Surviving Capitalism (Not) : David Gregory's Social Security Nonsense: Misinforming viewers about deficit's causes--and public's solutions

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, August 7, 2011

David Gregory's Social Security Nonsense: Misinforming viewers about deficit's causes--and public's solutions

Click here to access article from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

This article explained a lot for me about the attacks on Social Security and Medicare programs. As I have written previously, these programs were set up as separately funded programs based on equal contributions from workers and employers, and they have been running huge surpluses for many years. It is only now or in the near future that they will be running annual deficits. So why all the concern?? My interpretation was that these funds have been "stolen" by the Treasury Department to help fund US wars, and now the wealthy ruling class doesn't want to increase taxes to pay back these "stolen" funds. And why weren't these funds invested instead? Well, this article explains it all for me.

The funds from these programs were invested--in US Treasury bills and bonds--just like the Chinese have done with all their surplus money. But, do you notice that there is no one advocating in Congress or mainstream media for the US to default on Chinese debts?? The author cuts through all the crap coming from mainstream media and political operatives with this statement:

When the government pays back these loans [from the Social Security/Medicare Trust Funds] --as it must, unless it borrowed trillions of dollars from working Americans under false pretenses--those payments will contribute to the deficit. But it makes no sense to think of the government paying back loans as Social Security contributing to the deficit. The government of China buys large amounts of Treasury bonds, and the U.S. government regularly pays this money back; if China uses some of this money to build highways, does that mean that Chinese highways are contributing to the U.S. deficit?

They, the US ruling class, simply want to default on their debt obligations to US workers!! Because they don't want to pay extra taxes to do this in addition to funding all their wars! So, maybe I wasn't so far off in my explanation. Maybe they did sell us their debt under false pretenses. Maybe they never intended to pay us back! We were conned by a mafia-like ruling class! Maybe they "stole" our savings from us! And, now they are lying to us by framing the federal deficit problem as a Social Security and Medicare problem!

My only issue with the article is that it encourages people to think that they can solve this issue by writing to media figures such as NBC's David Gregory complaining about his coverage. He is only the very tiny tip of the self-serving ruling class iceberg that is planning to sink us all.