It was pointed out that the use of “Cat Food Commission” in reference to attacks on the US Social Security system is very much an Americanism, and a historical reference for younger readers.

It may have started before the Reagan Social Security “fix” in the 1980s”, but that is when I remember it was used most prominently. It is definitely propaganda, and definitely effective.

The usage requires the stereotyping of the Social Security recipient as an elderly widow who lives alone with her cat, and states that those attempting to change the system will force the widow into eating cat food as a cheaper alternative to regular food.

It is necessary to know that the US had an extended period of high inflation at the time, and Social Security recipients were in trouble with the rising costs while living on a fixed income.

The net result was the doubling of the withholding tax and a rise in the retirement age to build up a surplus to cover the retirement of the Baby Boom. Boomers paid for their parents and themselves, breaking the pattern of each generation paying for its parents’ generation.

Boomers agreed to this, so we are not receptive to any more games by the same Wall Street crowd that destroyed the private retirement programs that companies once offered.

From the litter box of the MSM –

Dan Eggen of the Washington Post tells us that Many deficit commission staffers paid by outside groups. Can you say “lobbyist wrote this turkey”? I thought you could.

Paul Krugman in the New York Times crunches the numbers of The Hijacked Commission: “Actually, though, what the co-chairmen are proposing is a mixture of tax cuts and tax increases — tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class.”

Same as it ever was – Reagan supply side / trickle down / voodoo economics in the hallowed spirit of the Revelation of the Cocktail Napkin of Laffer™ – the perverse idea that leads one to conclude that as tax rates approach zero, tax revenues approach infinity.

As an added bonus I include yet another person with real world experience, Dave Johnson, explaining Businesses Do Not Create Jobs. Maybe his version will help people understand what Badtux, Steve Bates, and I don’t seem to be able to get across – it is all about DEMAND. You don’t hire people unless you have the demand to justify doing it.

On a related note, I saw that Cisco Systems has taken a hit because of the austerity budgets of state and local governments. With about a 10% cut in demand, they will probably be laying people off in manufacturing.

Richard Mauer of The Anchorage Daily News provides another example: Miller challenged Murkowski write-ins in wrong court, Alaska says

The state says that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller has no business going into federal court now to challenge the counting of write-in ballots for his opponent and urged a federal judge to dismiss the case he filed this week.

State courts are the proper forum to interpret Alaska election law and the actions of state officials, Assistant Attorney General Margaret Paton Walsh said in her motion to dismiss. Until the Alaska Supreme Court has spoken, Miller has no legal basis to make a federal case out of the issue, she said.
…

As a candidate, one of Miller’s central messages was that the federal government has overreached into areas that should be run by the states, whether that was Social Security, health care, education or resource protection. Now the state says it is Miller who is overreaching by asking a federal court to interfere in what should be an Alaska affair.

It’s only an issue if other people do it, not if Tea Partiers do it. States only have rights if they agree with the prejudices of the Tea Party, not as a matter of any fundamental principle.

Miller’s representatives at the write-in count challenged a ballot that has the correct spelling of Lisa Murkowski, but the “L” was cursive, while the rest was block printed.

A Rare Event

Just stop it!

[Editor: Getting all three of them, Property, Excise and Income [in the back] together in the same frame almost never happens any more. Income’s eyes are even open so you can see the gold color. It didn’t last as Excise realized that his sister was in reach, so he did and they exploded off their perch.

Friday Ark