{"id":198087,"date":"2007-12-16T20:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-17T01:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2007\/12\/16\/kevin-drum-explains-social-security-and-the-very-serious-people-in-washington\/"},"modified":"2007-12-16T20:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-17T01:38:00","slug":"kevin-drum-explains-social-security-and-the-very-serious-people-in-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2007\/12\/16\/kevin-drum-explains-social-security-and-the-very-serious-people-in-washington\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Drum Explains Social Security and the Very Serious People In Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we all know, the &#8220;<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">Very Serious People<\/span>&#8221; go on and on about how Social Security is not affordable&#8230;.After all, look at this picture from the CBO looking at budget impact:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img337.imageshack.us\/img337\/7826\/blogcbossmedicarews8.gif\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, it&#8217;s clear that it&#8217;s <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">medical costs<\/span>, and not Social Security that are the issue, But <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonmonthly.com\/archives\/individual\/2007_12\/012703.php\">Kevin Drum explains why the &#8220;<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">Very Serious People<\/span>&#8221; think that Social Security must be gutted today<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"><p>Of course, Russert and his pals actually use medical services, of which Medicare is merely a reflection, and are thus not quite so keen to bang on endlessly about how we should be working to control medical costs and distribute medical care more efficiently and more equitably. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">After all, that might actually affect them. Slashing Social Security benefits really doesn&#8217;t<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This, is more than an insight into their attitudes into Social security.  This is an insight into their attitudes on <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">EVERYTHING<\/span>.  Basically, it&#8217;s all about making the tough choices that hurt <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">other<\/span> people.<\/p>\n<p>That is what makes one a &#8220;<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">Very Serious Person<\/span>&#8221; in Washington DC.  Hurting those who have no power and who you don&#8217;t know, except perhaps as landscapers, housekeepers, and waiters.  They define this as <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">bold thinking<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>I believe that Marie Antoinette said something similar, &#8220;Let them eat cake.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we all know, the &#8220;Very Serious People&#8221; go on and on about how Social Security is not affordable&#8230;.After all, look at this picture from the CBO looking at budget impact: Needless to say, it&#8217;s clear that it&#8217;s medical costs, and not Social Security that are the issue, But Kevin Drum explains why the &#8220;Very &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1064,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-media","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}