Opposing view: 'There's no Social Security crisis'

By Max Richtman

The annual release of the Social Security Trustees Report is hands-down the least understood and most widely manipulated tool used in the campaign to cut Social Security under the guise of fiscal discipline. This "never let a crisis go to waste" strategy ignores many critical facts provided by the 2012 Trustees report, including:

OUR VIEW: Trustees' report underscores urgency

•The trust fund solvency date for Social Security has seen fluctuations many times in recent decades, from a depletion date as distant as 2048 in the 1988 report to as soon as 2029 in the 1994 and 1997 reports. This year's report is well within that range.

•Social Security will be able to pay full benefits until the year 2033. After that, there will be sufficient revenue to pay about 75% of benefits.

•There is $2.7 trillion in the Social Security Trust Fund, which is $69 billion more than last year, and it will continue to grow until 2020.

There is no Social Security crisis. Contrary to the sky-is-falling prognosticators, we don't have to destroy Social Security to save it. We don't have to turn it over to Wall Street, raise the retirement age (which is a benefit cut for future generations), or adopt a cost-of-living adjustment that guarantees benefits won't keep up with inflation, leaving our oldest seniors vulnerable.

We do need to agree on a modest and manageable set of reforms to address Social Security's modest long-range funding gap. However, reforms touted as a "grand bargain" but designed to cut middle-class benefits in exchange for tax cuts is a "bargain" our nation cannot afford.

The vast majority of the American people support lifting the payroll tax cap so that more Americans contribute fully to Social Security. In the past, the tax cap has been set at a level that covered about 90% of all earnings; however, because of growing income inequality, only about 83% of earnings are currently subject to the Social Security payroll tax. That's simply not fair.

Lifting the cap strengthens Social Security without cutting benefits. It's a common sense step that keeps the focus where it belongs, on protecting the middle class while ensuring long-term solvency for Social Security. Maybe that's why so many fiscal conservatives oppose it.

Max Richtman is president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare.

The data is clear; gun control works

By: SF Examiner Editorial | 12/26/12 9:46 PM
SF Examiner Editorial

Gun advocates are throwing around a lot of rhetoric and data about guns and violence in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, but the majority of it does not stand up to scrutiny. One major fallacy is that gun laws do not work. Gun advocates are using distorted figures and lies to argue that since our existing gun laws are not working, we should have fewer such laws and more guns on hand.

The lies should end now.

The strongest gun laws in the United States are piecemeal acts put into place by states. According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a San Francisco-based group that provides legal expertise for gun violence prevention, California actually has the nation’s strongest gun laws. Critics point to the high number of gun-related deaths in the state and call them proof that these laws don’t work. But this simple-minded reading of the numbers does not delve far enough into the realities of this complex system of laws and regulations to prove that the state’s laws aren’t working.

Yes, there are a lot of deaths in California from gun violence. But the percentage of the deaths attributable to gun violence is equal or below that of many other states, especially those with fewer restrictions. The center points out that many of the guns used to commit crimes in states with strict gun laws were actually purchased outside of the state or stolen. Thus, the real need is for stronger federal weapons laws. Gun control in California is obviously weakened if residents can simply drive over to Nevada, purchase firearms, ammunition or gun parts that are illegal here, and then bring them back across state lines. The coverage gaps between state laws are big enough to drive semi-trucks full of military-grade weapons through.

A perfect example of the effectiveness of gun laws is the state of Hawaii. That state has some of the country’s strictest gun laws and, as an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it is perhaps the hardest state to transport out-of-state weapons to. Hawaii had the country’s lowest rate of gun deaths per 100,000 residents in 2011, FBI data show.

One huge need is for a federal registry of stolen firearms — a recommendation close to one from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Secondhand dealers should be required to check any weapon against this list to reduce the flow of ill-gotten weapons through our society. Such a registry would allow law enforcement to quickly determine where a criminal’s weapons came from — a check now often too cumbersome to do except in the most serious of circumstances. That ability also would provide the data necessary to permanently determine the effectiveness of gun control.

The idea that the state is the proper level at which to regulate weapons possession dates back to the time when guns were transported by horse and wagon. However, since the popularization of the automobile, the flow of weapons has changed, and gun laws have not kept pace. Within a matter of hours, a firearm bought legally in one state can be transported to another place where it is illegal. And federal laws on the books have not even begun to close the loopholes that exist due to the ability to purchase weapons on the Internet.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2012/12/data-clear-gun-control-works#ixzz2Gv33Kuz4

Immigration reform good for GOP, USA

The 2012 election offers a prime opportunity to break the gridlock.

In a moment of unusual candor during an interview last month with The Des Moines Register, President Obama allowed that if he won re-election, a major reason would be the low opinion that Latino voters had of the Republican Party, thanks largely to its harsh stances on immigration.

Obama's political analysis proved spot on. Had Mitt Romney taken the 44% of the Hispanic vote that George W. Bush took in 2004, rather than the 27% that he actually got, the political landscape would look very different today. Romney would have won the popular vote by about 1 million votes, rather than having lost it by about 3 million. Those votes would have shifted Florida, Colorado, Nevada and potentially other battleground states into the Republican column.

The GOP surely can't miss the message: The party's unpopularity with Latinos is undermining its candidates' ability to win the White House. There could hardly be a better catalyst for a new beginning for comprehensive immigration reform.

When last seen, comprehensive reform was being pushed by Bush, who had come from the Texas statehouse, where he developed a keen understanding of border issues and politics. But Bush was thwarted by Republican hard-liners insistent on an enforcement-only approach.

The 2012 election offers a prime opportunity to break the gridlock.

As before, reform should begin with tough border enforcement, and with cracking down on employers who knowingly violate the law by hiring illegal workers. The GOP already has that part right. The United States is a nation of laws, and they should be enforced.

But enforcement needs to be combined with other measures: a guest-worker program and, more controversially, a path to legal status for those already here illegally who pay their taxes and stay out of trouble.

Yes, the opponents will scream about "amnesty," but the fact is that about 11 million people reside in the U.S. illegally. That's about the population of the biggest battleground state in the election, Ohio. Most are not going to "self-deport," as Romney put it during the Republican primaries. Romney also turned off Hispanic voters with his strong opposition to the DREAM Act, sensible legislation that would provide a route to permanent legal status for illegal immigrants brought to this country as children, as long as they meet certain conditions such as going to college or serving in the military.

Efforts to bring illegal immigrants into the mainstream would give them greater freedom to start businesses, return to school to acquire skills, participate more fully in their communities and contribute more to economic growth. Employers would be freer to find help that in many instances is in short supply, particularly manual laborers such as migrant farm workers.

Even if some politicians don't grasp the benefits of reform, most voters seem to. In Tuesday's exit polls, 65% said illegal workers should be offered a chance to apply for legal status, versus 28% who said they should be deported.

Democrats, meanwhile, need to accept aggressive enforcement, not interpret the election as reason to abandon it. That should allow Republicans to return to what was mainstream thinking not so long ago.

Already, some conservative leaders, including Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, are pushing for change. There is talk of assembling a coalition of evangelicals, law enforcement and corporate groups (or, as one conservative put it, "bibles, badges and businesses") to counter the harsh anti-immigrant voices.

As Republican lawmakers return to Washington, they should recognize that a new approach would help the party rebuild. More important, it would help America prosper.