decades back in the 80s,few Baby Boomers made a peep because we were strong, young, healthy, and thought we would keep our high-payin­g jobs forever. Hah!

Now many Baby Boomers have been hit hard by the recession. Some are among the saddest victims. These older people in their 50's and 60's have been tossed out of work after decades of fruitful labor. Many are experiencing long-term unemployme­nt; many have gone through their savings and 401K's and don't have health insurance. 

Those extra years until full retirement are weighing heavily on many of us. Retiring with full benefits at 65 is now just a dream.

What is our "life expectancy" these days? 

So, with that in mind, let's look at the numbers on life expectancy.

Based on tables found at Infoplease, which are based on data taken from the US Census Bureau, the additional life expectancy of a 60 year old in the mid 2000's is somewhere between four and seven years more than it was in the late 30's.

Two Extra Years, Not 16

For 70 year olds, the additional life expectancy is between two and six more years now than it was in the 30's when Social Security was establishe­d. What this means is that, in the late 30's, someone in their mid 60's could expect to live to about age 78, give or a take a year or two depending on sex and race. Now (data from the mid 2000's), someone in their mid 60's can expect to live to live to about 82 or 83, give or take a year or two depending on sex and race. That's a difference of 4 to 5 years, and we've already raised the retirement age by 2 of those years. So that means that people now have, on average, TWO ADDITIONAL YEARS of living after they qualify for full retirement than people did in the 30's. TWO YEARS, not 16. 

And then there are those "extra workable years": 

Also, these figures don't account for extra "workable" years. People may be living two years longer than the retirement age than they were in the 30's, but that doesn't mean that people are able to work for two more years. 35% of people over 65 are considered disabled, but it is safe to assume that many of the other 65% of people over 65 have minor disabilities that would make it difficult for them to work full-time demanding jobs... and also make them less desirable for employers.

Finding a job after 65? 

Those figures also don't account for the simple fact that older people can't get hired. People over 65 have a low (about 3.9% as of June 2015) unemployme­nt rate, but that is because so few of them are in the work force (less than 19%).  And 40% of those 65+ who do work are working part-time.  Could they really find full-time jobs and actually perform the required work?

Seniors will go without income for years before they can collect.

Raising the retirement age, even a year or two, really isn't practical, and it will leave many seniors without any income for years before they can collect social security. 

But Jeb Bush and the Republicans? 

But many Republicans couldn't give one hoot about that now, could they? They already consider Social Security an "entitlement" and that Social Security recipients are "takers" instead of "makers". If Grandma hasn't saved enough and "planned" well enough to allow her to survive without the "governmen­t dole", she deserves whatever she gets. Charming people, aren't they?

O.K., people: Write your Congresspeople; write the President; write the Presidential candidates.

Hang tough. Don't let them mess with Social Security and Medicare!