tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post8358499121482379768..comments2024-03-28T16:08:29.578-04:00Comments on Sardonicky: The Return of ChompyKaren Garciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15612731479365562803noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-56170795296209125652015-01-07T21:23:36.977-05:002015-01-07T21:23:36.977-05:00I heard this coming way back on Dec. 3, 2010, at t...I heard this coming way back on Dec. 3, 2010, at the National Press Club, a Hamilton Project event on "jobs," John Podesta moderating - I forget whether Robert Rubin was there. What was so amazing, despite the topic, was outgoing Budget Director Peter Orszag's talk complaining about too many people on Social Security Disability. I thought it was outrageous because if you know anything about the program you know how hard it is to qualify. Orszag was on his way to a high level post at Citibank, if my memory serves me. I still haven't forgotten this speech and event, it was shocking. <br /><br />Here's the link<br /><br />http://www.hamiltonproject.org/events/the_future_of_american_jobs_part_ii/Bill Neilnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-14902240838823476242015-01-07T16:59:52.106-05:002015-01-07T16:59:52.106-05:00Let’s have all-out war on the disabled, the sick, ...Let’s have all-out war on the disabled, the sick, and the old. Stigmatize them as cheats. Our tax dollars support these lazy, immoral, welfare leeches, who are gaming the “disability industrial complex.” Kick those greedy bastards!!! Sacrifice them on the political alter!!!<br /><br />WTF is wrong with these people, who don’t blink twice at spending a grand on their wine bill at dinner?<br /><br />“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms of the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.” – Herman Melville<br /><br />The lame stream media is targeting federal disability benefit programs by deceptively portraying them as wasteful and unsustainable. In reality, they have low fraud rates and assist those with severe disabilities survive when they are unable to work. Nearly one in five (57 million) Americans has a disability. Only 14 million receive federal disability benefits. Recipients are three times as likely to die as other people their age. One in five male and one in seven female disability beneficiaries die within five years of receiving benefits.<br /><br />The growth in benefits has been due to our changing demographics and the financial crisis of 2007–2008, when job losses among workers with disabilities far exceeded those of workers without disabilities and the loss of employer health insurance made their chronic conditions more difficult to manage and, therefore, more disabling.<br /><br />Baby boomers have aged into their high-disability years. People are twice as likely to be disabled at 50 as at 40; twice as likely to be disabled at 60 as at 50. More women have qualified for disability benefits. Workers with severe impairments can get disability benefits only if they have worked for at least one-fourth of their adult life and for the last ten years. Until women joined the workforce in significantly greater numbers in the 1970s and 1980s, few women met those criteria. Now more women have worked long enough to qualify for disability benefits. Hence, women have been a large factor in the increase.<br /><br />When disabled workers reach full retirement age, they receive Social Security benefits rather than disability benefits. The increase in Social Security’s full retirement age from 65 to 66 has delayed that conversion for many workers.<br /><br />Empathy seems to be as uncommon as common sense.<br /><br />Embrace the suck.<br /><br />“The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.” ― Bertrand Russell, Sceptical EssaysDenis Nevillenoreply@blogger.com