Kokua Council
Obama debt commission to geezers: buzz off
Obama's Debt Commission Co-Chair Tells Old People to Shut Up
UNSILENT GENERATION - On Tuesday President Obama formally launched a new commission that is supposed to bring down the national debt, in large part by investigating how entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare, can be cut back. . . The new commission, which is to file a nonbinding report by Christmas, has two co-chairs. Erskine Bowles, a former investment banker and Clinton chief of staff, is one of them. Alan Simpson, the quirky, conservative, longtime senator from Wyoming, is the other. The commission is supposed to be objective. But Simpson already has signaled that whatever happens, he wants to keep old people out of the process:
"You remember the last time we corrected Social Security, and people calling me. Let me tell you, everything that Bush and Clinton or Obama have suggested with regard to Social Security doesn't affect anyone over 60, and who are the people howling and bitching the most? The people over 60. This makes no sense. You've got scrub out (of) the equation the AARP, the Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare, the Gray Panthers, the Pink Panther, the whatever."
In other words, the geezers should all shut up, since they will all be dead by the time any entitlement reductions kick in. And what if they wanted to stick up for other old people in generations to come? Well, too bad. By the time those suckers hit retirement age, it'll be too late to do anything.
Note: Alan Simpson is 78 years old.
(Thanks to Progressive Review for pointer to this story)
posted by Larry at 5:05 PM
