My Dispatches column is about fixing Social Security — which hit around the same time as a similar column I wrote for The Progressive Populist addressing the myths and calling for SS’s expansion.
- Send me an e-mail.
- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. it can be ordered here.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
View all posts by hankkalet
Hank Kalet 
Just raise or eliminate the cap on the payroll taxes which is currently set at $106,800. Even Alan Greenspan, no fan of SS, said that SS is not in crisis and that it can be tweaked by any number of non major fixes. Again, follow the money, billionaires like Pete Peterson, the right wing think tanks (AEI, Heritage, Cato, ad nauseam), the US Chamber of Horrors (Commerce), the Koch brothers, to name a few, are throwing hundreds of millions at the jihad against SS. And then we have the Cat Food Commission, Obama's baby, which is stacked with SS haters like Alan Simpson and most of the Democrats on the commission have been bought off, they are no better than the Goppers. SS may very well take a kick in the a$$ under a Democratic president. What a travesty. SS is one of the best deals for the middle class, the poor, the disabled and for survivors' benefits. Cutting benefits or raising the retirement age are horrible ideas. Hands off Social Security, one of the greatest programs in US history. Thank you, FDR.
Alan Simpson is just the tip of the ice berg of the Cat Food Commission. The Democratic co-chair, Erskine Bowles, is a Wall Street insider who is on record as saying (in a speech to a group of bankers) that he's ready to \”mess\” with Social Security. GOP rep Paul Ryan is on the committee and he wants to privatize (kill) SS and Medicare. Obama hand picked David Cote, CEO of Honeywell (a big defense contractor) to be on the committee.From alternet:\”Honeywell runs the only conversion facility in the world that can distill pure uranium, located in Metropolis, Illinois. On June 28, Honeywell locked out its union workers during contract negotiations because the union, United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669, refused to accept the company's proposal to eliminate retiree health care and pension plans for new hires and increase workers' out-of-pocket health care to $8,500 a year. Good health care coverage for retirees is especially important to uranium workers, who suffer rates of cancer 10 times higher than the general public due to their daily interaction with radioactive material. It's easy to see why the workers would refuse to give in to demands to eliminate retiree health care coverage.In a major concession, the uranium workers' union refused to go on strike, out of concern for the safety of their complex and dangerous facility. To keep the plant safe, the union agreed to continue working under an extension of its current contract. But that didn't satisfy Honeywell, which is already making record profits. It decided it could make even more if it played hardball with its workers, risking a nuclear disaster.So Honeywell's executives locked out the local uranium workers, who have decades of experience operating a hazardous uranium enrichment facility. Instead, Honeywell hired hastily trained scabs (replacement workers) to run the plant. Honeywell uranium worker John Paul Smith described the plan to run the plant on poorly trained scab labor as \”a serious gamble.\” The Metropolis uranium plant is the only uranium enrichment facility in the world that can distill pure uranium, and it would be impossible to train workers fully on how to run such a complex facility in a matter of days or weeks.\”Basically, Honeywell CEO David Cote has a gun to the head of the local community,\” said Mark Dudzic, who has decades of experience negotiating with the nuclear industry as a longtime organizer with the old Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW). One local resident, Jerry Baird, described the anxiety the community is feeling. \”If they remember everything, it'll probably run. If they don't, they'll probably kill us all.\”\”Honeywell CEO David Cote is subtly threatening the lives of an entire community in order to increase Honeywell's profits,\” said Dudzic. When the mafia threatens people this way, the FBI calls it \”extortion,\” when a corporation does it, it's called \”labor relations.\” \”Has Obama been bought off by Wall Street and guys like David Cote?