Bill O’Reilly probably stunned his viewers across the country tonight when he spoke out against President Obama’s proposed cuts to Social Security. Citing how his 90 year-old mother would have only Social Security to rely on if he didn’t help out, O’Reilly said about protesters in front of the White House, “Those left-wing groups may have a point.”
O’Reilly made his comments during a discussion with Fox News’ Ed Henry and James Rosen about Obama’s proposed changes to Social Security and the reaction to them. The Washington Post explains:
But some of the most heated commentary came from the left, which was furious that the president was enshrining cuts to Social Security as official administration policy. Obama proposed changing the cost-of-living calculation for Social Security in a way that will reduce benefits for most recipients, a key Republican request that he had earlier embraced only as part of a compromise.
O’Reilly feinted to the right first. He said to Rosen, “So now the left-wingers who don’t want any cuts and they want to take all the rich people’s property to pay for everything, they’re mad, right?”
Rosen replied, “Some of these groups have actually vowed to launch primary campaigns against any Democrat who votes to approve the president’s proposed use of the chained CPI (to calculate cost-of-living).”
That’s when O’Reilly suddenly tacked the other way:
Let’s be honest about this for a minute. …My mother, Mrs. O’Reilly, without her son, Bill, who helps her out big time, needs that Social Security bump. If I wasn’t here, she would need it, alright? To keep paying her property taxes which are exorbitant in Nassau County. To stay in the home. She’s 90. If the president’s gonna take Mrs. O’Reilly and everybody else – seniors who don’t have any money – away, then those left-wing groups may have a point, Rosen.
Memo to President Obama: You know this is not going to be a popular move when a deficit-hawk like O’Reilly thinks it’s boneheaded.
If you’d like to voice your opposition to the proposed cuts to Social Security, here’s some good information on how to go about it.
(I chose to post this comment separately from my previous O’Reilly comment since I didn’t want anything to lessen my disgust at the falafelmeister’s using his elderly mother to attack Obama.)
For fuck’s sake, the whole reason why Social Security even began was because of the elderly poor whose families weren’t able to take care of them because of that little economic downturn called the “Great Depression.” FDR realized that many of the people who were struggling to just get by from day to day were moving away from the old family homes, often abandoning their parents to fend for themselves. SOME of these people were able to send some money back home but most were barely able to make ends meet for themselves, much less send home enough money to help their abandoned parents. But, the great patrician Roosevelt actually believed in that great Christian principle of “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40*)
However, Social Security was designed as a safety net for the POOR, not the people who already lived comfortably OR their families. The wealthy were expected to care for their own. And since O’Reilly routinely touts how “wealthy” he is, he should be lambasted for allowing his elderly mother to rely on any Social Security.
*A bit ironic, dontcha think, given how the right-wing loves to tout “America is a Christian nation” yet one of Christ’s greatest sentiments which forms the very heart of Social Security is routinely ignored by the corporate-financed “religious” right-wingers. Well, at least, until it comes to the money that the right-wingers think is owed to them. Who can forget all the Teabaggers and their “Keep your hands off my Social Security/Medicare” signs?
“What the left wants is for the rich people and corporations to pay their fair share, which they currently aren’t doing.”
AMEN. What rich people and corporate CEOs CONSTANTLY IGNORE (or have forgotten) is the following thought-provoking phrase that is engraved above the main entrance to the IRS headquarters in Washington DC — and mark my words folks, like most Americans I am certainly NO FAN of the IRS:
“TAXES ARE THE PRICE OF FREEDOM”
Remember: YOU CANNOT HAVE FREEDOM WITHOUT ACCEPTING THE RESPONSIBILITIES — and those rich individuals and big corporations who don’t pay taxes or pay way less than their fair share are simply turning their backs on their fellow Americans and FLIPPING THEM THE MIDDLE FINGER.
1st NEWSFLASH
The left is actually giving honest condemnation of Obama and the members of Congress who allowed this. The right is just trying to play innocent, like we’re all too stupid to remember 2008-Now. Oh, and spinning this into pot shots.
2nd NEWSFLASH
Even the Tea Party is asking if the GOP just put the country through this to waste our time. Yeah, the friggin’ Tea Party. If Republicans have any brains at all, they’ll let the cuts be removed peaceably, and keep their mouths shut before this costs them what chance they have left for 2014.
I know O’Reilly doesn’t have the accountability to hit on either point, but he could have tried harder to look like he does.
Last night, he suddenly made an effort to try to appear equal opportunity. So he cut off Alan Colmes (while Colmes was making a reasonable point about the relative differences between the stats he was mentioning between the 50s and now – and let’s be reasonable here – O’Reilly’s real point was that civil rights aside, things really were better for “family values” people in the 50’s… and Colmes was appropriately calling him on the silliness of that claim.) But then he cut off Monica Crowley when she made an obviously nasty comment about the Great Society programs.
And then, yes, in a subsequent segment, he toyed with Ed Henry (late of his spiteful grandstanding from last week) about the reality of cutting into the usual adjustments to Social Security payments.
And let’s be clear about Social Security – if anyone is concerned about its long-term viability from 2037 on, there are some very simple solutions available that would address it. One, you remove the cap on withholding – particularly since that cap was set decades before inflation devalued it. Two, you make the same minute adjustments in the withholding that were done during the Reagan Administration the last time these “Social Security is Doomed!” screams were heard. These are the kind of ideas that could have and should have passed years ago. In the current environment of angry GOP members who just want to privatize such things or do away with them, I don’t know how much pressure it will take. But the fact is that even GOP pundits like Laura Ingraham have admitted that messing with things like Social Security or Medicare for seniors – whether they be GOP or anything else – usually has lethal consequences.
It could be that the GOP is trying to trick President Obama into touching the “third rail” on his own, after which they would try to pin any consequences on him. We’ll have to see what happens when the real plan is announced in the morning…
First, he attacks right wing conservative Ms. Laura and Rusty the Radio Clown, then he attacks left wingers, now he sides with left wingers. Billy must be suffering from multiple personalities.
NOTE TO BILLY
Which personality are we dealing with this time?