Republicans Eye Social Security Phase-out, Seek to Gut Earned Income Program

Republicans' Warrant to Destroy Security Security, SSA Trustees Are Trump Loyalists

Commentary

Scariest fourteen words in politics are: I'm from the Republican Party and I'm here to save Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans have for decades expressed desire to phase out Medicare and Social Security, and call it, entitlement reform, (Krugman, New York Times) (Krugman, New York Times).

Now, Republicans are squealing, again as they have for many years, they want to save Social Security. They call it reform again.

Writes Paul Krugman in June:

Whatever you may have heard, Social Security isn’t in danger of going bankrupt.

What we’re facing, instead, is potential political crisis. Congress and the White House could easily take action to sustain America’s retirement system. But given the current state of our politics, there’s no guarantee that they will. ... 

So don’t believe Republicans’ gaslighting that it will be necessary to cut Social Security benefits. All that is necessary to preserve Social Security is political will to raise taxes on the wealthy and a sensible immigration policy.

Today, "Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) call for Republicans to act on Social Security reform if they keep control of Congress in 2027 is getting pushback from Senate Republicans who warn it’s a bad political message heading into November."

"Yet, a trustees’ report that the popular retirement program will become insolvent sooner than expected has lit a fire under lawmakers in both parties to call for reforms such as raising the cap on payroll taxes, 'means testing' beneficiaries, raising the retirement age, and creating personal accounts to invest in the stock markets," reports Alexander Bolton.

First, the Social Security trustees are all Trump loyalists, extremists who will follow any and all of Trump's dictates.  

Trump and Republican-led Congress are intentionally trying to bleed and starve the Social Security Trust Funds, and then tell you they have no choice but to gut the most popular earned-income, social program in history.

It's like choking and starving someone to use a sick metaphor, and then declaring this person is unsustainable, insolvent and cannot live, so sorry.

From the Social Security Administration:

The Board of Trustees is comprised of four members who serve by virtue of their positions with the federal government: Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury and Managing Trustee; Frank J. Bisignano, Commissioner of Social Security; Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services; and Keith E. Sonderling, Acting Secretary of Labor. The two public trustee positions are currently vacant.

Means testing means the government will investigate all of your assets and determine whether you get benefits from Social Security system that you paid into all of your life. 

Implementing means testing would usher in a radical, new attack on the Social Security system.

Republicans also advocate raising the retirement age before you can accept Social Security benefits.

Corporate media remains a hostile force against Social Security.

By law, Social Security has its own dedicated revenue streams (payroll taxes) and legally distinct trust funds from the U.S. Treasury. 

Any politician, such as Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) who says we need to cut Social Security benefits, which has funded the rest of government spending for decades, is lying.

"The argument being used to cut Social Security is that because we have a significant deficit problem and a $14 trillion national debt, [in 2011] we just can’t afford to maintain Social Security benefits. This argument is false. Social Security, because it is funded by the payroll tax, not the U.S. Treasury, has not contributed one nickel to our deficit," warned Bernie Sanders back in 2011. "In fact, according to a very recent study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Social Security has a $2.5 trillion dollar surplus and can pay out every penny owed to every eligible American for the next 27 years until 2038." 

As Paul Krugman noted in 2015, "[N]o, Social Security does not face a financial crisis; its long-term funding shortfall could easily be closed with modest increases in revenue." (New York Times)

But our money is looked upon as potential windfalls by predatory Wall Street, and the media corporations who do Wall Street's bidding, want our money, your money.

Republicans surveilling your money should frighten the hell out of you. 

I have no idea if Democrats are up to the challenge of stopping the Republicans.

Wisconsin Gov Primary—Mandela Barnes Took $250,000-plus from Israel Lobby in 2022

Mandela Barnes accepted $251,415 from the Israel Lobby
as the 2022 Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate.
Barnes is a candidate for the 2026 Democratic Party
nomination for governor. Election Day is Aug 11.
Barnes' 2022 campaign gifts are tracked by Open Secrets.

Israel Lobby Gifted Barnes Campaign in 2022 Senate Run, Will Doom Electability as Pro-Genocide Blood Money Shows Character Problem

Commentary

Madison, Wisconsin—The campaign for the Democratic nominee for Wisconsin governor is off and running.

Mandela Barnes, whose supporters are dropping dishonest 'electabililty-concern' social media posts about Barnes' opponents, has taken to dead silence when asked about his accepting $251,415 from the Israel Lobby as 2022 Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate, (see Open Secrets).

During the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes was gifted substantial pro-Israel money from Zionist donors and conduits.

Barnes explicitly declared in 2022, "It's important that Israel remains a strong ally and a strong partner in the Middle East," in June 2022, just before absentee voting began, as reported in Jewish Insider as Barnes sought to highlight his pro-Zionist commitment.

Barnes told the Jewish Democratic Council of America forum in June 2022 that he opposes the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) that seeks to highlight and stop Israeli human rights atrocities, (Washington Free Beacon).

The Mandela Barnes campaign is a top U.S. Senate candidate recipient of pro-Israel money during the 2022 federal elections.

Barnes has paid lip service to Wisconsin's peace movement, but has run from associations with anti-Genocide groups, (Washington Free Beacon).

But Israel-committed Genocide, Israel-sanctioned rape, torture and massacres of children play less well among the Democrat-voting electorate in 2026, and appears to be determinative in Michigan primaries to be held in early August, signaling a similar campaign dynamic in Wisconsin.

Top candidates for the 2026 Democratic Party nominee for Wisconsin governor include: Mandela Barnes, Francesca Hong, Sara Rodriguez, David Crowley, Kelda Roys and Missy Hughes. See analyses at Bill McCoshen in Dairyland Sentinel.

Barnes campaign was contacted by email asking: 

What is your comment on accepting $251,415 from the Israel Lobby as 2022 Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate?

Do you renounce this blood money?

As of Saturday, no comment from Barnes has been received.

Absentee voting for the Wisconsin Aug 11 elections begins June 26.

Memorial Day Weekend—2026

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—Memorial Day weekend begins today and we honor the fallen, the families, and make sense of sacrifice by keeping faith with revolutionary spirit.

This Summer we mark our 250th anniversary as a country and a promise of eternal hostility toward oppression.

We betray the fallen if we fail to speak out against the demonic beasts among us.

Our country is betraying the service of all by becoming a vassal state of Israel.

Our government has become Israel-first, fighting wars and draining our common treasure for the focus of evil in the world.

Today, right here, now, we must resist the enemies and traitors is our midst.

Israel must die, so humanity can live.

Democrats Need to Learn How to Speak about Liberty

Commentary

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—Wrote a piece eight years ago on voting rights work by city of Madison, Wisconsin, (In These Times).

Imagine a municipality affirmatively advancing the personal liberty of voting, a fundamental Constitutional right. That's what Madison, and other Wisconsin municipalities did.

But I had trouble getting a decent quote from Madison, and had to settle for Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl's statement. "Our goal is for each eligible voter to be able to cast a ballot and have that ballot counted."

Witzel-Behl's statement is bureaucratic, almost defensive, and neither mentions or shows explicit reverence to people's personal liberty to vote. Typical Democrat. No values, no understanding of what voting means as a liberty.

Liberty is ours, and Democrats don't get that.

That's because Witzel-Behl and virtually every Wisconsin Democrat in office do not believe in our foundational liberty of voting in Wisconsin, under Article III, Suffrage, Wisconsin Constitution. Democrats are little more than victims from multi-front attacks on cherished liberties. 

And federally, with a few exceptions, national Democrats are not much better. See Democracy Docket for an example of how to talk about and litigate liberty.

If Democrats want to establish a political culture defending and advocating for Constitutionally guaranteed liberties such as voting rights, they have failed—a dangerous defect when judicial supremacy reigns under a Republican judicial assault against liberty led by Republican partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Civil Rights Movement

Memphis, Tennessee, USA, Civil Rights Marchers with 
"I Am A Man" Signs, 1968—Image Bettmann/CORBIS
Zinn Education Project

The 1950s-60s-70s succeeded culturally, legislatively and in federal court because grassroots Americans and citizen groups presented clear, moral and constitutionally grounded arguments for liberty, equality and the promise of America.

No DEI, no politically correct, scolding semantics, no identity-politics polemics that today seeks to foist and instruct a flight from reason onto the grassroots whose duty is perceived as mindless compliance.

Voting is your liberty, voting is your right. Anybody tries to stop you has to answer to us. That' needs to be the political message. This commitment and political statement is something we rarely get from Democrats.

The current assault on voting ofcourse is a long project of Republicans.

Wisconsin 2008 Voter Obstruction Effort

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and the Republican Party leveled their guns to obstruct voting rights on Wisconsin in 2008, lest too many of the wrong type of voters showed up for Obama.

Trump is attempting to replicate what Van Hollen wanted.

See Van Hollen's and the GOP 2008 efforts at voter suppression in which Van Hollen's ridiculous effort was tossed out of court.

In the 2008 case, (J B Van Hollen vs. Government Accountability Board (GAB) et al) Van Hollen tried to create a new Wisconsin constitutional qualification to vote by fiat: A perfect match of spelling of voters' names in state bureaucracies, after first secretly assuring fellow Republicans he would commence this frivolous legal action at the 2008 Republican National Convention held in Minneapolis, as first reported by WisPolitics in a scoop that includes audio.

Several former judges serving on the state Elections Board would have failed Van Hollen's new constitutional standard proposed in 2008, as this GOP effort drew wide ridicule and defeat in court.

"Nothing in state or federal law requires that there be a data match as a prerequisite for a citizen's right to vote," Judge Maryann Sumi said in dismissing Van Hollen's lawsuit that tried to use the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) as a voter suppression tool.

Today, Trump is attempting his similar anti-voting project by trying to nationalize state-administered elections. Trump is trying to create federal bureaucratic lists of state voters, and appointing his administration as the sole deciders who determine who gets to vote, based on bureaucratic and documentary exact matches of voters' names with mandated new documentation.

Elected Democrats need to comprehend and explain what Trump and Republicans are up to: Creation of anti-voting federal bureaucracies, unconstitutional bureaucracies, and simply speak out in clear terms: Don't fuck with voters.

I have my doubts Democrats' are equipped to stand with voters.