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.

Social Security in the sights

The latest in a long line of reports targeting Social Security, making a small problem seem much larger than it is, was issued today.

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.

The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax.

That is bound to happen, especially when the economy collapses, but it is not a fatal flaw in the program — despite what conservatives may want us to believe. There are issues that need to be addressed — the retiree bubble, for instance, or that stretch of time when there will be more people taking money out than putting it in — but the fixes are not drastic. We could lift the ceiling on paying into the system, one that would add a needed level of progressivity to the system.

As for this story, can we get someone other than Alan Greenspan — whose opinions should have been discredited by the economic collapse and who is a longtime supporter of privatization — to comment on Social Security’s longterm viability?

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Statehouse ideologues on the march

Come on, governor. Don’t be ridiculous. The healthcare bill is not a good one — it fall too far short of universal coverage and leaves the for-profit insurance industry in place — but it is constitutional, and a challenge on these grounds is pure ideological hubris.

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Biden’s enthusiastic introduction

I may not like this bill much — it shovels cash to the insurance companies and does not go far enough to ensure coverage of everyone. But you have to like the enthusiasm of Vice President Joe Biden.

I can’t make out what he said, but if Biden dropped the f-bomb, as it is euphemistically called, then he moves to the top of the list as my favorite vice president.

Dick Cheney dropped it, too, but he used it to demean and degrade Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. And that was just an ugly episode.

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What is that he said about one-shot gimmicks?

Gov. Chris Christie, like his predecessor, has been pretty vocal about his opposition to the one-time budget fixes that previous governors have relied on to balance budgets. And just like Gov. Jon Corzine, Gov. Christie appears more committed to the rhetoric than the reality.

How else to explain his raiding of the state’s clean energy fund?

What exactly is the difference between taking money from the cap-and-trade program and relying on federal stimulus funds? Or raiding the pension fund — which he is doing — or the unemployment trust fund? If he were serious about balancing the books without gimmicks, he’s leave the energy fund alone.

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Seeing the trees, in words

Come to D&R Greenway Land Trust tonight at 6 to listen to some great poetry and close out an exhibit of photos, “Living Among Giants: Seeing the Forest for the Trees.” I’ll be reading, as will many poets from around the region including nationally renowned folks like Gerald Stern, Paul Muldoon, Alicia Ostriker and CK Williams.

Here is a description of the exhibit from the D&R site:

This exhibition in the Marie L. Matthews Gallery at Johnson Education Center challenges viewers to stop and consider the magnificent beauty of individual trees. Considered the oldest and largest living things on the planet, trees are often “overlooked and under appreciated on their own merit,” says D&R Greenway Curator Jack Koeppel. Trees help make life on earth possible. D&R Greenway has collected an impressive body of work for this show that captures the inner soul of these living giants and presents them in the form of captivating tree portraits. This exhibition features the luminous canvases of Manayunk (Philadelphia) Artist, Clay Johnson.

Photographers exhibiting in LIVING AMONG GIANTS Seeing the Forest for the Trees are: Alice Grebanier, Clem Fiori, Bennett Povlow, Igor Svibilsky, Mary Leck, Frank Magalhaes, Tasha O’Neill, Maia Reim, Olga Sergyeyva, and Barbara Warren.

And a list of the poets can be found here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.