Except it hasn’t. Nope. Turns out that the unemployment number is more like 17%, particularly when one factors in the underemployed. Add to that people who have been on Unemployment for 99 weeks, much less those who have exceeded that time, and it paints a bleak picture indeed:

To hear these stories is just heartbreaking, isn’t it? Some states are suffering more than others. For instance, the state of California has an unemployment rate closer to 22%. One can understand, then, why Jerry Brown’s economic remedy is this (h/t to Gina):

“If we can find some more money, we can dish it out.”

Wow. And he’s currently leading Meg Whitman in CA? For real?? Holy moley. I am sure that is a comfort to those who are currently in need. Ahem. That is one heckuva plan there, Brownie.

And speaking of Jerry Brown, if I may digress for a moment, check out this little news clip (again, h/t to Gina):

“Yawn – I just can’t be bothered talking any more about my aide calling former CEO, and fellow gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman a whore. What’s the big deal, anyway?? Sheesh. Get off it already.”

Ah, yes – I can see why N.O.W. endorsed him over Whitman, can’t you? (That’s snark, btw…)

Back to the issue at hand. Not only is the actual number much higher than is generally claimed by this Administration, but many of these people currently unemployed have been out of work for over a year. Imagine that – out of work for over a YEAR. Even with unemployment compensation, that fundamentally changes how one lives. Some of you know all too well what that is like, how heartbreaking, frustrating, and demeaning that is, even when the loss of the job is not performance related (and in this economy, that is the case for most folks).

And why is the actual number being underreported? Why is Obama not focusing all of his attention on this issue, rather than, I dunno, claims that the Chamber of Commerce is trying to impact the midterm elections, and taking funds from foreign nations with ZERO proof. (Oh, and in an ironic twist of fate, guess who actually takes in more foreign money, twice as much, to be exact? You guessed it – the Democrats! Oopsie daisy.)

Let’s see. What else has Obama been focusing on rather than unemployment, and the economy in general? Oh, yes. His all-time favorite thing. Campaigning. Yep – he’s been traipsing all over this land of ours, from sea to shining sea, endorsing all manner of candidates with a “D” after their names (whether they want him to or not, I presume) in an attempt to stave off what is looking like a bad election for the Democrats.

Except for one. That would be Rhode Island Democratic candidate for Governor, Frank Capprio. Seems Obama has declined to endorse him because of his buddy, Lincoln Chafee, former Republican now Independent who endorsed Obama back in the day, who is also in the race. Oh, the White House will send out Vice President Joe Biden to assist whacky Alan Grayson down in Florida in his campaign, but not Capprio (you remember Grayson, right? He is the one who said Republicans’ health plan is for “sick people to die quickly.“). Well, Mr. Capprio isn’t taking this lying down. His response to Obama on his refusal to endorse him? “Shove it.” No, seriously – that’s what he said! “Shove it!”

I think “Shove It!” is what many Americans are going to be saying next Tuesday, too, those people who fall in the 17%, or even 22%, of the unemployed. Those who have lost their livelihoods, often their homes, and had their worlds turned upside down by this economy that Obama has been just too busy to address. No, he would rather tilt at windmills like the Chamber of Commerce boondoggle, or push his Obamacare on us, the issues involved with it coming to light every day (simply put, it’s gonna cost us a gazillion dollars), push his Cap and Trade (which will also cost us a gazillion dollars), or travel around the country on our dime to shore up (fading) support for the likes of Harry Reid, than deal with the real issues facing our country. Gee, can’t imagine why some folks might see this election as a referendum on Obama, can you?

People in this country are hurting, and hurting badly. Jobs are hard, if not impossible, to come by. Finally, at least one of the major network news sources is willing to acknowledge what some of the other stations (like Fox) have been reporting, and before an election, to boot. So, good for CBS for doing this (finally). Kinda makes you wonder just what else they are “under-reporting” or under-counting, doesn’t it? Sure does me. In this case, though, hopefully, something positive will happen in the upcoming election to help out the (almost) 1 out of 5 Americans. Better than hope, get out and vote.

Home foreclosures are skyrocketing. People are struggling, they are suffering, they continue to lose their homes, and their jobs. The Gulf area has been particularly hard hit, as one can imagine, for an area that depends on fishing and tourism.

Which makes this piece of information all the more maddening.

As you most likely know, the Obamas have been on vacation this weekend. No, no, not to the Gulf Coast, despite both Obamas suggesting regular Americans should go there. No, they went to Maine. But they were not the only ones who went to Maine. Their dog, Bo, also went to Maine. On his own plane. I kid you not (H/t to my friend, Nunly, for providing this link).

Oh, how I wish I was making this up, but it was reported in the local paper there:

Arriving in a small jet before the Obamas was the first dog, Bo, a Portuguese water dog given as a present by the late U.S. Sen Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. and the president’s personal aide Reggie Love, who chatted with Baldacci.[snip] (Baldacci is the governor of Maine.)

Wait – are we being punked? Does Ashton Kutcher own this newspaper or something? How else to explain flying a dog on his OWN jet with a few staffers, including Obama’s personal aide, Reggie Love? Why were they not both with the Obamas?? That just doesn’t make any sense to me. As an animal lover, if I am taking my animals somewhere with me, then they are WITH me. I know these jets had to be smaller than AF 1, but for heavens sake, it isn’t like Bo is some Bull Mastiff or something. Sheesh.

And that makes the following product all the more timely. This video has been cropping up all over the internet this weekend, and for good reason. I consider this a PSA, though the disclaimer is I/we do not endorse or promote any sales of this item. This is purely for entertainment value. And entertaining it is:

I love that it will also remove Obama Bumper Stickers from a Prius. Too funny. And I have to say, I have noticed a lot fewer Obama stickers over the past few months, so clearly there is a market (again, not promoting the product or sales thereof).

After this most recent display of the complete and utter out of touch mentality of the Obamas – both of them – I am guessing I will see fewer Bumper Stickers still. At least, I hope I will. Just another indicator that people are finally coming to their senses in this country, and not a minute too late.

Come on, November…

But I read the commentary anyway since I have learned that I had been sold a bill of goods on a number of issues, and I might learn something. I did:

“Let me give you my vision: a man’s right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master — these are the British inheritance. … We must get private enterprise back on the road to recovery — not merely to give people more of their own money to spend as they choose, but to have more money to help the old and the sick and the handicapped. … I believe that, just as each of us has an obligation to make the best of his talents, so governments have an obligation to create the framework within which we can do so. …We can go on as we have been doing, we can continue down. Or we can stop and with a decisive act of will, we can say ‘Enough.’ ”

– Margaret Thatcher

It was called “the British disease,” the dismal state of affairs Margaret Thatcher inherited in 1979 when she and her Conservative Party wrested control of Parliament from a leftist Labour Government. Throughout much of the 1960s and ’70s, Labour had pursued a deliberate policy of subsidizing or nationalizing failing industries (automotive, aerospace, mining, rail, etc.). Britain’s famously militant unions had demanded and received wage increases far above productivity and inflation. In Britain’s 1978-79 “Winter of Discontent,” wildcat strikes broke out all over the country. More than a million public employees joined trade union picket lines. Hospitals turned away the sick and suffering. Garbage piled up in the streets.

These were the conditions that propelled Britain’s Conservative Party, by the narrowest of margins, to victory in elections held in May 1979. These were the challenges Margaret Thatcher faced when she became prime minister. These were the things a return to bedrock conservative principles reversed.

That was quite some period in the history of the UK. Things weren’t a lot better for us here in the US:

The 1960s and ’70s were nearly equally threatening to the long-term survival and prosperity of the United States. American cities burned in the wake of the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations. The smell of tear gas permeated the nation’s capital. Vietnam, America’s longest and most divisive war, ended in humiliating disaster. President Richard Nixon was forced from office, irrevocably tarred by Watergate and a string of failed policies — wage and price controls, abandonment of the gold standard, the deliberate cheapening of the dollar, expansion of the welfare state.

His successor, Gerald Ford, a decent man, chosen by Nixon to fill the office of vice president surrendered by the disgraced Spiro Agnew, won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1976, after a very close and bitter contest with Ronald Reagan. He then lost his abbreviated and unelected presidency to Jimmy Carter, former governor of Georgia, one time naval officer and peanut farmer.

Carter entered office promising to turn the country around, to drain the swamp of corrupt Washington politics. To some he was far too idealistic, too saintly in a world of cutthroat sinners, a world that demanded clear-eyed determination to defend vital national interests, to stare down enemies, foreign and domestic.

The Carter years were marked by stagflation, double-digit unemployment and inflation, sky-high interest rates, and a general feeling that U.S. power and standing in the world were in irreversible decline. Carter called it “malaise.” In 1980, he lost his bid for a second term.

I was a huge Carter fan, and remained one until he recently called people who disagreed with Obama racists. Ahem. I had issues with that. But I was so upset when he lost, especially to Reagan. I could scarcely believe it. No telling what THAT guy was going to do to the country:

Ronald Reagan entered office facing problems little less severe than those Britain’s Iron Lady had faced the year before. He pursued a conservative agenda similar to Thatcher’s. He championed American exceptionalism, believing the country fate had given him to lead was a shining city on a hill, one destined to make the world a better and safer place. He would do this not by waging endless wars in far-off places, not by embracing the political pseudo-science of nation building, but by restoring America to its rightful place as the unchallenged military and economic power it recently had been. He called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and proved it to be not only evil, but hollow. He brought it to its knees and in the process freed its captive nations without firing a shot. This was the legacy this man, whose detractors had called an “amiable dunce,” left his successors.

As is often the case in world history, men forget the simple truths that led to past greatness. America, seemingly in the blinking of an eye, has become the biggest debtor nation in the world. It fights, but does not win nor does it pay for, two wars in far-off places of which it knows but little. It recklessly expands the welfare state, ignoring the huge danger this implies for the Republic. It chooses to ignore the plain language of the Constitution that has served it so well for two and a quarter centuries.

Americans no longer seem to have confidence or take pride in their governing institutions, their schools, their churches and synagogues, their ability to right the listing ship we all are captive on. It is an old story, one written in the numerous financial panics of the 19th century, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the more recent chaos on Wall Street that has spread so devastatingly to Main Street.

We are like overly fed sheep who waddle to our own shearing. Where is the self-reliance, the indomitable spirit that once made us uniquely American? Where is our Thatcher or Reagan today who will free us from our malaise?

Where indeed? And when? (R.L. Schreadley is a former Post and Courier executive editor.)

We are like overly fed sheep who waddle to our own shearing. Where is the self-reliance, the indomitable spirit that once made us uniquely American?

That is quite a statement. And a profound question Schreadley asks as well. As for the latter, we have a president who literally goes around the world apologizing for the United States:

In less than 100 days, he has apologized on three continents for what he views as the sins of America and his predecessors.

Mr. Obama told the French (the French!) that America “has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” toward Europe. In Prague, he said America has “a moral responsibility to act” on arms control because only the U.S. had “used a nuclear weapon.” In London, he said that decisions about the world financial system were no longer made by “just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy” — as if that were a bad thing. And in Latin America, he said the U.S. had not “pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors” because we “failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas.”

By confessing our nation’s sins, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that Mr. Obama has “changed the image of America around the world” and made the U.S. “safer and stronger.” As evidence, Mr. Gibbs pointed to the absence of protesters during the Summit of the Americas this past weekend.

We have a president who makes statements like the following:

“For better or worse” we’re a superpower? What the hell kind of statement is THAT for the president to make? Holy Toledo.

Well, I may not have cared much for Reagan when he was president, but I grudgingly admit that he was right about what the United States could be, SHOULD be – a “shining city on the hill.” Hillary Clinton sure knew that, as did John McCain. Shouldn’t Obama, heck, ANY president, of the United States feel that way about the country he (or she) is supposed to be leading? At the very least, I would think so. At the very least, I would HOPE so. That is the kind of president we need, not an Apologist in Chief, or a Detractor in Chief.

What do you think?

“We’re going to have to make some tough choices” about the deficit and national debt, President Obama said to a crowded gymnasium full of supporters at Indian Hills Community College, after a lengthy riff on how the unsustainable debt would need to be tackled.

This, unlike most of what the president said during the town hall meeting, was met with silence.

“I noticed I didn’t get a lot of clapping about the whole ‘We’re gonna have the hard choices’ thing,” the president ribbed the crowd.

The President is ribbing the crowd? Now that’s what I call “The Audacity of Hope.” Half million dollar pizza parties. The most expensive inauguration in history. After this gentleman spent all of last year more than tripling spending (yes, I know, I know, it was all Bush’s fault) now he wants to tell the American people it is time to make some hard choices?

More frustrating than the endless campaigning and political posturing is the notion that the American people are so bloody stupid, they will not leap to the same conclusions I just did. Further, he tells us this stuff as if he just thought of it. Haven’t the tea partiers, for one, been screaming about these very problems for over a year?

Could it be President Obama is not aware why his audience sat on their hands for his remark about “hard choices?” I cannot prove that the people of Ottumwa, Iowa agree with my assessment but perhaps this might be a reason why he did not receive the adulation he is used to and so craves:

It is offensive to be lectured to about fiscal restraint by a man who has been spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor for the better part of a year and a half, bailing out and covering for reckless companies with reckless management styles that continue to scam the American people, hiding the true cost of the legislation his Congress has been ramming down our throats and promising transparency while delivering the opposite.

The people of Iowa, and the rest of American for that matter, have been practicing plenty of fiscal retraint as they deal with high unemployment, watching their savings dwindle to dangerously low levels amidst an uncertain future with an administration that appears tone deaf as to their problems.

Any President that keeps trying to sell the bill of goods that cap and trade is going to help solve our economic problems instead of finally planting his feet behind the desk to figure out how to put more people back ot work in this country really needs to talk less to the American people – and listen more.

“This will bear on how we think about our federal budget in the future,” [Obama] said. “Everybody dislikes Washington right now, and everybody wants to lower their taxes. Everybody hates waste in government. But at the same time, you know, government does some important things like helping to make sure you’ve got clean drinking water and that your roads aren’t full of potholes.”

Please Mr. President, stop telling me what I hate. I don’t hate taxes. I am more than happy to pay my fair share and do so regularly. I hate when my taxpayerdollars go to bailout out the actions of corrupt actors who are not held to the same rules as I am. I do not hate government. I hate bloated government, local, state and federal, that enjoys no end of perks and bloated salaries and perks. I appreciate the good things that government does, which is why I pay taxes. What I don’t appreciate is the things my tax money is supposed to pay for – like education – gets “borrowed” away and never returned.

Clearly, the President has no idea what I hate which gives me a clear indication of why his policies have nothing to do with the urgent needs of the American people.
Close attention need by paid to the following:

…Earlier in the day, back in Washington, DC, he’d presided over the first meeting of his Debt Commission, which will issue recommendations after the November 2010 elections on ways to reduce the $12.8 trillion national debt.

“I’ve said that it’s important that we not restrict the review or the recommendations that this commission comes up with in any way,” the president said at the meeting. “Everything has to be on the table. …This means that all of you, our friends in the media, will ask me and others once a week or once a day about what we’re willing to rule out or rule in when it comes to the recommendations of the commission. That’s an old Washington game and it’s one that has made it all but impossible in the past for people to sit down and have an honest discussion about putting our country on a more secure fiscal footing. So I want to deliver this message today: We’re not playing that game. I’m not going to say what’s in. I’m not going to say what’s out. I want this commission to be free to do its work.”

Could it be he is not going to give you any details about what is “in it” until after the midterms because if he told you now, all his herd mentality Dems insistently following Pelosi and Reid off a cliff would be voted down this November? Is that why we are not getting a report from the Debt Commision until after that?

In Ottumwa, the president previewed for the crowd that whatever the commission comes up with, “we’re going to have a very tough debate about how to bring down our deficits.”

He continued, “as this debate unfolds, I just want everybody to pay attention to what folks are saying. A lot of times politicians will tell you, ‘I’m going to cut your taxes, I’m going to lower the deficit, I’m going to expand Medicare.’”

Don’t settle for that, the president told the crowd. “Ask every politician when they say they’re going to balance the budget and deal with the deficit: ‘What exactly are you going to cut? What spending are you willing to eliminate? Are you going to eliminate funding for sewers? Are you going to reduce the cost of Medicare? Because there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Who the hell out here has been getting a free lunch. The free lunch has gone to the folks at Goldman Sachs, Fannie and Freddie, and GM (who claim they paid back their bailouts — however they did it with other TARP money).

A free lunch? Why does President Obama insist upon being condescending? Beyond his pronouncements from on high about “bitter voters,” this reminds me of candidate Obama’s pronouncement about Democrats and abortion during the campaign. As reported by CBS News:

“The mistake pro-choice forces have sometimes made in the past, and this is a generalization . . . has been to not acknowledge the wrenching moral issues involved,” he said.

Really? Do we not? Telling us what we do and do not like or believe seems to be a pattern.

Reading the other fine print of his statement in Iowa, he wants us to ask other politicians what THEY are going to do – but we cannot ask the President what HE is going to do. “We’re not going to play that game?” All he is doing is playing games, while taxpayers can only look on in frustration and disbelief.

The president said “the way folks talk about it in Washington,” you might think the debt could be solved by reducing waste and abuse, eliminating foreign aid and earmarks. But those are relatively small parts of the budget, he said.

Which “folks” are these, exactly?

“We could eliminate all foreign aid and all earmarks and we’d still have a huge problem, because most of our budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense spending, about 70 percent of the budget. Everything else we do is only about 30 percent of the budget. So this is going to be a tough bunch of choices that we gotta make here.”

Okay – so here is the bitter pill to swallow – get ready folks. Here come the cuts! So that if you have been paying in to Medicare, as my mother has, for example, in her 50 years in the work force, you can expect less. Presidents like to point toward Social Security’s impending insolvency without mentioning part of the reason it is in trouble is because government keeps borrowing money from it that they do not put back.
Remember his economic advisor Austan Goosbee talked about privatizing Social Security? Do not be surprised if you hear rumbings next year, too – the same rumblings President Bush made several years ago. Now I ask you – would you want the private sector – otherwise known as Wall Street crooks – playing with your dough while you’re busy keeping the roof over your head and don’t have enough time to daily monitor their shenanigans?

“I just want everybody to be prepared” for this debate, which will take place over the next couple years. “Remember when I was running for office, I said I will not just tell you what you want to hear, I would tell you what you needed to hear. And you needed to hear that we’re going to have some hard choices about our deficit.”

Oh, that was my favorite comment of all. I have never heard a bigger pile of horse hooey! And that is saying something. He told everybody what they wanted to hear out on the campaign trail – unicorns and giant popsicles. But little else.

Is there anyone with the courage to stand up and insist that this President start telling the truth? The press has already proven themselves to be, almost uniformly, nothing more than notches on his bedpost, cowed from speaking up for fear of a lack of access, which would mean a loss of their $5 million dollar book deals.

Who is speaking for us?

Thank you. Rant over.

Usually the Obama administration downplays expectations for job growth, but apparently Vice President Joe Biden didn’t get the memo – or he did, but just blew it off.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time our loquacious VP has done such a thing and come up with his own thoughts on a heated subject:

“Some time in the next couple of months we’re going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month,” Biden said at a fundraiser today in Pittsburgh.

Next month, Biden predicted, the nation’s employers will add between 100,000 to 200,000 jobs to their payrolls.

Um. Could you please tell me where he is getting these numbers? We know the Census created a bunch of temporary jobs but they will evaporate in a few months. On behalf of all my friends, neighbors and local business owners who are struggling or whose businesses have already shut down, I’d love to hear some good news here – but only if it backed up by fact…

The administration’s own forecast projects that the labor market will add about 100,000 jobs a month for the rest of the year, then around 200,000 jobs a month next year, and 250,000 jobs a month in 2012.

Biden noted today that in the past he “got in trouble” for making predictions about job creation, but clearly that did not stop him from delivering his bold new projections.

“We caught a lot of bad breaks on the way down,” Biden said. “We’re going to catch a few good breaks because of good planning on the way up.”

Another phrase I’m not quite sure what to do with… “good planning”? So it was good planning to enact a pork, er, Stimulus Bill when they first got into office and then withhold a large percentage of the money until just before the midterms so they can artificially pump up the economy to get votes? Is that the sort of good planning we are talking about? Strikes me not only as cynical but downright cruel to so many who have lost their jobs and homes.

Please – if you have any news to report — I mean, real news, backed up by real fact, not just spit-balling or spin, that indicates some honest to goodness substantial job hiring is going to happen in the next few months, please share it…

I’m sure Mr. Biden would be happy to know someone agrees with him.

Naturally the race baiters, race hustlers and sycophants to the current administration are frustrated. Their heads really ought to explode when they watch this video. Please enjoy some tea party folk being interviewed at these protests*…since the MSM et al are so busy tellin you there are no black Americans participating in these rallies…

I wonder what the exploding heads will say now.

Chat away.

**********
* H/T Hot Air for finding the video.

Did you catch that? Our federal debt will exceed 100% of our GDP. Um, that’s a bit of a problem, folks. And ten years is not that far away, either.

The DOW continues to be on the rise, which is certainly some good news, particularly for investors. Unfortunately, that is not translating into new jobs. Quite the opposite, in fact. For the second week in a row, first time unemployment benefits have risen, this week close to half a million (484,000), a rise of 24,000.

But there is another new high, and this one is troubling indeed. Home foreclosures have had their biggest increase in five years:

A record number of U.S. homes were lost to foreclosure in the first three months of this year, a sign banks are starting to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster pace, according to a new report.

RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday that the number of U.S. homes taken over by banks jumped 35 percent in the first quarter from a year ago. In addition, households facing foreclosure grew 16 percent in the same period and 7 percent from the last three months of 2009.

Holy smokes. Now is the time when Democrats will blame Bush and the Republicans, as if they have not been in power for over three years. Even more than that, though, is how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were run by Democrats. THAT is one of the single biggest issues that led to our current economic crisis, as I have noted before. Now there is this editorial weighing in on this, too, particularly in light of oversight: How Fannie and Freddie Foiled Regulators.

The headline sets the stage for how that was able to happen:

Mismanagement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and obstruction of their regulators by Congress and successive presidential administrations played a pivotal role in creating and then bursting the housing bubble at the heart of the economic meltdown of 2008, according to testimony of officials before the congressionally chartered Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Rather than offer a serious discussion of how to reform the two government-sanctioned enterprises (GSEs), however, President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress are only offering legislation to punish bank CEOs and stiffen regulations for private sector banks.

In 2006, Dan Mudd, then Fannie Mae’s chief operating officer, wrote in an e-mail to Chief Executive Officer Franklin Raines that the GSE desperately needed reform because “the old political reality was that we always won, we took no prisoners … we used to… be able to write, or have written, rules that worked for us.” Mudd’s e-mail was cited in testimony last week before the FCIC by James B. Lockhart, who in 2006 was acting director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the GSE watchdog. Lockhart said OFHEO’s regulatory authority was inadequate because “[Fannie and Freddie] could borrow so cheaply and at unlimited amounts to fund their portfolios because their lenders and rating agencies applied no market discipline.”

Remember Franklin Raines? His name may be familiar to you not for his involvement with housing, but it sure should from his involvement with Barack Obama. Yep, Obama sought advice from Raines on housing while running his campaign. They are buddies.

Back to the editorial:

Lockhart told the FCIC that before the housing bubble burst, he recognized that the GSEs faced serious credit risks and recommended freezing Freddie’s portfolio. That recommendation ran into “quite intense” pushback, according to Lockhart. The neutered watchdog could barely enact any reform at all, he said: “OFHEO was regulating two of the largest and most systematically important U.S. financial institutions and yet its powers were much weaker than bank or even state insurance regulators … OFHEO did not have all the necessary powers to deal with these giant housing enterprises.”

Armando Falcon, Lockhart’s predecessor at OFHEO, told the FCIC that when the understaffed regulator needed additional resources to conduct a special examination of Fannie Mae’s accounting practices, “we encountered more difficulty and delay. Fannie’s lobbyists were on the Hill spreading misinformation about my motives and asserting that the special exam was unnecessary.” Whenever faced with a report with negative connotations about the companies, Fannie’s supporters would launch an assault on OFHEO — from a full investigation of the group to demanding Falcon’s resignation.

So now the question is whether the FCIC will name names in its forthcoming report of those in Congress and the executive branch who protected and advanced Fannie and Freddie, at grievous expense to American taxpayers.

No wonder our housing market is in such dire straits. No wonder our economy is in such dire straits. That companies of this magnitude can be SO mishandled, and receive so little oversight, is mind boggling. And now Obama is going to have the government, the same one that oversaw Fannie and Freddie, oversee our HEALTH CARE?

So, let’s recap: DOW up, yay! Unemployment up, BOO! Home Foreclosures up, BAD! And Debt spiraling out of control with Obama & Co. wanting to spend more and more and more, VERY BAD!!!!

I didn’t use to buy the whole “Tax and Spend Democrats” meme, but there is nothing like cold, hard reality to change a saying to a truism. Yep, we’re in for a world of hurt, alright, and the current Administration seems completely tone deaf to the grave issues facing our nation. Obama will continue hosting summits like this nuclear one that end up accomplishing essentially nothing, talking a lot, but saying nothing, and ignoring the glaring warning signs.

Hold onto your wallets, folks, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride…

UPDATE: Kenoshamarge provided the following video which clearly highlights the problems going on with Fannie and Freddie SIX YEARS ago. The Democrats stonewalled the regulators at every turn:

2004 – Dems Refuse to Reform Freddie & Fannie
Uploaded by Ibn-Khaldun.

Wow – and did you catch Maxine Waters defending “Frank” Raines? And how about Barney Frank denying there is anything wrong? Holy cow. This pretty much says it all. Fannie Mae didn’t follow the rules then, and we are paying for it now…

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports: President Obama, like any other President, has his fair share of critics. Even fourth-graders have noticed.

“Why do people hate you?”, a fourth-grade boy asked Obama at a town hall event in New Orleans today. “They’re supposed to love you. And God is love.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” replied the President.

Here’s the video of the exchange, though the transcript is below if you’d prefer:

Um, what the hell was he talking about BEFORE the little boy asked his question? Wasn’t he saying, “It’s a man’s turn. Isn’t it? It’s a guy’s turn.” That’s what it sounded like to me, anyway…So, just what came BEFORE that?? Curious.

Obama continued his response to the child:

“First of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me,” Obama noted, before adding, “What is true is if you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody’s just getting mad all the time. And I — you know, I think that you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what’s called politics where, you know, once one party wins, then the other party kind of gets — feels like it needs to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes.”

“And so you shouldn’t take it too seriously,” Obama told the boy. “And then, sometimes, as I said before, people just — I think they’re worried about their own lives. A lot of people are losing their jobs right now. A lot of people are losing their health care or they’ve lost their homes to foreclosure, and they’re feeling frustrated. And when you’re president of the United States, you know, you’ve got to deal with all of that.”

So, um, not to quibble or anything, but just when do you think you are going to get around to dealing with job loss, home loss, and losing health care? Hey, just asking:

“You get some of the credit when things go good. And when things are going tough, then, you know, you’re going to get some of the blame, and that’s part of the job,” he continued. “But, you know, I’m a pretty tough guy.”

“You’ve just got to keep on going, even when folks are criticizing you, because — as long as you know that you’re doing it for other people, all right?” Obama concluded.

The boy’s question was the last one the President fielded at his event at the University of New Orleans, his first trip to the city since being elected to the Oval Office.

Well, there is a good reason the child asked that question. While Obama did get elected, the latest Fox Poll shows that he wouldn’t if the election was held today, as this article highlights, Fox News Poll: 43 Percent Would Vote To Re-Elect President Obama:If the election were held today, 43 percent of American voters would back Barack Obama for president, according to a new Fox News poll.

Oh dear. I guess that’s some of the “blame” Obama is getting for not fulfilling his campaign promises, for starters, not to mention his continued constant campaigning instead of working thing he’s got going on. Here are the results of this poll:

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama’s job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. (Emphasis mine.) That’s down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president — and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Moreover, the number of Americans saying they would vote to re-elect President Obama has dropped. If the election were held today the poll finds more voters say they would back someone else in the 2012 election than would back the president.

Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday, the latest Fox News poll finds the president’s ratings on foreign issues are lower than his overall job ratings. All in all, 49 percent of Americans say they approve of the job President Obama is doing and 45 percent disapprove. His average approval for the term so far is 58 percent.

Yep, Obama’s approval numbers are below 50% for the first time at 49%. How about on some of the issues:

On Afghanistan, 41 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Obama is doing and 43 percent disapprove. For his handling of Iran, 44 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove.

On the president’s handling of the economy, voters are almost equally split: 48 percent approve and 49 percent disapprove. On health care, some 42 percent approve of the president’s performance and half disapprove, 50 percent.

Among Democrats, 78 percent say they would vote to re-elect President Obama, down from 87 percent in April. For 2008 Obama voters, 81 percent say they would vote to re-elect him — that’s a slight up tick from the 79 percent who said so previously.

Six in 10 Americans — 60 percent — think Obama is a strong and decisive leader.
And while 38 percent think President Obama is getting good advice from his advisors, a larger number — 45 percent — think he is “listening to the wrong people.” (Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from October 13 to October 14. The poll has a 3-point error margin.)

Like Rahm Emmanuel, or David Axelrod, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid? Yeah, I’d say he’s listening to the wrong people.

And about that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing:

Did He Deserve It?

Upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama said, “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformational figures.” Most Americans agree with the president — 65 percent say he did not deserve to win, while 29 percent say he did.

Furthermore, a slim 54 percent majority of Democrats think Obama did deserve to win, while 38 percent disagree. For independents, 19 percent think he deserved it, while nearly three-quarters, 74 percent, say he did not. Among Republicans, almost all — 91 percent — say he did not deserve it.

When asked why the Nobel Committee gave the president the prize, about a third of Americans, 32 percent, say because he deserved it, while the largest number — 44 percent — think the committee hoped the prize would make Obama “think twice before using military force in the future.”

About that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing. Remember how we were all told the Committee Was unanimous in their decision to give it to Obama? Turns out that 3 out of 5 of them did NOT want to give it to him. Golly gee, I guess truth really DOES will out! Evidently, their reaction was the same as many of ours – he hasn’t DONE anything yet but speechify, for cryin’ out loud!

The poll also address how Congress was doing:

Most Americans are unhappy with Congress these days — 66 percent disapprove, including 45 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of independents and 84 percent of Republicans. Overall, less than one of four Americans, 24 percent, approve of the job Congress is doing.

Looking ahead to the 2010 Congressional election, for the first time this year the Republicans have the advantage: 42 percent of voters say they are more likely to back the Republicans to provide a check on President Obama’s power, while 38 percent say they would vote for the Democrat to help the president pass his policies.

Finally, in a rare example of bipartisan agreement, majorities of Democrats, 53 percent, Republicans, 78 percent, and Independents, 61 percent, agree the country is more divided these days. All in all, 64 percent of Americans think the country is more politically divided today — that’s more than twice the number who say it is not more divided, 31 percent.

Click here for the raw data.

What a bang-up job Obama has done in uniting us, just like he said he would. Blech. Can’t believe people fell for THAT line again, can you? Great – so glad there is one area that is truly bipartisan. Ahem.

And while President Obama is still feeling the love, the numbers of those who love him seem to be decreasing the more they open their eyes to see and their ears to hear. Such a shame they couldn’t muster that BEFORE the election, isn’t it? Now, his daily tracking poll continues to go down; Secretary Clinton’s approval numbers are higher than his (no big surprise to ME there); and his overall rating is at 49%. COngress doesn’t fare much better. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy, or more deserving Congress, could it?

See the Update about how many of our Elected Officials will/not be holding Town Hall Forums at the bottom of the page.

Friend to NQ, Kathleen Wynne from HandCountPaperallotsNow made a suggestion after seeing the negative spin the MSM is putting on reports of concerned citizens calling out their representatives on the issue of health care reform, even if all they want is for them to READ the damn thing. Here are some of her suggestions:

After watching the reporting by the usual suspects in the media, who are turning these protests into orchestrated, manufactured outrage, it’s clear that having a number of town hall meetings where those reps either chose not to participate in one or who chose to have a conference call instead, will help prove that they are merely trying to discredit these protests and undermine the citizens true feelings about the health care legislation. Or how Senator Boxer ridiculed citizens voicing their concerns as trying to “hurt our president” and too well dressed for this NOT to be orchestrated

:

Another point that should be put out there for all to see is that during the primary and general election, it was Obama, himself, who told his supporters to have debates with those who did not support him and “get in their face.” Here is a reminder of Obama saying that, along with some other actions by his supporters

:

More importantly, we want citizens to realize how important it is for them to participate in democracy and recognize how important they are in making these reps accountable and to expose their total indifference to the citizens’ concern, not to mention their total lack of knowledge of exactly what’s in the bill. This is a pivotal moment to increase citizen involvement in “taking to the streets” and keeping the pressure on. The longer citizens stay engaged in these protests, the less the MSM can dismiss them as “astro turf” (i.e., not real grassroots concerns), as Nancy Pelosi refers to them in this clip

:

Ms. Wynne is:

asking citizens in those towns where the representatives have chosen NOT to have a town hall meeting or worse, canceled them, to “BE THE MEDIA” by organizing and conducting town hall meetings themselves and having a public discussion about what they don’t like about the health-care bill and any of the other bills that have been rammed down our throats and videotape the event. In particular, they should make it clear that they are having the town hall meeting despite their representative’s choice to not have one or to cancel one. That should be made clear at the beginning, and then say that they would not be silenced.

Then request that clips of these events be sent to NQ, here, and other websites of their choosing in order to make the people’s outrage at not being listened to be seen and heard by other citizens, so that we know that this isn’t just a group of fringe groups being sent out to disrupt town hall meetings.*

It’s an end-run around the MSM’s attempt to ignore and not report what the people are really feeling about the Obama Administration’s policies.

Now word is coming that unions are being sent in to counter those who oppose this plan. And videos are already rolling in, including footage of union members (SEIU) getting into it with Tea Party protesters.

This is our country, and we have every right to speak out, to dissent, to question. And we have the right to speak out without fear of harassment, violence, or intimidation by those in power or their surrogates. We have the right to demand accountability of those whom we have elected to represent us, and that they REPRESENT US. That is their job, after all.

So, are you game? If so, feel free to send this post to whatever sites you frequent, and let’s get this thing rolling.

UPDATE: Check out how many of our elected officials are NOT meeting with their constituents:

An optimist has been defined as one who would, should a ton of crap be dumped on his doorstep, jump right in and rummage through it, convinced that there must be a pony in there somewhere. I tend towards optimism.

So, while not for one second denying that millions of citizens have been significantly harmed by the economic decline, disaster often has a way of encouraging the the best in human nature to come forward. As our society appears to increasingly embrace a narcissistic, materialistic morality, bearing witness to what this has wrought may shake us all up in a good way.

Here’s my list as to how that could happen.

1. Valuing experiences over accumulating tangible things. The research substantiates that happier people are less interested in stuff and mostly find their joy in experiences. And maybe the best things in life are not free, but some come close. To wit: a picnic in the park, walks through the closest pretty place, potluck dinners with a few friends, bird and other small critter watching (scrub jays are a hoot, especially if you have peanuts–shells and all–to offer them), and checking the paper for free events. (Many communities have slews of them every week.) It kind of takes getting used to after spending $10 for a movie and $20 for a dinner out, but it grows on you. “What is the most fun thing we can do that doesn’t cost anything (or very little)?” A great game for tough times.

2. Finding and exercising your creative self. You may have received a handmade card from a child. That beats Hallmark every time, yes? And with cards now costing as much as a gift did a few years ago, it’s time to get back to the joy of making things from scratch. Cards, wrapping paper (recycle those grocery bags and magazines with a great collage), clothing, beaded jewelry, playing with a food recipe, whatever. I have always taught my students that what is truly special about being human is our capacity to create something from nothing, to transform an idea or raw stuff into something that arose from inside our own selves. Pure joy awaits.

3. Valuing used goods. Just because it is new and no one else has touched it doesn’t mean it’s better. Increasing numbers of my friends are unabashedly buying clothing from thrift and second hand stores, not because they are absolutely forced to, but because it is fun. The bargains and “the look” can be stunning. They also like the idea of giving items another round of wear. Other friends are finding that some old things can be fixed, and sometimes they can even do it them themselves (from which they get the joy as described in #2). Money is saved in the process and for the environment, well that’s #4.

4. Helping Mother Nature. When errand times and routes are planned to conserve gasoline, and when stuff is reused or recycled, we help protect the environment. Bad economic times may help instill some good habits.

5. Learning what you don’t really need. A friend said recently, “You know, I have had to spend wisely because my job was furloughed, but I don’t miss a lot of stuff I thought I absolutely had to have. And I found some good less expensive replacements for things I needed. I’m feeling kind of proud of myself.” I think most people would be able to save money if they realized that some of what they want to replace is quite good enough as it is.

6. The joy of helping others. Another solid finding from the happiness research is that accumulating wealth and material things is not a marker of a satisfying life. One of the primary sources of life satisfaction is quite the opposite—giving of oneself to others. This current economic situation means for most of us that the need is no longer just about writing a check to some charity and sticking it in the mailbox. Rather, the needs are much closer to home now. The local school is short on basic supplies, the food bank is desperate for donations, a niece lost her home and needs a refrigerator for an apartment, a neighbor’s home was stripped bare by burglars when they were away for the day and they need a lot of things that the rest of us can spare. Giving is getting up close and personal—and doing it nourishes our souls.

7. A good time to drop bad habits. For those who eat or drink way too much, smoke, are dependent on unnecessary chemicals, to work on cutting them out not only saves cash but will help out with health costs–if not now, down the line. Indeed, taking care of ourselves in every way not only will cost less but maximizes the chances of a more vibrant life (while saving the rest of us money as well).

8. Grow some food. Even those with small places, so long as you have some sun and a place to put a pot or two, you can know the real taste of a tomato. I only recently started “farming” my yard. I made some mistakes (trying veggies that really don’t like my climate) but the successes are glorious. Besides tomatoes there are herbs, zucchini, oranges, peaches, pomegranates, guavas, and carrots. They don’t taste anything like what you buy in the store. They taste like…heaven. Maybe you don’t save a ton of money, and it does take some time to watch over them as they grow, but there is something deeply satisfying to be found here. Back to the land, I guess. (Oh, and help our landfill crisis by putting veggie, fruit scraps, and coffee grounds in a big container that you turn from time to time, and after some weeks you will have the greatest soil ever. You don’t absolutely have to add worms. The right bugs will find it on their own.)

9. Remembering how to save. I was so good as a kid. I would save up those pennies until I could buy something really cool. Then adulthood hits—earn a dollar and quickly spend it on something that beckons from TV. After all, we had to have “one of those” to be perceived is as successful human beings, right? Americans are not saving, and the ramifications are destructive for us all as the bankruptcy rate skyrockets and many people cannot even buy what they really need. Maybe after things settle down (fingers crossing here) savings accounts will become popular, and having one a source of family pride.

10. Lessons passed on to the children. If we do come to value each other more, conserve better, appreciate what we do have more, and place an emphasis on meaningful experiences and maintaining good health, our kids will pick up on it. Now, that would be priceless!

What do you think? Any ideas to add or expand upon?

1) At BriefingRoom.TheHill.com, Judd Gregg says the U.S. couldn’t even join the E.U. because of the U.S.’s debt levels.

“We won’t even be able to get into the E.U. if we wanted to,” Gregg said this morning on MSNBC, “because our government is so large and so huge.”

The European Union’s Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) adopted in 1997 requires a budget deficit to be less than three percent, and requires a national debt beneath 60 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“We’ve been lectured by France on the fact that we’re not fiscally responsible right now,” Gregg, the would-be commerce secretary, noted with incredulity.

That hurts.

2) The Weeklystandard.com notes that Obama’s been indulging in “just words.”

Some of what Obama says is just pablum and isn’t supposed to be taken as serious economic thought. At least I hope not. Rather, it might be called economic morale-boosting. Nothing wrong with that, unless he actually believes what he’s saying.
———-
Nor is Obama up to speed on tax incentives. He dismissed the fear of charities that a proposed reduction in the tax deductibility of donations by upper middle class and wealthy Americans would curb giving. “If it’s really a charitable contribution, I’m assuming that that shouldn’t be a determining factor as to whether you’re giving that $100 to the homeless shelter down the street.”

That’s easy for him to say. Every charity from museums and arts groups to hospitals is terrified by the proposed tax change. And it’s a fair assumption that they know a tax disincentive when they see one. The question is whether Obama does. Perhaps not.

Perhaps charities better front load all they can get from donors now. Obama seems to think a tax deduction doesn’t matter AT ALL. Maybe not for him. Last I heard, his tax returns showed very little charitable giving.

3) The Atlantic has a stunning piece about the financial mess. Here’s the summary:

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

I’ve often wondered if oligarchy isn’t the right term for what and/or who is driving U.S. policy.

4) Realclearpolitics has an interesting piece about the current economy and the lessons learned from the 30s.

Anybody who wants to pontificate about the economy, or the budget, or the deficit right now should think about three questions:

1. What changed the Depression from an ordinary recession into a worldwide catastrophe? (And how bad was it, anyway?)

2. Is this crisis the same or different?

3. If there’s risk of another depression, how do we stop it?

Interesting stuff.

In the first post on our nation’s Social Security system I tried to give a brief history of how the program came about and the immediate needs of people suffering from the Depression that caused FDR to propose and the Congress to enact the 1935 Social Security Act.

In this the second installment of the series I want to deal with two things. One, what were the provisions of the 1935 Social Security Act, and two, how has the 1935 Social Security Act program been changed or altered over the years.

The Social Security Act of 1935 created several different, wide-ranging, and separate programs. The Act created unemployment insurance, old-age assistance (essentially welfare), old-age benefits (we now call this Social Security), aid to dependent children, and grants to the states to provide various forms of medical care.

Below is a description of all of those programs, or Titles, the 1935 Social Security Act created with a brief description of each program.

Title I – Grants to States for Old-Age Assistance was designed to provide “financial assistance” to “aged needy individuals” immediately. In other words, this program was a welfare program for the aged and was to be administered by the individual states following federal guidelines and paid for out of the General Fund.

Title II – Federal Old Age Benefits.” Title II of the 1935 Social Security Act created a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement beginning in 1942. (First contributions had to be collected and a fund built up before being able to pay benefits.)

The Title II program would be paid for by contributions from both the individual and the employer and put into a Trust Fund (created in 1939) separate from the General Fund and for the express purpose of funding old age benefits. This is the program most of us mean when we say, “Social Security.”

Title III – This was also a grant program that provided financial assistance to the states for Unemployment Compensation and Administration and paid for out of the General Fund.

Title IV – Grants to States for Aid to Dependent Children paid for through the General Fund. In effect this was another welfare program.

Title V – Grants to the States for Maternal and Child Welfare, again paid for through the General Fund.

Title VI – Public Health Work, again paid for through the General Fund.

Title X – Grants to States for Aid to the Blind again paid for through the general Fund.

Titles VII, VIII, IX, and XI are administrative in nature and set up the Social Security Board and detailed how contributions/taxes would be collected especially for Title II.

As you can see, The 1935 Social Security Act was a very broad and all-encompassing program extending a social safety net far and wide for those suffering during the Depression and beyond. And except for Title II, all of these programs would be paid for through the General Fund.

[I can’t help but make a snarky remark here. Look at the specifics of this program and how it is targeted to help people in need and compare it to the Christmas tree approach of the current stimulus package.]

Over the years each of these programs has been referred to as “Social Security” since they were all created by the 1935 Social Security Act. But as you see, they are really separate and distinct programs funded in different ways. I tell you this now because I want you to know this and keep this in mind because the unscrupulous among us have sometimes deliberately misled people regarding some of these programs to try and achieve their own selfish agendas, especially as regards wanting to change the old age insurance benefits, or Title II of the Social Security program.

The Title II program is funded by FICA taxes. In short, the individual contributes into the system and the employer is taxed an equal amount. The self-employed must make both contributions. All of this money goes into a separate account, or Trust Fund, to be used expressly for and exclusively for those who contribute into Title II. None of this money ever goes into the General Fund. NOT EVER. Furthermore, no one can receive benefits under Title II unless they paid into the system for at least 40 quarters. If you did not pay into the system you are not eligible to receive any benefits. Therefore, no illegal alien can, and more importantly does not receive any monies from Title II, the Social Security old age insurance program – not one dime! (This is true even if they paid into the system under a phony or even stolen Social Security number, as some do.)

It is a different matter with the other programs that the 1935 Social Security Act created, as you will read a bit later.

Changes Made to 1935 Social Security Act
Now let’s look at how The 1935 Social Security Act has changed over the years. As I researched this I was amazed at how stable the program has been since its inception. It has occasionally been slightly tinkered with here and there, but by and large it is remarkable how few changes there have been. The main changes have tended to be in one of two categories. The first category increases benefits going to recipients, and the second is continually making the program more financially sound.

I am not going to list each and every minute change to this act. If you are interested in minutia you can go to Social Security History and the Social Security Administration has listed them all. I will only hit the highlights.

1935-1939

The original Social Security Act was mostly a white male program. According to Wikipedia most women and minorities were excluded from receiving benefits from all of the various programs through how employment was defined and through specific listing of the job categories that were or were not covered. Certain jobs were just plain and explicitly excluded from the program. For example, most agricultural workers were excluded, as well as nurses, teachers, hospital workers, librarians, and domestic workers to name just a few.

Since many of the programs were also administered by the states, even more discrimination crept into the programs at that level. Fortunately, the practice of discrimination began to change in the late 1930’s as shifting gender roles and positions of minorities in society began to change. By the 1950’s the debate changed from which occupations should be covered by Social Security to achieving universal coverage.

1939

Before Title II even paid out any benefits retirees there were changes made to the program in 1939. Originally benefits were to be paid only to the worker. The 1939 Amendments added two new categories of benefits. Payments could now be made to the spouse and minor children of a retired worker, and second, in the event of a premature death a survivor’s benefit was added.

The 1939 Amendments also increased Title II benefit amounts and moved up the start of the program from 1942 to 1940.

The taxing provisions of Title VIII [see above] were also removed in 1939 (would not have been constitutional) and authority to tax was placed with the IRS (constitutional) and renamed Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or as we affectionately know it today, FICA.

However, the most significant change in 1939 was the creation of a Trust Fund managed by the Secretary of the Treasury for any surplus monies collected. These excess funds could be invested in both marketable and non-marketable securities. I could do an entire post on the Trust Fund and how it operates; it is that all-encompassing. There is not enough room in this post to detail its inner workings.

1940-1950

For ten years between 1940 and 1950 only one significant change was made to any of the programs. The Social Security Board was abolished in 1946 and replaced by the Social Security Administration (SSA) headed by a single Commissioner. The SSA still exists today.

Benefit levels however, remained very low. According to the official Social Security History web pages, “……. until 1951, the average value of the welfare benefits received under the old-age assistance provisions of the Act [Title I] were higher than the retirement benefits received under Social Security [Title II] provision. And there were more elderly Americans receiving old-age assistance than were receiving Social Security.”

So several amendments to the Act were made in 1950. Again, from the official history page of the Social Security website, “These amendments increased benefits for existing beneficiaries for the first time …….and they dramatically increased the value of the program to future beneficiaries. By February 1951 there were more Social Security retirees than welfare pensioners, and by August of that year, the average Social Security retirement benefit exceeded the average old-age welfare assistance grant for the first time.”

Today most people know that the Title II program has an annual cost-of-living (COLA) clause. This was not always the case. The first retirees received the same monthly benefit for the remainder of their life. But that also changed in 1950 when a COLA was enacted by Congress. At that time these increases were not automatic and were enacted by Congress periodically as necessary. It was not until 1972 that Congress enacted legislation providing for an annual automatic COLA based on the average increase in consumer prices.

Also in the 1950’sthe disability provisions were strengthened.

1960’s and 1970’s

The decade of the 60’s brought several significant and major changes to the Social Security Act. Retirees were given a choice of early retirement with a reduced annual benefit.

But by far the biggest change in the decade of the 1960’s was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 30, 1965. The Medicare program extended health coverage to retirees by helping them pay for hospital and medical expenses.

Like Title II of the 1935 Act, Medicare is a social insurance plan for people aged 65 or older. It operates as a single-payer heath care plan. This program consists of two parts. Part A is for hospital insurance, and Part B is for medical insurance. The 1965 amendment did not provide for prescriptions in most instances. It would be 30 more years before prescription drugs would be added to the program. Medicare is paid for by additional FICA taxes and is administered by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). [Snarky comment #2, for those keeping count- which thankfully Tom Daschle will not be heading.]

Above is video of President Johnson signing the Medicare Bill and Former President Harry Truman signing up for Medicare.

As mentioned earlier, another major change in the 1970’s was the introduction of the permanent COLA.

There were a series of Amendments made in 1977 to deal with projected shortfalls due to the bad economy of the 70’s. And for the first time the issue of a projected shortfall due to the baby boom is mentioned and a slight FICA increase was made.

Supplemental Security Income
If you remember, The 1935 Social Security Act created several different programs. Except for title II, the other programs were administered by the states with partial funding from the federal government.

Over the years the programs varied tremendously from state to state with payments to recipients varying by as much as 300% between the states. There were also over 1000 agencies administering these programs. It was a bureaucratic nightmare rife with confusion and inequalities.

In 1969 President Richard Nixon changed that. He initiated reforms that would “bring reason, order, and purpose into a tangle of overlapping programs.” At Nixon’s instance Congress federalized Title I, Title X, and the disabled category (created in the fifties) by creating the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI) in the Social Security Amendments of 1972.

The Social Security Administration, created in 1946 to administer Title II, was chosen to administer this new SSI program because of its reputation for successful administration of the Title II program and because of its nationwide field offices and data-processing and record keeping skills.

However, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a Federal income supplement program funded by general tax revenues, not with Social Security or FICA taxes.

In keeping with the original Titles and the disability amendment SSI is designed to help the aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income, and provides cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.

I am going to include this next part here, even though it is out of chronological order because it deals with SSI benefits to illegal aliens. This is often the source of the misunderstanding, urban legends, myths, or downright lies about illegals getting Social Security Title II benefits.

During President Clinton’s administration a balanced budget bill was passed and a Welfare Reform bill was passed. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 among other provisions restored SSI eligibility to some non-citizens whose eligibility would have been terminated under the Welfare Reform Act.

Now here is where it can sometimes get dicey. Some politicians and some activist who do not like Social Security (Title II) and want to totally get rid of it, and/or who would like to make some money off of the pool of money in the Title II Trust Fund sometimes play fast and loose with the truth.

When people sometimes will say that immigrants and/or illegals are receiving Social Security what is most likely happening is that eligible aliens are receiving SSI monies. Some folks do not distinguish between Title II monies and SSI monies. And because many people do not know the difference between the two programs, and because both programs are run by the same Social Security Administration, many people believe that illegals are dipping into their retirement pot and that they will bankrupt the Title II system. They are not. They are getting SSI monies.

Beware and ask questions when someone tells you illegals are raiding the Social Security system. Ask those who are telling you these things if the immigrants or illegals are getting Title II monies or SSI monies. Now you know the difference between the two and hopefully you won’t be fooled by the games some folks like to play with your emotions.

The 1980’s

Major changes were made to Title II by President Ronald Reagan upon the recommendations of the Greenspan Commission in the 1983 Amendments. These changes were in response to both short term and long term projected shortfalls in the system.

Contributions amounts went up for both individuals and employers, retirement age went up, some benefits were lowered, more federal employees were added into the system, taxed Social Security benefits, among many other provisions.

The original Title II program was a pay-as-you-go program. In other words, current workers paid for benefits for current retirees. This was great for the WW II retirees as 78.2 million baby boom workers could afford to pay to fund increased benefits for many years. The 1983 Amendments changed this formula. For the first time in Social Security’s Title II history the baby boom generation was funding a part of their own retirement simply because there were not enough citizens behind them to afford to continue the same benefit level for them unless they helped to pay for it up front.

1990’s and 2000’s

In addition to the changes already mentioned under SSI President Bill Clinton also made some changes to the disability portions of the act.

However it was left to President George W. Bush to make the biggest and most controversial change to the Medicare portion of Title II in 38 years. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act was enacted in 2003. During hearings on the bill the projected cost of the Prescription Bill was estimated to be $400 billion.

I will let Wikipedia take up the story from here: “The MMA was signed by President George W. Bush on December 8, 2003, after passing in Congress by a close margin.

“One month later, the ten-year cost estimate was boosted to $534 billion, up more than $100 billion over the figure presented by the Bush administration during
Congressional debate. The inaccurate figure helped secure support from fiscally conservative Republicans who had promised to vote against the bill if it cost more than $400 billion. It was reported that an administration official, Thomas A. Scully, had concealed the higher estimate and threatened to fire Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster if he revealed it. By early 2005, the White House Budget had increased the 10-year estimate to $1.2 trillion.

“Former US Comptroller General David M. Walker has called this “…probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s… because we promise way more than we can afford to keep.”

One of the strongest organizations lobbying for the bill was AARP. It was during the Prescription drug debacle that I first learned, realized, or finally understood that AARP is not an advocate organization. It is an insurance company first and foremost. It will look out for its corporate interests first. And making money was clearly more important than helping poor people afford life-saving prescription drugs. To this day I refuse to join AARP for that reason alone.

President George W. Bush also attempted to privatize Social Security, but that did not fly. I think W learned an important lesson. Don’t rile up the senior set. One, they are vocal. And two, they vote!!! However, that issue is not dead and there are still many individuals and organizations who would like to privatize Title II.

We will deal with the issue of privatization in the next installment in this series entitled, “Is Social Security Really Broke?”

CAPTION: On January 31, 1940, the first monthly retirement check was issued to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, in the amount of $22.54.

Miss Fuller, a Legal Secretary, retired in November 1939. She started collecting benefits in January 1940 at age 65 and lived to be 100 years old, dying in 1975.

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Until my next installment, please keep these figures in mind:

In 1940 when the first benefits were paid 222,488 people received benefits totaling $35,000,000.

By 2006 there were 7,235,565 people receiving benefits totaling $41,312,000,000.

Since 1935 – for 74 years -The Social Security Act has literally kept millions of retired and disabled Americans from the poor house during the ups and downs, good and bad times, and the recessions and depressions our country has faced. Not bad for a government program!!!!

Editor’s Note: Yes! This essay is written by “bert,” who you all know from her regular comments here. She submitted this superb article for publication, and we are so pleased to share this fine writing and excellent research with you. Below, you’ll see that “bert” also found a shocking historic photograph and a video of Franklin Roosevelt signing the bill into law. Thank you, bert!

This post is a follow-up to Susan’s excellent post last Friday regarding Social Security remaining this country’s core safety net, for that is truly what it is.  

During the Bush administration there was a move afoot to privatize Social Security. There are rumors and signals from the Obama administration that politicians will again try to “save” Social Security by privatizing it. 

It is amazing that while most, if not all of us, pay into the system and will some day be eligible to receive benefits, most of us know very little about how the program came about and how it operates. There is a lot of misinformation out there and many people labor under some pretty big myths about the program. 

When I was a child I loved Friday nights. Since it was not a school night I could stay up late and watch one of my favorite TV shows, Dragnet, a classic police drama. The lead character, Sergeant Joe Friday, was played by actor Jack Webb as a serious, no-nonsense, slightly droll officer. When interviewing victims or witnesses all he wanted was “the facts,” no emotional fluff for this detective. 

In fact, the phrase, “Just the facts, ma’am,” became his trademark line. (Piece of trivia – Sergeant Friday never uttered those exact words. That phrase was uttered by Stan Freberg in a parody of Dragnet. But that is a different story all together.) 

However, a “just the facts, ma’am” mentality is exactly what we will need if we are to save this vital core social safety net from politicians who for some reason want to do away with this program. That is the purpose of this post and future ones if necessary. I want to give you, I want to arm you with facts about our – your – Social Security program. 

I had initially hoped to write one comprehensive post. But when I began to do the research I found out there was just so much great information out there I could not get it all into one post. So I have decided to break it down into more manageable pieces. In this post I will deal with how and why Social Security came into existence. In subsequent posts I will deal with the changes that have been made to the program over the years, and last of all try to answer the question: is the Social Security program bankrupt? 

So let’s start at the beginning. How and why did Social Security begin? 

Everyone knows that Social Security was created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression. But why? What were the conditions that made helping senior citizens and children so imperative? 

We all tend to think Social Security was only in response to the Great Depression. But the Great depression had roots in many places, not the least of which was the Industrial Revolution. 

If you remember your American history classes you know that there was a shift from an agricultural society to an industrialized society in the mid to late 1800’s. The Industrial Revolution and the resulting urbanization of America led to the disappearance of the "extended" family and the safety net it provided young and old alike. 

This also meant that more people were dependent on wages to buy food. Prior to the Industrial Revolution most families could at least grow enough food to feed their immediate family.  

All of that changed in the decades before the Great Depression. When economic income is primarily from wages then your economic security can be threatened by factors outside of your control. Recessions, bank failures, layoffs, failed business can all adversely affect you. And none of those things are your fault. You can still work hard but that will not protect you from the vagaries of the market. 

The upshot of all this is that the old ways of providing for economic security for children and the elderly were crumbling prior to and during the depression. Keep that in the back of your minds as you read about the Great Depression and what happened to ordinary folks like yourselves.   

Most historians agree that the Great Depression began on Black Friday, the day the Stock market crashed, October 27, 1929.  Herbert Hoover was President. Most people believed the economy would correct itself as the nation had survived worse recessions. But this belief soon proved untrue. 

According to the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, by the time FDR took the oath of office in January, 1933 unemployment had grown from 8 million at the start of the recession to 15 million people. This was roughly one-third of the non-farmer work force. The GNP had fallen from $103.8 billion to 55.7 billion.  

When the depression began about 18 million elderly, disabled, and single mothers with children lived at bare subsistence levels. [Emphasis mine] By 1933 another 13 million Americans had lost their jobs. States, which had been caring for the elderly, disabled, and mothers with children, were over-whelmed and could no longer provide even minimum help. Poorhouses and orphanages were created to help, but often conditions in these institutions were extremely harsh and only the most destitute would apply. 

Food riots broke out, men deserting their families began to rise, and the homeless were living in public parks and in shanty towns. The effect of the Depression on poor children was devastating. 

Most of the elderly did not have personal savings or retirement pensions to even provide for bare minimum support during good economic times, let alone during an economic crisis. For those that did those savings and investments were wiped out by the crash.  

Americans had always taken pride in their rugged individualism and self-reliance. But these kinds of harsh realities and conditions made many Americans begin to question that assumption.  

From the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers: 

“…… Although the depression was world wide, no other country except Germany reached so high a percentage of unemployed. The poor were hit the hardest. By 1932, Harlem had an unemployment rate of 50 percent and property owned or managed by blacks fell from 30 percent to 5 percent in 1935. Farmers in the Midwest were doubly hit by economic downturns and the Dust Bowl. Schools, with budgets shrinking, shortened both the school day and the school year. 

The breadth and depth of the crisis made it the Great Depression. 

No one knew how best to respond to the crisis. President Hoover believed the dole would do more harm than good and that local governments and private charities should provide relief to the unemployed and homeless. By 1931, some states began to offer aid to local communities. FDR, then governor of New York, worked with Harry Hopkins and Frances Perkins to begin a direct work relief program. This helped only a very few. By 1932, only 1/4 of unemployed families received any relief. In 1932, only 1.5 percent of all government funds were spent on relief and averaged about $1.67 per citizen. [Emphasis mine]  

Cities, which had to bear the brunt of the relief efforts, teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. By 1932, Cook County (Chicago) was firing firemen, police, and teachers (who had not been paid in 8 months). Breadlines and Hoovervilles (homeless encampments) appeared across the nation.”   [See photo below] 

Citation: The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers."The Great Depression." Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt, ed. by Allida Black, June Hopkins, et. al. (Hyde Park, New York: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, 2003). http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/great-depression.htm 

This picture haunts my heart and my soul. This is America circa 1932. It looks like a third world country.  

For more depression era photos click link below: 

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/photoessay.htm 

In America prior to Social Security there were Civil War veteran’s pensions and some company pensions. I will not delve into that history except to note there is some precedent to Social Security in America 

Some states provided aid for the elderly and retirees. But these state programs were basically just welfare programs and eligibility was based on financial need. Then, as now, most Americans opposed welfare type programs. Furthermore, these plans were woefully inadequate, most providing less than $1 a day. And when the depression came there were just too many in need for them to be effective. 

Throughout 1934 Roosevelt talked about ‘national economic insecurity’ and a ‘social insurance’ plan during many of his fireside chats. On June 8, 1934, Roosevelt announced his intention to provide for a Social Security program. By executive order he initiated a commission composed of five of his top cabinet-level officials to find a way to achieve this goal. The committee was instructed to study the entire problem and to make recommendations that would serve as the basis for legislation. 

What Roosevelt did that was so innovative was to introduce an alternative to welfare and called it “social insurance.” He changed the debate. He created a work-related, contributory system in which workers would provide for their own future economic security through personal and company paid contributions, or taxes, paid while they are still employed. 

“Security,” Roosevelt said, “was attained in the earlier days through the interdependence of members of families upon each other and of the families within a small community upon each other. The complexities of great communities and of organized industry make less real these simple means of security. Therefore, we are compelled to employ the active interest of the Nation as a whole through government in order to encourage a greater security for each individual who composes it . . . This seeking for a greater measure of welfare and happiness does not indicate a change in values. It is rather a return to values lost in the course of our economic development and expansion . . .”  [All emphasis mine] 

In January 1935 the commission made its report to the President and on January 17, 1935 Roosevelt sent the report to both houses of Congress for simultaneous consideration.  

The final bill was passed into law by voice vote on August 8, 1935 in the House (372 Yes, 33 no, 25 not voting) and on August 9th in the Senate (77 yes, 6 no, 12 not voting). 
 
On August 14, 1935 President Roosevelt signed the bill into law at a ceremony in the White House Cabinet Room. 

President Roosevelt’s remarks on this video, posted by politicalhack28, say it all:  

"We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age." 

From the Social Security – History website: “The two major provisions relating to the elderly were Title I- Grants to States for Old-Age Assistance, which supported state welfare programs for the aged, and Title II-Federal Old-Age Benefits. It was Title II that was the new social insurance program we now think of as Social Security. The new Act created a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement.” 

The original bill provided benefits only to the worker. In 1939 an amendment added two new categories of benefits – payment to a spouse and minor children of a retired worker (dependents benefit) and survivors benefits in case of a premature death of a covered worker. This changed Social Security from a workers only retirement program to a family based economic security program. 

From the Report of the Social Security Board which recommended those changes: 

"It is impossible under any social insurance system to provide ideal security for every individual. The practical objective is to pay benefits that provide a minimum degree of social security—as a basis upon which the worker, through his own efforts, will have a better chance to provide adequately for his individual security."  

Now how does all of this affect me here and now?  

According to the National Center for Policy Analysis that is really quite simple. 

“SOCIAL SECURITY IMPORTANT FOR RETIREMENT OF POOR AND RICH” 

“Even the wealthy depend upon Social Security for much of their consumption after they quit working, according to a new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). 

Consider:

Social Security accounts for virtually all of the discretionary consumption of households with pre-retirement incomes of less than $50,000 a year or $25,000 for singles.  

Social Security accounts for about one-third of all discretionary consumption for the highest-income households — couples earning $500,000 or singles earning $250,000 prior to retirement.   

A primary goal of financial planning is to maintain a consistent standard of living during a person's lifetime.  If Social Security were abolished tomorrow, all retirees would experience an immediate reduction in their consumption.   

If younger workers were notified in advance, they could adjust their saving and spending habits today to avoid abrupt changes in their standard of living upon retirement.   

Yet only the highest income workers have the ability to adjust so as to completely smooth their consumption across their lifetime.  Because low- and middle-income workers are constrained by current obligations they cannot completely adjust.  

For example, if Social Security benefits were eliminated for workers age 35 or younger:

A couple with an annual income of $500,000 could level their consumption across their lifetime by reducing their current consumption by almost 18 percent in each succeeding year.  

Yet a couple with an annual income of $200,000 that reduced their current consumption by almost 24 percent, would experience approximately another 15 percentage point reduction in consumption upon retirement.  

A couple with an annual income of $50,000 that reduced their current consumption by more than 21 percent would experience another 26 percentage point reduction upon retirement.” 

Source: Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Ben Marx and Pietro Rizza, "How Much Do Americans Depend on Social Security?" National Center for Policy Analysis, Policy Report No. 301, August 2007. 

So on Friday last, Susan was one-hundred percent correct: Social Security is this nation’s CORE safety net in good and bad times; but especially in the bad times.  

Don’t let anyone, especially politicians take your safety net away and give it to Wall Street types.