And I Don't Think They'll Miss

Supposedly in America we don't talk about class. Seems to me we never stop.

Wish I could attribute this clever image to a wry commenter. If you know who made this, please zap me an email.

I'm no credentialed brainiac but I can't help noticing the budget-busting gagfest Confessions of a Shopaholic opened the same week Congress votes on a bill to save us from economic disaster. Creamy Jesus on a crouton, who thought now was the golden moment for a lighthearted romp about the rewards of living beyond one's means? What the fuck is this?


I probably wouldn't be spitting bullets about a chick flick if last night on The Daily Show Jon Stewart hadn't let John Sununu get away with twice saying the bullshit euphemism entitlement reform. I don't even go to the movies anymore because if I spend $10 on a bottle of wine and drink the whole thing I feel less stupid than I do leaving yet another mind-bogglingly bad movie. But it's just too much to have even a moment's patience with this tissue-thin premise when Republicans are campaigning to cut Social Security and Medicare and conservative Democrats might give 'em a hand.

President Obama intends to appoint a task force the week after next which will be charged with "reforming" Social Security. According to inside gossip, the task force will be led entirely by economists who were not able to see the $8 trillion housing bubble, the collapse of which is giving the country its sharpest downturn since the Great Depression.

This effort is bizarre for several reasons. First, the economy is sinking rapidly. While President Obama's stimulus package is a good first step towards counteracting the decline, there is probably not a single economists in the country who believes that is adequate to the task. President Obama would be advised to focus his attention on getting the economy back in order instead of attacking the country's most important social program.

The second reason why this task force is strange is that Social Security doesn't need reforming. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it can pay all scheduled benefits for the next 40 years with no changes whatsoever.

The third reason that this effort is pernicious is that this talk of reform is occurring with the baby boomers just as the cusp of retirement. Due to the reckless policies of the Rubin-Greenspan-Bush clique, this cohort has just seen their housing equity wiped out with the collapse of the housing bubble. Tens of millions of baby boomers who might have felt reasonably secure three years ago are now approaching retirement with little or no equity in their homes.

Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements in the pejorative sense this word has been used politically for the past couple of decades. They're investments. Our whole working lives we pay into the funds and when we retire, we are paid our due. Period. There's no reason to even talk about it except to say, "Isn't it lovely that we're so civilized? Yes, yes, it is" and SHUT IT - unless you disagree and show no class whatsoever.