RETIRED SENATOR SIMPSON NEEDS TO RETURN TO HIS "WIDE OPEN SPACES" IN WYOMING

It´s bewildering why President Obama would appoint someone that would vote to "privatize Social Security" to co-chair the Fiscal Responsibility Commission…?

...Retired Wyoming Senator, Alan Simpson

As I was growing up, due to my dad´s profession, we moved all over the country and I use to really like it when we would be traveling across the state of Wyoming with all its wide-open spaces. Little did I know back then that it was Wyoming that brought us two radical Republican Senators. First there was Senator Milward Simpson, and later came his son, the GOP Senator, Alan Simpson. Yes, I know, Wyoming also brought us Richard (Dick) Cheney, but that is another story for a much later date.

Alan K. Simpson was a Wyoming US Senator from 1979 to 1997. And as it was with Dick Cheney´s early years in government, Alan Simpson was also a Wyoming member of the US House of Representatives prior to becoming a US Senator.

After Senator Simpson retired from the Senate in 1997, many of us were hoping that we had seen the last of him on the "Hill" in DC, but no such luck.

Unfortunately, since President Obama has been unsuccessful in getting any support from the current "Party of Lincoln", in the Senate, the president decided to appoint a retired senate member of the GOP to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility. If anyone were looking for an appropriate, bi-partisan appointment to this important commission, this definitely isn´t someone that I would have selected.

As of today, Alan Simpson has now become the co-chair of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission.

I have never had any respect for this Wyoming Senator. Nor have I appreciated his "down home snide Republican elitism". In addition, he regularly demonstrates a vulgar "Wyoming cowhand approach" when dealing with the media or the general public. I have absolutely no faith that any real good for the American public will come from any commission that the retired senator, Alan Simpson, co-chairs.

Based on a recent interview that Simpson had with a Mr. Alex Lawson of the watch-dog organization, Social Security Works, I suspect that statement is even more true today.

The Washington Post published the complete interview and it definitely proved that Mr. Simpson is totally biased against Social Security. It also shows just how rude of a person he can really be. It shows that he has no clue as to what Social Security "is for" and "how" it is funded and how it actually works. As has been said about the aforementioned interview (which is available on YouTube and various political web sites) between Mr. Simpson and a very polite Mr. Lawson, the interview was referred to as:...."well, quite extraordinary!" (And that is being extremely kind.)

For some comments and inputs on the fiscal committee, the Commission is currently taking aim at the programs that are intended to form this nation's public safety nets (the so called "entitlement programs"). Rather than focus on eliminating most of Bush's tax cuts for corporations and individuals, the commission is apparently focusing on Social Security as a vulnerable target, given the state of the economy after the bank-induced financial crisis.

However, this approach falls directly into the hands of those who have long wanted to eliminate or privatize Social Security, i.e.: Alan Simpson. This is all occurring in spite of the fact that Social Security is not the cause of the deficit, (profligate bank speculation is the cause). And even though Social Security itself is nowhere near bankrupt (it continues to produce a large annual surplus), and the potential problems predicted for the far-out future can be easily handled at a later date. (As in 40 years from now, when who knows what the economics of the country will look like…..?) At that time, we could easily remove the cap on Social Security contributions and/or we could also tax capital and/or labor income, if it were to become necessary.

Here are some excerpts from the interview, and you can come to your own conclusions regarding Mr. Simpson´s capabilities:

Item 1:

ALEX LAWSON: What about adequacy? Are you focusing on [Social Security] adequacy as well?

ALAN SIMPSON: Where do you come up with all the crap you come up with? We´re trying to take care of the "lesser people" in society and do that in a way without getting into all the flash words you love to dig up, like cutting Social Security, which is bullshit. We´re not cutting anything, we´re trying to make it solvent. It´ll go broke in the year 2037.

(Author´s comment: Yes, Mr. Simpson actually referred to anyone on Social Security as "lesser people". In addition, Social Security is producing an annual $180 Billion surplus and it is not attached to the government´s General Fund. S.S. is not even close to going broke!)

Item 2:

LAWSON: .....in my understanding, from actually looking at the 1983 commission, they actually started prefunding the retirement of the baby boomers by building up that huge surplus.

SIMPSON: They never knew there was a baby boom in ´83.

(Author´s comment: Simpson claims they didn't know about the baby boom the last time major changes were made to Social Security, in 1983. Per the GAO, the last baby boomers were born in 1964. The whole point of the 1983 commission (which was supported by then Republican President Reagan) was to start building up a surplus to prepare for the eventual retirement of the baby boomers. Even I was aware of that. As a retired US Senator, Mr. Simpson should also have known that.)

Item 3:

SIMPSON: Listen. Listen. It´s 2.5 trillion bucks in IOU´s [they are not IOU´s, they are US Treasury Bonds] which have been used to build the interstate highway system and all of the things people have enjoyed since it has been setup.

LAWSON: And two wars, and tax cuts for the wealthy.

SIMPSON: Whatever, whatever. You pick your crap and I´ll pick the real stuff. It has to do with the highway system, it was to run America. And those [US Bonds] are in there. And now there is not enough coming in every month.

(Author´s Comment: Yes, Mr. Simpson calls "two wars and tax cuts for the wealthy: crap", and Simpson claims Social Security's surplus is gone because the money was used to build the Interstate Highway System. The truth is the majority of the Interstate Highways were built in the 1950's, 30 years before Social Security started building up any surplus. The Interstate´s construction and maintenance today is currently funded by gas taxes, not Social Security.)

Item 4:

LAWSON: It´s not Social Security that´s increasing the deficit, because it´s still bringing in more money than goes out. What I´m telling you is Social Security is separate from the general budget, right? It´s totally in the green.

SIMPSON: But it wasn´t. Just four weeks ago, there wasn´t as much coming in as going out.

LAWSON: Except you´re not calculating the interest paid on the bonds, because, if you do include that, it´s still in the green.

SIMPSON: Well you can go through all the "sophistry of babbling" that you want to.

LAWSON: It´s not sophistry. It´s just what the S.S.A. says. So I´m just going on the numbers.

(Author´s Comment: Yes, Simpson calls billions in US Bond interest "babbling sophistry", while he falsely claims Social Security "increases the deficit". Social Security never has and never will "increase the deficit". That's because, by law, Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.)

The president needs to ask Mr. Simpson to resign from the Commission. The senator doesn´t know what´s going on and he is against the most successful social program ever provided for the American public. There are many web sites such as www.MoveOn.org that are promoting for Mr. Simpson to, as they say in Wyoming; "just move along little doggie".

I support that idea as well.

Copyright G.Ater 2010

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