This morning at the Newseum House Speaker John Boehner was asked by Politico’s Mike Allen if he could produce any small business owner whose lives would face an impact if a millionaire surtax became law. Allen cited NPR’s Tamara Keith who couldn’t find anyone in America who fit the bill.

Among others, former Playbook colleague and Washington Post star journalist Bob Woodward sat observant and stone faced in the front row with no visible notepad in his hand.

Allen asked Boehner “An objection on your side to the proposal on the millionaire surtax has been that it would hurt small businesses. NPR went out and they went to the House Republican Leadership, to the Senate Republican Leadership, they went to business groups that were lobbying. They couldn’t find a small businessman hurt by the surtax. Have you found one?”

Boehner, in his only real stumble during the 45 minute conversation, first went in to how he had been a small businessman but didn’t say it would have hurt him. Then Boehner said he “could rattle off half a dozen names right here and now” —small business owners that he knew but whose tax returns he didn’t have access to.

Allen, to his great credit, pushed. “Name just a couple,” he said. But Boehner didn’t or couldn’t name a single person in the country, let alone in Ohio, or his district who might have suffered from a millionaire or billionaire surtax increase. He just rambled some more about small business owners and they moved on.

The Speaker of the House, whose ornate offices in the U.S. Capitol have been occupied by just 52 others before Boehner in the history of the United States also hit a main talking point twice during the free-wheeling conversation that veered from tough questions to softballs throughout. “I’m just a regular guy with a regular job,” he said.

Allen also asked Speaker Boehner about the deficit talks he had with the President and asked if he bore any responsibility for the failure of the talks. Boehner said he told the President “I’ll put revenues on the table only if you’re willing to make serious changes to your entitlement programs and he didn’t.”

When Allen pushed again, Boehner went back to the regular guy shtick and Boehner also said that “Our debt hangs over the economy and hangs over the American people like a wet blanket.” Allen wouldn’t have had much time, even if he wanted to, to push regular guy John Boehner further under his wet blanky, even though he was a voting member of the body that created massive deficits under President Bush, and now refuses to take any responsibility for them. Boehner’s claims have also been refuted by the President and the media, who widely reported that “President Obama said he had put $650 billion in reductions over 10 years on the table.”

Boehner also gave advice to the young politicos in the room at the behest of Allen. He recommended hard work and not to burn any bridges in your career. Some might say that although Boehner said he’s grown closer to the President, he’s burning bridges by telling blatant lies about their negotiations.

After the Playbook breakfast Mike Allen and Bob Woodward hopped in a taxi outside the Newseum on Pennsylvania Ave. headed in the direction on the Capitol. They may have had a secret source in a garage near the Capitol who could tell them where to find Boehner meeting with his fellow regular guys and small businessmen who couldn’t tolerate a millionaire’s or billionaire’s surtax.

This past Friday night in Washington, a New York Mets pitcher threw the type of pitch President Obama must use in his march to stop any new proposals to cut Social Security if he plans to make it through the game of the deficit talks and his reelection. In the recent past the President and his teams have pitched a slew of failed curveballs that would cut our Social Security. The number 43 Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey helped beat the Nationals 7-3 with his slow velocity, highly unpredictable knuckleball. The 44th President and his multitude of committees have taken an approach to cutting the deficit that replicates a tied baseball game, with no end in sight. Could knuckle balls from a President battling to win the game, save the economy, and win reelection save the tied ball game called the deficit debate? Let’s take a look at the tape.

R.A. Dickey has been pitching great this season, and has the best earned run average of the starters on the Mets but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his record of 7-11, which reflects injuries on the Mets but also the poorest run support from hitters out of all the Mets starting pitchers. It’s unclear to Mets fans why Dickey hasn’t gotten the run support he so deserves, just as it’s unclear to the general public why we haven’t gotten the support Social Security deserves from the administration.

If the President throws a Social Security curveball that cuts our benefits to the GOP team trying to beat him, he ought to get ready not to receive any run support, not just from Democrats and the left, but also from the independents and moderate Republicans his advisers are so intent on courting again. By attempting a pitch that doesn’t appeal to his base, independent voters, and moderate Republicans, he may lose the game, the season, and ultimately his Presidency.

But President Obama can still throw an amazing Dickey-like pitch to the GOP’s deficit, defeat the nonsense, not cut Social Security benefits, and win reelection. If Obama fights for Social Security, America’s fans will cheer for him and we’ll give him all the run support he needs to win in 2012.

Social Security has remained one of America’s most successful programs for 76 years. Before it existed and since it’s existed, Wall Street and right-wing conservatives have been telling us how much it stinks, hoping we might one day believe such lies through repetition. Even popular Republican President Dwight Eisenhower recognized how cutting it would be plain “stupid.” But that’s exactly what each of the deficit groups have attempted to do, each throwing their own curveball that would lead to Social Security cuts.

The President started his deficit pitching rotation with the grizzled, often irrelevant old-timers Bowles and Simpson, who proposed to cut Social Security with the indifference of players who knew their time had passed. He then hoped the journeymen Gang of 6 could take on the deficit, but the bipartisan group of men never seemed to materialize on the playing field. Obama’s team, “America,” never got far in the batting order without loading the bases against the “GOP Deficit” team, which lead up to another call to the bullpen. An enthusiastic reliever, Vice President Biden came charging on to the field to lead his bipartisan “gang of dudes” with every intention to save the game, and no ability to corral the Republicans who calmly watched every one of his pitches thrown for balls float by and hit every strike for an intentional foul ball, upping the pitch count until Biden’s arm had vanished.

Then came the President himself, rolling up his sleeves and bringing back the long vanished player-coach, determined to get the save for America, but giving the GOP a few hits and intentional walks in the process so he could get the job done. He’s out on the field and he appears determined to win for America, at any cost to his future as a pitcher and as our President, but the fans are hopeful he’ll win for his future and ours.

The President even told us about his curveball to the GOP, who seem determined to fight against America, 1 minute in to this video, when he acknowledges that he’d offered the Republican Speaker a deal to cut Social Security, which suggests he may throw the same bad curve again if the Supercommittee wants to take it up.

In the next couple of weeks President Obama may let loose with another Social Security curveballl, telling us we need a COLA cut for Social Security. But America isn’t certain whether player-coach Obama would put the important program on the chopping block again for the Supercommittee and the GOP Deficit. This pitch to the GOP Deficit leads to one place—a lost game for the President, and a lost future for Democrats. But a well-placed knuckleball that leaves Social Security out of the ball game and out of the deficit talks would help America and Obama win. If the President throws a slow, hanging knuckleball that’s tough for Republicans to hit but that his own team can cheer for, he’ll win the hearts of Americans including Democrats, independents and reasonable Republicans, whether the Washington Republicans try to screw over America again or not with attempted cuts to Social Security.

Retiring U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-No Shame, TX) today unveiled a plan to steal Social Security from Americans by cutting their benefits and lying to them about it. In a release and fact sheet with more holes than a piece of swiss cheese in front of Dick Cheney on a hunting trip, Hutchison claims not to cut any “core benefits” in Social Security, but cutting those benefits is exactly what she does, and she cuts them by at least 13% or more. She gave her bill the great, blatantly full of rodeo bull manure title of the Defend and Save Social Security Act. This bill wouldn’t save and defend Social Security in the least. Even the most casual observer can tell the bill would more aptly be named the Attempted Murder of Social Security Act.

Hutchison wrote a letter to Vice President Biden’s deficit commission too. In it she said “I am concerned that Social Security reform must be part of the debt ceiling.” Leaving the bad grammar in that sentence aside, Social Security hasn’t contributed one penny to the deficit since by law it cannot do so.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (CA-31), Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus and a champion for Social Security said “Social Security has never added a dime to the deficits but Senator Hutchison’s plan would force massive benefit cuts on retired Americans in an effort to reduce the deficits created by the unfunded Bush tax cuts, the unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the economic recession.”

Becerra’s office also said:

According to the Social Security Actuary, Senator Hutchison’s plan would result in the following:

• No COLA this year
• Cuts in COLA benefits in future years affecting current seniors: $408-$540 per year
• Cuts in benefits by raising the retirement age: $2,000-$2,700 per year
• Total cuts in future benefits per middle income worker: $2,400-$3,600 per year

Last week Pete Sessions, chairman of the Republican House campaign committee released a plan that would privatize Social Security, just a few years after the stock market collapsed, and just six years after fellow Texan President Bush released a privatization plan that sunk so gloriously it made the Titanic look like a tea party. Sessions’ privatization scheme is a gift to Wall Street’s greediest players, who he’s depending on to raise money for his candidates. His bill is called the Savings Account For Every American (SAFE) Act. The only thing safe about it would be a bet that it fails.

I once knew a Texan from El Paso whose demeanor was the same as Hutchison’s and Sessions on these bills. He smiled like a happy little kid when he spoke to anyone who might help him out. He’d talk about how he wanted to work hard, then go skip out on any promises he’d made. I finally realized that almost every time he showed that smile, he’d be lying right through it and didn’t care one bit. Sessions and Senator Hutchison are smiling that lying smile on Social Security. They’re talking about saving the program that in reality they want to kill dead. But thankfully their aim stinks and Americans know it.

Today Gallup put out a new poll in which 66% of Americans say they’re worried about not having enough money for retirement. So while the vast majority of Americans worry about having enough money to live out their golden years these two Washington politicians with Wall Street friends put out bills with great names that strip Americans of their retirement security. No wonder so many of us are worried.

108 miles southeast of Dallas is Anderson County, which has a life expectancy of 69.8 years for their men. 18 Texas counties have life expectancies of under 72 years for males. Most Americans are not living longer, and according to a study from the University of Washington “large swaths of the United States are showing decreasing or stagnating life expectancy.” So why introduce a bill that increases the retirement age for Social Security?

For the 2012 election cycle, every Republican running for office who takes a dime from the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) that Sessions heads should be asked by voters and their opponents whether they support their campaign chief’s plan to privatize Social Security.

Most political candidates know that Americans don’t want Social Security privatized or benefits cut. But Republican and Democratic candidates must take the right position on these issues or face the wrath of the voters. So make sure to ask Republicans who take any money or advice from the NRCC if they support their campaign chief’s Wall Street plan to privatize Social Security and his Senator’s plan to take away our benefits. If the candidates don’t take a stand, that’s as good as saying they support privatizing Social Security and cutting our benefits.

If they’re going to kill Social Security, they’re going to have to get it by voters, not just by Wall Street, and they should know better than to think so poorly of all of us who don’t work on Wall Street.

The Social Security Caucus, who could also be known as the “True Grit” Caucus began meeting today in the U.S. Senate as a new sense of urgency grew on the same day as the Tea Party Caucus met. The five Tea Party Senators expressed a willingness to privatize the program just a day after newly minted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said he’d be willing to make cuts for those under 55 to Social Security. In stark contrast Senator Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today called Social Security “the most successful program our country has ever seen” at the news conference announcing the caucus. The group of six Senators that began meeting today in support of Social Security are willing to stand up to the villains who would take away the great program like common thieves, using the usual smelly pile of lies about the program that have been told since its inception.

First, the program remains solvent for the next 25 years after being solvent for over 75 years. Is there anyone who could expect to have a perfect fiscal history for 100 straight years, let alone a freestanding government program that so many have sought the ability to tamper with?

During the press conference Schumer also made the point that the Tea Party caucus wants to privatize Social Security and privatizing it means ending it. Add to that correct remark that doing anything to cut Social Security benefits also means an end to it as we know it.

But by giving a song and dance about “insolvency” worthy of the Thriller video, some conservatives are pulling the wool over reporters’ eyes and their constituents’ eyes so they can do something to gut the program. Social Security is solvent until 2037, 25 years from this year. How many friends and relatives do you have whose bank accounts are solvent even for the next year, let alone for 25 years? Sure it needs to be fixed, but ultraconservatives who want to see the program killed always carp about Social Security’s insolvency when what they really want to do is make cuts to the program so they can eventually make it collapse.

The program needs to be fixed as do our education system, our current economic situation, too many movies being made about vampires, the personal hygiene of the cast from the Jersey Shore and so many other things. But let’s fix it, not kill it by pretending it’s going to end tomorrow.

For some perspective, 25 years ago, in 1986, America officially observed Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday for the first time, Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer was a number 1 hit song on tape and vinyl, and Top Gun was the top-grossing film of the year. 25 years from now is exactly 12 new Congress’ away from this one. Hopefully by then, one of the thirteen Congress’ can find a solution or a combination of solutions to keep the program solvent for another 100 years or longer, but it doesn’t have to be this one, or even the next one.

The fact is that another way to gut the successful program is by further raising the retirement age even though life expectancy for most Americans is not increasing, and for many Americans, life expectancy is actually decreasing. If we raised the retirement age we would slowly strangle benefits that on average are less than minimum wage already. Each year the retirement age would get raised by those who support benefit cuts for Social Security is nearly a 7% cut.

When politicians like those in the Tea Party Caucus tell reporters in the warm embrace of the Capitol they may raise the retirement age for Social Security but not mention this to their constituents at home, they’re trying to sneak something by as clearly as the writing on Sarah Palin’s hand, and as the Tea Party Caucus may attempt to do.

At the end of the press conference, because the media likes a good horse race or dueling Senators, a reporter asked about the Tea Party Caucus’s efforts. Barbara Kenelly from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare spoke about the fact that we would have many more Senators committed to preserving and strengthening Social Security than the Tea Party Caucus ever would have committed to privatizing Social Security. Lo and behold, there appeared Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) walking down the hallway the press conference was being held in, who joined Schumer, the founder of the caucus Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in becoming a founding member of the caucus.

Also standing with the Senators in addition to Kennelly were Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, co-chairs of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, Richard Fiesta, Director of Government and Political Affairs at the Alliance for Retired Americans, and pollster Celinda Lake, whose recent polling showed that no one including Democrats, Republicans, Independents and Tea Partiers, wants to see any of their benefits cut.

Tea Party Caucus members who want to privatize Social Security or cut benefits in any way should consider changing their tune on this issue and joining the Social Security Caucus or at least speaking honestly to their constituents about the issue they’re so willing to tell tales about under the Capitol dome.

Brian Beutler at TPMDC notes Schumer saying “We’re not crying wolf here. This is a serious movement to undo the most successful government program in the 20th century.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), clearly at least an honorary member of the new caucus, may have made the point more strongly on Meet the Press than the President made so well in the State of the Union, but trying to gut our most successful program that Americans nearly all support will never happen if they’re remotely honest about what they’re trying to do. If there’s one thing that moderate and progressive Democrats can have true grit on, it’s this issue. Hopefully more will join the caucus and more will protect, strengthen and preserve the program for future generations.

The Latest Battle to Take Social Security from the Middle Class, People of Color, and People with Disabilities

Earlier today I attended a press conference in an elaborate 8th floor room overlooking the U.S. Capitol at the Newseum for an unveiling of billionaire Pete Peterson’s latest attempt to crush Social Security with his bags of money. Peterson and his son launched “OweNO,” a $6 million national and regional ad campaign to supposedly “educate Americans about the consequences of our soaring debt and deficits.” Just before the press conference a reporter whose badge indicated he worked for the Associated Press asked a fellow reporter if he’d had any luck getting information on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The other reporter indicated he hadn’t as did the AP scribe.

Peterson started the press conference by telling a joke from a Tricky Dick “Nixon administration humorist.” The one-liner designed to put the audience at ease before Peterson attempted to convince Americans once again that their Social Security should go to people like him and his greedy friends on Wall Street by using the smoke and mirror tactics he’d inherited from his former boss President Nixon.

It’s appropriate Peterson opened with a joke because the press conference could have been a scene from Caddyshack or a similar 80’s romp. Those in the room of about fifty included billionaire Pete Peterson and his son, U.S. Senators Evan Bayh (D-IN), Kent Conrad (D-ND), former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), a whole bunch of white guys (including myself), several women, and not more than three or four from different ethnic backgrounds, one of whom was serving food and beverages and one of whom was behind a television camera taping the event. We might as well have been at Bushwood Country Club toasting to the rich getting richer.

The “elite” men, 2 billionaires and 3 U.S. Senators, told us in their country club lingo that the deficit in the medium and longterm might kill our country while working people doing their jobs with their hands there in the Newseum were likely somewhat more worried about paying their own bills and keeping their own jobs.

They launched their ads, featuring an older white guy as an out of touch Presidential candidate saying he wanted to grow the debt and didn’t care about children or grandchildren. This bit, though not appearing to dawn on the assembled media was humorous only in that Peterson really doesn’t care about future generations that aren’t as loaded as him. If he did, he’d work to find a way to strengthen Social Security and our economy, not cut big payouts to his Wall Street cronies.

Everything was going swimmingly until Domenici came to the podium after having stepped away, with tears in his eyes, to tell those assembled that his eldest sister had just passed away. Everyone there seemed sympathetic, and it wasn’t clear if he would go on speaking. But then the elderly, shaken Domenici went on a rant to the room, comparing our national deficit to the Nazis, and defeating the deficit as important if not more, than defeating the Nazis. He then said that the Nazis were an overt enemy and the deficit must be understood to be a “freedom losing event that might turn us in to a second rate country.”

My sympathies still go to Domenici and his family but when you compare the deficit to the Nazis while you live on your comfortable Senate pension, and maybe more, it deserves to be noted that no deficit will kill members of my family and millions of others. But metaphoric or not, the deficit ain’t World War II.

During the Q&A Conrad then let slip the words of the day: “Social Security,” which to that point hadn’t crossed anyone’s lips. Conrad, a member of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, said that he had met yesterday behind closed doors with the Co-Chair of the commission, failed U.S. Senate candidate and Wall Streeter Erskine Bowles, to discuss proposals for several hours and mentioned that the commission itself hadn’t met in some time. He then called both the right and the left “divorced from reality” if they didn’t think we’d have to cut Medicare and Social Security. “On the right, those who say no new revenue, I believe, are also in denial,” continued Conrad in his attempt to make everyone mad at him. But according to the latest polling, 69% of Americans want to protect Social Security and Medicare, hardly a vast right or left wing conspiracy.

It seems the elite guys in the room, not just the one in the ads were the ones “divorced from reality.” Peterson is likely familiar with another phrase that his $6 million will get him to once again. It’s not quite as amusing but Pete, and wealthy Senators: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink it.

Americans may watch your amusing ads, but they’re not going to swallow your bogus explanations for trying to cut or privatize their Social Security. Cue the credits to this out-of-touch old rich guy comedy and let’s focus on real solutions, not solutions for America’s greediest buffoons.

To stop the sequel, sign this petition to strengthen Social Security today.