If you have a complaint, go see our Complaint Manager, Helen Wait. That's right...go to Helen Wait.

Imagine this:  You decide you want a new flat-screen TV.  You're in Walmart and you notice they have a nice 75" Samsung priced for less than $1700, and they offer LAYAWAY.  Woohoo!  So you go to the service desk, fill out the paperwork, and make a down payment.  Every month you stop in and make a payment, and in mid-December you go in to make your final payment and pick up your new TV.  But instead of your expected 75" Samsung, they bring out this and hand it to you:

"Whoa!  No...no...this is NOT what I paid for" you say. 

"Sorry sir, but Walmart has realized they under-priced the TV they promised you, and this is all they'll be able to deliver for what you paid."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This, with little exaggeration, is where Social Security and Medicare are headed.  From the time you began your working career back in 19__ you have been putting money every payday into the Social Security Trust Fund, and Medicare via the Federal Insurance Contributions Act.  But the closer you get to receiving the social benefits you've already paid for, you'll hear "Oooo, sorry, but we may not be able to deliver what we've promised you."
 
Earlier this week the Congressional Budget Office issued their projection for the Federal budget deficit from now through 2028.  They say it will actually amount to $11.7 TRILLION DOLLARS ($1.6T more than they forecast just this past June).  That's a deficit of well over A TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR, even after figuring in the increased economic growth that was supposed to make up for the tax cut shortfall.

Why so much?  Mainly for two reasons:  1, more people are reaching Social Security and Medicare age, resulting in more tax dollars being spent on those social programs; and 2, yes, reduced revenue to the Treasury due to last year's tax cut.   

You can't tell me Congress didn't see this coming when they voted a TRILLION dollar tax cut last year.  With all the data they had available they should have had no trouble projecting things like this 20 years ago.  But instead of adjusting taxes in anticipation of what was to come, they just kicked the can down the road for fear of losing votes right then.

Soon-to-retire House Speaker Paul Ryan has for years been the chief proponent of both cutting taxes and "reforming" Social Security and Medicare to make them more "sustainable"....that's the code word for "cutting benefits".  The two front-runners to replace him as Speaker are Congressman Kevin McCarthy and Congressman Steve Scalise (assuming Republican's keep control of the House of Representatives), both of whom share Ryan's vision.

But not to worry, they say those Americans now at or very near retirement age wouldn't be affected by any "sustainability" cuts.  Keep in mind these are the same folks who said all our money would be there for us when we retired, too. (Hmmm...could this be the impetus behind gun control?  Nothing scarier than a bunch of pissed off seniors running around with guns, right?)  *chuckle*

Just don't act surprised when, not if, it happens.

S

We sure could use Pat Paulsen right now (look it up)

Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you a man with no heart.  Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you a man with no brains. ~~Winston Churchill

Whoa!  Last night Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, the #2 guy in the House of Representatives, was defeated in his Virginia district primary race.  This is both good news and bad news.

Cantor was one of the Republican "Young Guns" along with Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, a small group of virtually inflexible super conservatives who, IMO, were preventing our government from "governing".  Think "government shutdown".  He'll be gone after the first of the new year.  That's the good news.

The bad news is that the guy who defeated him is even MORE inflexible, as in absolutely rigid.  He's a Tea Party fave and one of those "my way or the highway" kinda people.  If enough people like him are elected our political polarization, our gridlock, will get even worse.  Sales of pitchforks and torches will surge.

While the Tea Party has been swatted down in many primary races so far this year, this was a BIG win for them.  As a student of politics (among other things) this intrigues me.  It's going to make for a fascinating fall election.

I'm tickled by all the fuss over whether Hillary Clinton will run for President in 2016.  My first prediction: She might run, but she won't even get her party's nomination.

She'll be in the headlines all right, and might win some early primaries, but her party will eventually realize she's a lightning rod.  

Her fans love her, but her foes are reviled by her.  That's not a recipe for winning an election.  She comes with a lot of baggage....I'm guessing even more than most politicians.  There's gonna be lots of mud (shit?) slinging.

Get one of her bumper stickers and buttons as soon as you can 'cause they will some day be political novelties.

I'll add Hillary's to my collection.  :)

S

Last minute election thoughts

I feel like I'm watching a really interesting football game, with every offensive thrust countered with a defensive parry.  Momentum has changed, subtle adjustments have been made, and a bit of luck has been thrown in, too.  It will likely be a field goal as the clock expires that will give us a winner.  Except this isn't a game.  This is much more serious.  This could conceivably change the way our country is governed for decades to come.  I'm talking about tomorrow's presidential and congressional elections.

Here's what has been bugging me for months now:  Mitt Romney's choice of running mate.  I've always thought of Romney as a moderate, but in the primaries he recited loud and often the Tea Party line, which scared the bejeebers out of me.  At the first debate Mitt did a complete 180, coming across as a moderate, and his fortunes improved immediately afterwards.  I'm hoping the "new" Mitt is the "real" Mitt, but in the background he's still there....his running mate, Paul Ryan, and I wonder. 

Be very afraid...the Young Gun leadership (L-R, Reps. Kevin McCarthy, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan)

Ryan is a proud member...a leader, even...of the Young Guns, a group of extremist, ultra-conservative Republicans who want to gain control of, first, their party, and then the country.  They have demonstrated they are willing to throw the entire country under the bus* as long as it will hasten their power grab.  (Suggested reading:  Do Not Ask What Good We Do:  Inside the US House of Representatives by Robert Draper.)  

They practice the concept of the more they can do to paralyze the country (by their obstruction) and discredit their opponents, the worse things will get and the sooner The People will turn to them to fix things.  The pain the rest of us must endure in the process is of apparently no concern to them.  To them the end justifies the means.  I agree there are lots of things that need changing, but IMO the changes need to be made thoughtfully with a scalpel, not with an ulterior motive and a meat cleaver.  All these guys have are meat cleavers.

Now I read that Paul Ryan, "quiet for now, is planning for an active role" as Romney's VP.  "...if the Republican ticket prevails, Mr. Ryan plans to come back roaring, establishing an activist vice presidency that he said would look like Dick Cheney's under President George W. Bush."  (There are to this day many loyal, moderate Republicans who cringe at that thought!)  He says he will "reach out" (to Democrats) across the aisle.  (Riiight...and pigs will fly south for the winter.  It's just not the way the Young Guns do business.)

I just hope that if Mitt Romney should win he governs like the responsible moderate our country needs, and not like a "slash and burn" Young Gun.  And as for Paul Ryan, "Vice Presidents should be seen (at funerals of foreign dignitaries) and not heard."

If you disagree, that's fine.  Just be glad we live in America where we're all free to express ourselves however we like.  :)

S

*The current budget "sequestration" mess and past (and future?) budget impasses...the work of the Young Guns.

My two bits.....

The first Presidential Debate is in the can.  Time to compare notes:

IMO, Mitt Romney came across as cool, collected, and very well prepared.  It was like he knew the questions before they were asked, which of course he didn't.  Kudos.  He was aggressive, didn't have any odd mannerisms, didn't twitch, sigh, roll his eyes, etc.  He addressed his remarks towards the President.

IMO, President Obama seemed to have been caught flat-footed and often fumbled with how to respond to Romney's jabs.  He was definitely on the defensive.  He didn't seem to be as well prepared.  He looked down or nervously towards someone (Michelle?) in the audience.  He had way too many long pauses and "Ahhhh's".

But the curve ball I noticed most was, who REALLY is Mitt Romney?  I've said for months he was making a BIG mistake by pandering to ultra-right-wing Tea Party conservatives.  He had their votes automatically by default.  It will be the moderates who will be the deciding factor in this election. THEY are the ones he has to win over.

Tonight he talked straight to those moderates.  Very smart politics....but very much at odds with what he's been saying before now.  Example?  He said he would give everyone a tax deduction basket with a specific dollar amount cap.  Taxpayers could fill it with anything they wanted from a list of possible choices UP TO THAT DOLLAR AMOUNT.  He specifically said the wealthy would top off their deduction basket early, and that's it.  They would lose almost all of their current deductions.  There's no way in hell the Tea Party would have smiled on that idea! 

In other words they (the rich) would see their taxes go WAY up.  That is NOT what he's been saying for the last year.  If he had offered that before now Obama would have jumped all over it enthusiastically!

Another example?  In his closing remarks he said as Massachusetts's governor he worked well with a legislature made up 80% by Democrats.  As President he would sit down with Democrats in Congress and find common ground with them for the good of the American people.

That is definitely NOT what he's been intimating to the Tea Party crowd.  If he really felt that way, why would he choose Paul Ryan as his running mate?  Ryan, along with congressional Republican Young Gun leaders like Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy, have been notoriously uncompromising.  They are the main reason this Congress is gridlocked.  It's "their way or the highway".  I'm sure Paul Ryan cringed when he heard his potential boss say he would sit and sing Kum-ba-yah with the Democrats.

So was the Mitt Romney that I saw tonight, the moderate, the REAL Mitt Romney, or was tonight's Mitt Romney just a poser?

It's gonna be an interesting finish.

That's my two bits.

S