The Daily Change

(Photo credit: Fort Rucker)

As a part of fiscal negotiations, President Obama has offered to calculate both veterans and Social Security benefits with a “Chained CPI,” which would involve huge cuts to both programs.

Seventeen different veterans organizations wrote an open letter to Congress opposing this change last week, before Obama endorsed it. The full letter is below as well as the different organizations that have endorsed it:

As efforts to address our nationai??i??s debt continue, we are writing to express our opposition toAi??changing the formula used to calculate the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) because of
the harmful effects it will have on veterans and Social Security benefits.Ai??The Congressional Budget Office estimates that adopting the chained consumer price indexAi??(CPI) to calculate annual COLAs could save the government $208 billion over ten years byAi??reducing Social Security, disability, and other benefits, and by increasing revenues. More thanAi??half of this amount ai??i?? $112 billion ai??i?? would come from Social Security cuts, which veterans relyAi??on very heavily for both retirement and disability benefits. Another 11 percent of the savings ai??i??Ai??$24 billion ai??i?? would come from VA benefits, civilian pensions, and military retirement pay.Ai??We estimate that use of the chained CPI would have a significant effect on benefits that millionsAi??of veterans depend on in the following ways:Ai??Social Security Retirement Benefits: Social Security is one of our nationai??i??s most important
programs serving veterans and their dependents and survivors. It currently pays benefits to overAi??9 million veterans ai??i?? about 4 in 10. The average retirement benefit of a veteran receiving Social
Security was about $15,500 in 2010. Adopting the chained CPI would significantly reduceAi??those benefits, by changing the manner in which COLAs are determined. A veteran with
average earnings retiring at age 65 would get nearly a $600 benefit cut at age 75, …

There are now multiple press reports that President Obama will agree to a fiscal deal that enacts a so-called “Chained CPI” to calculate Social Security and veterans’ benefits. Under this plan, “a person age 75 in the future will get a yearly benefit thatai??i??s $653 lower after ten years of chained CPI than that person would get under the current formula. An 85-year-old will have $1,139 less to live on.” This represents a huge cut to benefits.

But during the presidential campaign, the Obama team swore up and down that it would not agree to slashing Social Security benefits. Here’s an October 6th statement:

President Obama will under no circumstances agree to put your retirement at risk by privatizing Social Security,Ai??and he will reject any plan that slashes Social Security benefits.

And his campaign web site said “no current beneficiaries should see their benefits reduced” and that the “administration will not accept an approach that slashes benefits for future generations”:

President Obama should keep his promise to the 61 million Americans who voted for him and back off of his proposal to cut Social Security benefits.

We set up an ActBlue page to highlight and reward bold progressive members of Congress who are speaking out publicly today.Ai??Check them out and donate $3 to them here.

Click here to pledge to hold any Democrat who agrees to a deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits accountable.

Click here to call your Member of Congress and demand that they oppose this bad deal.

(Photo credit: Flickr user Steve Rhodes)

Many Republicans and a few Democrats have suggested an idea corporate lobbyists love — raising the Medicare age and dumping millions of seniors into private insurance. This would cost seniors $11.4 billion annually.

Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman decided to look at how much doing this would reduce the deficit versus President Obama’s tax proposal of ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and returning the estate tax to 2009 levels (it was cut by President Bush as well). Here’s his conclusion:

So I thought Iai??i??d look at the dollars and cents ai??i?? and even I am somewhat shocked. Those tax hikes would raise $1.6 trillion over the next decade;Ai??according to the CBO, raising the Medicare age would save $113 billion in federal funds over the next decade.

So, the [tax] proposal would reduce the deficitAi??14 times as muchAi??as the [Medicare] proposal.

The choice seems clear. If you’re serious about tackling our long-term deficit, you should be for ending the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans, not harming benefits for America’s seniors.

Sign up here to pledge to hold bad Democrats who agree to cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits accountable.

We now know that the AR-15, a combat weapon not designed for hunting or personal defense, was the weapon used in the tragic Sandy Hook killings.

What may be surprising to many is that the mega-retailer Wal-Mart has been selling this weapon to its general customer base. Shortly after the shooting, Wal-MartAi??quietly pulledAi??the AR-15 off of its site, leaving the actual purchase page with an error message but customer reviews still standing.

Here’s theAi??review page where customers give the rifle a 94 percent rating:

The Nation’s George Zornick has a lengthy articleAi??in The Nation that lays out how Wal-Mart helped proliferate the AR-15 and make it one of the most popular assault weapons in America. Tellingly, the chain declined to comment on the story.

Click here to sign our pledge to call Congress and the White House once a month until common-sense reforms are passed.

In a rally organized by CREDO Action, hundreds of Americans today converged outside the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the National Rifle Association, the top gun lobby in the country.

Here are a few pictures from the action, taken by attendees:

You can follow live updates on the protest by browsing the hashtag #StandDownNRA on Twitter. But you can also help make sure the momentum from today’s protest continues by pledging to take action for common sense reforms.

Click here to sign our pledge to call Congress and the White House once a month until common-sense reforms are passed.

(Photo credit: Flickr user Dave_B__)

Christmas is a time most Americans view as an opportunity to take a well-deserved holiday with their families and loved ones. But that’s apparently not how Ronald McDonald sees it.

Ad Age has obtained an internal memo from McDonald’s Chief Operating Officer Jim Johannesen where he advocates for keeping the chain open on Christmas Day. “Our largest holiday opportunity as a system is Christmas Day. Last year, [company-operated] restaurants that opened on Christmas averaged $5,500 in sales,” he writes in the memo.

McDonald’s spokeswoman Heather Oldani told Ad Age that she won’t comment on leaked documents but that “when our company-owned restaurants are open on the holidays, the staff voluntarily sign up to work. There is no regular overtime pay.”

This is, of course, a weak justification. If a store must be open on a holiday, employees will feel pressure to sign up to work. And if they are working on America’s most treasured holiday, they deserve overtime pay. McDonald’s should not treat its workforce this way. We’re not loving it.

In the wake of the horrible mass shooting at Sandy Hook, many Americans are rightly asking their elected officials to begin to debate serious legislation that could help prevent such tragedies in the future. Ranging from a variety of gun control reforms to mental health legislation, these various policy options are entirely reasonable to debate in the wake of a series of mass shootings this year.

But following each shooting this year, Congress failed to truly debate any serious reforms in this area. Why is this? Many point to the power of organizations like the National Rifle Association which typically oppose any reforms whatsoever to gun laws and which downplay gun massacres.

Let’s look at exactly how much power anti-gun control groups have on Capitol Hill. I looked at just one metric — how much money they spent lobbying.

Last year, the NRA spentAi??$2,205,000Ai??lobbying Congress. The pro-gun control Brady Campaign spentAi??$30,000. Michael Bloombergai??i??s pro-gun control Mayors Against Illegal Guns spentAi??$150,000Ai??and the anti-gun control Gun Owners of America spentAi??$1,307,996Ai??.

Altogether, pro-gun control groups spent $180,000 and were outspent 19-to-1 by anti-gun control groups, that spent $3,512,996.

We don’t think that groups with more money should have a bigger voice. That’s why we’re going to counter with people power.

Click here to sign our pledge to call Congress and the White House once a month until common-sense reforms are passed.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) wants to cut your Medicare and Social Security benefits.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) presented his latest offer to President Obama on Friday. Boehner is offering to agree to a tax rate increase on millionaires only if Democrats agree to major cuts in Medicare and Social Security benefits through a possible combination of a benefit-cutting “chained CPI” and hiking the retirement age.

The first thing to note is that Boehner’s proposal is not particularly ground-breaking. For weeks, leading Republicans like Senators Bob Corker (TN) and Saxby Chambliss (GA) have said they would be open to some revenue increases in exchange for cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits.Ai??So this isn’t a “cave” or a compromise on behalf of House Republicans. It’s the position they’ve been bargaining towards for the past month.

Second of all, the plan asks seniors to pay for debt problems they did not cause. Two wars, tax cuts for the richest Americans, and Wall Street’s irresponsibility are responsible for our long-term deficits. It is simply unfair for them to have to pay for debt that they did not cause.

As the New York Times’s Paul Krugman writes, “Why on earth would Obama be selling Medicare away to raise top tax rates when he gets a big rate rise on January 1 just by doing nothing?” Furthermore, these tax increases would include rich Americans earning $250,000 or more, not just millionaires.

We should look instead to Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren for a credible approach to dealing with the deficit over the long term.

Warren has an alternative, truly “balanced approach” to tackling the deficit. During a campaign debate last month, she laid out a popular vision for dealing with the deficit: cut back on wasteful military …

Corporate lobbyists and their allies on Capitol Hill have a terrible new idea: hiking the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. This would save the federal government about $5.7 billion a year, but cost seniors $11.4 billion over the same period.

There are a better ways to cut Medicare costs, and they wouldn’t cost a single penny of anyone’s benefits. Here’s three possible choices for how we can do that:

1. Empower Medicare To Negotiate For Lower Drug Prices:Ai??One policy option that would be very simple to enact and would not require any sort of increased spending or expansion of government would be to simply allow Medicare to use its bulk purchasing power to negotiate withAi??drug makersAi??for lower prices. The program isAi??currently bannedAi??Ai??from doing so, thanks to the clout of the drug industry. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) estimates that doing this could save as much asAi??$156 billionAi??over 10 years.

2. Allow Drug Re-importation From Canada:Ai??One of the major costs in the U.S. health care system that drives up the costs not only in the private sector but also among Medicare are the costs of prescription drugs. One very easy was to greatly relieve this cost is to eliminate protectionist barriers and allow the free importation of prescription drugs from our neighbors like Canada. A failed measure proposed by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and John McCain (R-AZ) to do exactly that in 2009 estimated that doing so would save consumersAi??$80 billionAi??over ten years.

3. Globalize Medicare:Ai??Another protectionist barrier and detriment to free trade in the U.S. health care system is that seniors currently arenai??i??t allowed to use their Medicare insurance system outside of the United States. An alternative to this would be to drop these trade barriers and allow seniors on Medicare to …

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR)

There have been rumors that President Obama may agree to a Republican demand to hike the Medicare age. In an interview with Barbara Walters, Obama suggested that this move is on the table.

Progressive Democratic senators are revolting against this unpopular idea. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that we should be “lowering” the Medicare age, “not raising it”:

ai???I do a lot of town halls,ai??? Merkley said. ai???I canai??i??t tell you how many times someone will come up to me and say, ai???Hereai??i??s the thing. Iai??i??m 61, and I have these major health problems. I donai??i??t have insurance. Iai??i??m praying I make it to 65.ai??i?? The idea that weai??i??re going to take all these folks with diseases setting in as they get older, and move them two years later? Absolutely unacceptable.ai???

ai???We should be lowering the age, not raising it,ai??? Merkley said. Speaking of the president, Merkley added: ai???I hope he hears long and loud from us who are connected to the real lives of working people.ai???

Merkley is absolutely right. Hiking the Medicare age from 65 to 67 would cost seniors at least $11 billion every year. Meanwhile, expanding public health insurance would save American beneficiaries and the Treasury money. The Congressional Budget Office estimates, for example, that offering a public option based on Medicare rates in the Affordable Care Act would save about $15 billion every year.

(Photo credit: Flickr user Steve Rhodes)

In a radio interview with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green argued that Democrats should go on offense and use smart leverage in fiscal talks. Schultz agreed, and then proposed that Democrats ask for higher than Clinton tax rates on the rich. He then tweeted out the idea:

On Schultz’s radio show, Green elaborated — saying such a plan to raise taxes on the super-wealthy exists in the House, and should be talked about more more in fiscal talks.Ai??Progressive Rep. Jan Schakowksy (D-IL) has proposed a “millionaire’s tax” that creates special tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires that range between 45 and 49 percent. According to economist Dean Baker, using numbers from Citizens for Tax Justice, this tax plan would raise as much as $1 trillion over a decade. Here’s a how much the plan would raise in billions of dollars each year (the presumed starting year when this study was performed was 2011):

The public supports a higher tax rate on the rich. We polled voters in Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Montana, and Minnesota on the question of whether they would support Schakowsky’s millionaire tax idea. Here are the results, which show that voters are overwhelmingly supportive of this idea:

QUESTION: Would you support or oppose a proposal that said personal income above $1,000,000 would be taxed at 45%, income above $20,000,000 dollars would be taxed at 47%, and income above $1,000,000,000 would be taxed at 49%?

Ohio
62% support
29% oppose

Missouri
56% support
30% oppose

Montana
56% support
33% oppose

Minnesota
61% support
29% oppose

Virginia
60% support
27% oppose

Illinois
67% support
23% oppose

As Schultz pointed out, yesterday the president said, “[We’ve got to] …

As we reported last month, CNBC has become the unofficial channel of the top one percent. Over the month of November, it mentioned the “Simpson-Bowles” plan to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits three times as often as it did poverty. Even Fox News talked about poverty more.

CNBC hostAi??Tyler Mathisen demonstrated this callousness to the concerns of ordinary Americans again today. In an interview with Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder (KS), Mathisen suggested that we shouldn’t be “so afraid” of cutting Medicare benefits because, after all, Big Business has been cutting workers’ health care benefits for Ai??years:

MATHISEN: How specifically would you address the spending in Medicare? I — it seems to me that Americans are very accustomed to seeing their health care benefits cut. Just ask anyone who works for a major corporation over the past twenty years, and you would see that the portion of your medical care that you pay for has risen as the portion that your medical care that the company pays for has declined. Why are we so afraid of that?

Watch it (the relevant section starts at 2:51):

Yoder went on to reply that House Republicans already passed Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare plan –which effectively privatizes the program.

It almost going without being said that Mathisen’s logic is widely off the mark. Corporations exist to serve their bottom line and make money. The government exists to serve the needs of those who elect it. Just because corporations are shafting workers, that doesn’t mean the government should short-change seniors.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)

A few Democrats and many Republicans have proposed that we make major cuts to Medicare benefits as a part of an upcoming fiscal deal. This is a bad idea for many reasons, foremost of which that American seniors shouldn’t have to pay for debt caused by two wars, tax cuts for the richest Americans, and Wall Street’s recession.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) rejected this call for cuts in Medicare benefits in a recent interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Ai??”I don’t support any cuts to beneficiaries or benefits,” he told the newspaper.

When politicians do the right thing, we should let them know that we have their back. Click here to give Johnson’s office a call and thank him for taking this stand.Ai??

Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT)

Some leading Republicans are starting to openly talk of once against holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to get Democrats to agree to painful cuts. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) even suggested using the debt ceiling as “leverage” to force Democrats to agree to cuts in Medicare and Social Security Benefits.

House Democrat Peter Welch (D-VT) has had enough with these hostage tactics. This week, he began circulating a letter among his colleagues that asks President Obama to use every means at his disposal — including invoking the 14th amendment — to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling in the event that Republicans once again try to hold it hostage. Here’s a full copy of the letter:

Dear Mr. President,

As you know, Speaker Boehner has explicitly stated that he will withhold support for raising the debt ceiling as leverage to win concessions in fiscal negotiations with the White House.Ai?? This is the same tactic he used in August 2011 at great expense to the American economy.Ai?? The result was an additional $18.9 billion in interest over 10 years and Americaai??i??s first ever credit downgrade.

We fully support your view that Congress should not ai???play this game.ai??? Threatening default on our nationai??i??s debt is an economic weapon of mass destruction that will have immediate and catastrophic consequences for the economy as well as Americaai??i??s standing in the world.

In the event the Speaker follows through on his reckless threat, we would support your use of any authority available to you, including the 14thAi??amendment, to preserve Americaai??i??s full faith and credit and prevent further damage to our economy.

Earlier, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), too, threatened to use the debt ceiling to force President Obama to cut Medicare benefits.Ai??In the event that Republicans should follow through with …

As thousands continue to protest late into the night to try to stop Michigan’s radical “Right To Work” law from being enacted, many activists are risking bodily harm to speak out.

In this video from Progress Michigan, state police push an elderly protester to the ground, and another policeman appears to try to intervene to stop the excessive use of force:

We’ll continue to keep you updated on the protests.

This former Democratic congressman stood with protesters today.

Over ten thousand people are protesting at Michigan’s capitol building, trying to stop a radical “Right To Work” law from being passed that would undermine labor unions in the state.

One of those protesting is former Democratic Rep. Mark Schauer (MI). Schauer told the Battle Creek Enquirer that he was actually pepper sprayed by police earlier today:

Former congressman Mark Schauer said he was pepper-sprayed by police today while leading anti-right to work protesters outside the state Capitol.

Schauer said he was part of a crowd of protesters outside the Capitolai??i??s north wing as the Michigan House was voting on controversial right-to-work measures. Schauer said police came to move the protesters away from the building. He said he tried to negotiate a line away from the Capitol that police would accept when he and ai???a numberai??? of people were sprayed.

ai???I immediately began to retreat and began to cover my eyes and my mouth,ai??? Schauer said. ai???It was not good.ai???

Recall thatAi??Schauer himself is not only a former Democratic congressman but also a member of a union himself. He’s a part of the Laborers union Local 355.

Today, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) is working with Republicans in the legislature to pass an anti-union “Right To Work” law that he earlier said would be “inappropriate” to pursue.

Over ten thousand Michiganders are protesting at the capital of Lansing today to try to stop this radical law. Standing alongside them are progressive Democrats in the Michigan legislature. One of these is State Senator Gretchen Whitmer, the minority leader. Here’s an excerpt from a floor speech she gave last week:

WHITMER: This legislation is petty and vindictive politics at its most disgusting. […] And now for one of your final pieces of business in this legislative calendar, you want to pass “right to work” legislation that hurts workers and our economy by lowering employee wages, benefits, and workplace protections. Another bow to big business and wealthy special interests at the cost of our people.

Watch her entire speech:

Towards the end of her speech, she promised to walk out of the chamber and join the protesting workers if her words were cut off. She was then allowed to finish.

Earlier today, Michigan Republicans killed an amendment that would’ve allowed the “right to work” bill to be subject to a popular referendum. It appears that the state’s business elites and their allies in the legislature are afraid of letting people vote on this radical change to labor law.

Nurses engaging in silent protest at the Michigan capitol. (Photo credit: Flickr user firedancersmith)

In launching their assault on labor unions by trying to enact a so-called “Right To Work” law, Michigan’s Republicans are trying to skirt democracy. After all, they specifically launched this push during a lame duck session to be able to pass the bill — if they had waited until January, they wouldn’t have had the votes to do it thanks to November’s election.

Here’s another sign that they’re simply scared of democracy. House Democrats introduced an amendment today to the “Right To Work” bill that would’ve allowed it to be canceled by a popular referendum. House Republicans killed the amendment.

Michigan’s Republican Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley has taken to Twitter to defend his administration’s push for an anti-union “Right To Work” law which would allow workers to be represented by unions without having to pay union dues.

Here’s one weak defense Calley offered for enacting “Right To Work.” He said that he isn’t required to donate to any church he attends, so workers should be able to represented by unions in the workplace without being asked to pay dues:

Calley’s analogy widely misses the mark. Unions represent workers at their workplace and need dues to be able to do that. Almost all people have to work to be able to provide for their families, and representation in the workplace is explicitly part of a democratic society.

Unlike the workplace, religious worship Ai??is a fundamentally private and voluntary activity and is not subject to the same government oversight (and for good reason).

If Calley wants to invoke the church, he should listen to one of its most famous men, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Here’s what he had to say about “right to work”:

ai???In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ai???right to work.ai??i?? It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights.
Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyoneai??i??Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.ai???

Thousands of …

Right now, Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder is working on passing a so-called “Right To Work” law that would crush the state’s unions and disempower its workers. Snyder is doing this in direct contradiction to his words earlier this year, when he said it wouldn’t be “appropriate” to try to pass such a law.

Over at the Maddow Blog, Laura Conaway has a very interesting find. The so-called “Michigan Freedom Fund” (MFF) is running a commercial supporting the new anti-union law, and it features teachers in classrooms, and a young boy waving an American flag. Watch it:

Here’s Conway’s interesting find. Both the boy in the ad and the teacher in the classroom are parts of stock footage reels — meaning that they are actors, and not even actors that Michigan Freedom Fund paid to employ. Rather, they are simply bits of reel footage. In fact, the same flag-waving boy was used in an attack ad that was aired against Democrat Rep. Peter DeFazio — all the way out in Oregon.

MFF is trying to create popular support for the crackdown on unions, but it seems like it can’t even find real Michiganders for its commercials. Recall that MFF is run by Greg McNeilly, who is an employee of Dick DeVos’s Windquest Group. DeVos is a billionaire heir of the Amway fortune, and a major right-wing Republican donor.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)

As Democrats and Republicans continue to negotiate over the contours of a fiscal deal, many Democrats have propositioned the idea that any agreement should include a ratio of cuts-to-revenue of 2-to-1. This is a model that President Obama chose for his most recent budget request, for example.

But 2-to-1 isn’t balanced. Balanced means at least equal parts cuts and revenue. Progressive Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) has stepped up to the plate and unveiled a new petition to Obama that not only calls on him to reject damaging cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits, but also assure a 1-to-1 ratio of cuts to revenue in any deal:

Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has a credible approach to dealing with the deficit over the long term that lays out specific cuts to wasteful spending as well as making the rich pay their fair share in taxes.

Here’s her alternative, truly “balanced approach” to tackling the deficit. During a campaign debate, she laid out a popular vision for dealing with the debt: cut back on wasteful military and agriculture subsidy spending, and make the rich pay their fair share with higher tax rates. Watch Warren explain:

Show your support for Warrenai??i??s “balanced approach” by clicking here to add your name as a citizen supporter of her vision.

Michigan governor Rick Snyder (R)

Elections have consequences. And when Michigan voters went to the polls this November, they did not vote to crush the rights of labor unions, as Republican Governor Rick Snyder is now attempting to do by implementing a so-called “Right To Work” law.

In fact, Snyder explicitly said that he opposed signing such a law in Michigan this year. Here’s Snyder at a hearing earlier this year:

SNYDER: Right to work is an issue that’s a very divisive issue. … I don’t believe it’s appropriate in Michigan during 2012.

Watch it:

Snyder’s new push to break the backs of labor unions represents a stunning reversal from his pre-election comments.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)

Senior Republican Senator Bob Corker (TN) made headlines this weekend when he said he would be willing to let the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans expire. But Corker wanted something else in return — major cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits. He has laid out a plan that not only includes so-called “means testing” but also a hike in the eligibility/retirement age for both programs.

He even explicitly talked about using the debt ceiling as “leverage” in order to enforce such a deal. Watch it:

Here’s the important thing to remember about Corker’s offer. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are already expiring. Even if Congress does nothing, the tax policy will once against return all the rates to those of the Clinton era starting in 2013. Congress would then be free next month to pass tax cuts for working class and middle class people, without necessarily having to once again lower taxes on the top 2 percent of Americans.

The Republicans are essentially asking the Democrats to cut benefits for all Americans in exchange for something that is going to happen, anyway. That’s not a deal they should even think about taking.

We think that any Democrat who would endorse a deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits needs to be held accountable. Click here to sign up to help us hold their feet to the fire.Ai??

Cutting Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits is vogue among elites in Washington and their corporate lobbyist allies. These programs did not cause our deficits, but many elites want to cut them because they fundamentally want to see them privatized.

Take Arthur Brooks. He’s the president of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. Yesterday he tweeted that raising the Medicare eligibility age is “at least a step in the right direction”:

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that raising the Medicare age from 65 to 67 would result in “$3.7 billion in higher costs for 65- and 66 year-olds, $4.5 billion from employers through company-sponsored insurance, $0.7 billion from state governments, and $2.5 billion in higher average prices for third parties once younger seniors are shifted out of the Medicare risk-pool and into the general population.”

For the incredibly wealthy Brooks, that’s probably not much of a problem. According to disclosures, he nets an annual salary ofAi??$528,272. Higher costs for seniors are not a problem to him.

As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and others have noted, you can save billions of dollars for Medicare, beneficiaries, and taxpayers by enacting common sense reforms that don’t cut benefits by even a penny.

For example, if we simply dropped the protectionist trade barrier and allowed Americans to import drugs from Canada, we could save as much as $80 billion over ten years. Empowering Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices just as the Pentagon negotiates for basic goods like paperclips could save as much as $156 billion over ten years.

These are very basic reforms that would save enormous amounts of money without costing taxpayers or beneficiaries anything. But they require standing up to Big Pharma. That’s …

Why is LA’s mayor helping a corporate front group cut your Social Security benefits?

Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has shocked progressives by joining the board of Fix The Debt, a group driven by corporate CEOs that seeks to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits while lowering the corporate tax rate. Over 12,000 people have signed a SignOn.org petition calling on Villaraigosa to reverse course and leave the organization.

Last night, Villaraigosa appeared on Huffington Post Live for an in-studio interview Ai??to discuss a variety of issues. Host Jacob Soboroff asked him about the controversy surrounding Fix The Debt, and the mayor responded by saying that he joined Fix The Debt to promote a “balanced approach” to the national debt:

VILLARAGOISA: “Isn’t what’s broken in Washington right now that Democrats wont talk to Republicans, Republicans won’t talk to Democrats? There’s this blind allegiance to ideology…I’m a progressive abashedly, but I’m also practical…It’s true that a large number of people on Fix The Debt coalition are Republicans, and have supported Republicans…they also said we need a balanced approach, supported the Simpson Bowles plan as a balanced framework..I understand why some people would take umbrage particularly on the Democratic side and the progressive side but I’m not a university professor, I’m a mayor.

Watch it (the relevant section starts at 8:18):

It’s important to remember that Social Security does not add a dime to the deficit, something that both former right-wing president Ronald Reagan and current progressive Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I) have said.

There is simply nothing “balanced” about making the poor and middle class pay for a debt caused by the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, two wars, and Wall Street’s recession.

Recall that the mayor supported and passed legislation in his own city …