The sequester...step one in cutting social security and medicare. It provides the best cover for both parties to say "We didn't have a choice but to cut benefits for seniors..the sequester made us do it"

LOL!!!! We're fucked...we just don't know how bad yet

RIP Bonnie Franklin.

@1: The Speaker of the House did offer the president the opportunity to have leeway in choosing what to cut instead of an across the board slice; but the president rejected it because it did not have tax (oops, I mean revenue) increases.

But we're not fucked, despite the president's hyperbole on the sequester. The U.S. economy is still purring along and will continue to do so. And, I must acknowledge, the president has been doing some good things to bolster the middle class.

@4, If I were you I'd read the sequester bill before you think the economy is just going to purr along.

And you really think that Obama offering to chain SS to the CPI is bolstering the middle class? You jest right? And the problem is he's offered it up on several occasions at this point. Interesting how they never talk about raising the payroll tax cap which is currently at $113K per year to bolster social security for the long term. Makes you wonder how much money the average member of congress makes with their salary and other forms of income.

Social Security has become the rocky headland at the edge of the ocean. It's not going to get larger, but the storms and tides will gradually wear it down to nothing.

And can we just admit that Antonin Scalia is the ultimate judicial activist?

@4 - The economy is expected to lose ~750,000 jobs because of these cuts. GOPers and New Dems (including Obama) are responsible for placing reduction in the deficit ahead of creating jobs. Main street lost 40% of its wealth over the last few years while corporations and the 1% got massive bailouts to pay for massive profits. ~50% of the population has no financial reserve to withstand an emergency or the loss of a job. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows whose turn it is to live up to that proverbial personal responsibility conservatives like to rant about and it is certainly not seniors on fixed income.

The US economy is not "purring along". Employment numbers are barely keeping up with population growth and millions dropped off the job market since 2008, while most jobs created are low paying-no benefit affairs. What's left of the middle class has some tough years ahead to keep what they have.

Oh boo hoo hoo!!! Cry me a fucking river! So what if Social Security gets cut. About time people save for their own damn retirement and stop expecting everyone else to take care of anyone besides themselves. This is America and I look out for NUMBER ONE!!! The best idea Obama has is being willing to cut the old leeches off the Federal Teat once and for all.

Need money in your senior years? Get a job!!

The Yellow Pages is funded by advertising. They have to pay money to deliver it. Obviously a lot of people use the Yellow Pages for both those things to be happening..however, an online advertiser like Index Media might want to take that competition out of play.

It's coincidental that there is no music clip at the end of the morning news, because somehow I ended up on this Slog page from December a few months ago.
http://lineout.thestranger.com/lineout/a…

All I can say is that a few years ago I was in the same room as Lou Reed, about 30 feet away. He looks creepier than ever.

RE: Dennis Rodman's new North Korean friend: A State Department spokesman announced this morning that Dennis Rodman does not speak for the United States. Glad they cleared that up!

The irony is, most Ft Lewis personnel are very conservative politically. The very first jobs lost because of conservative opposition to government spending will be lost by the very people that voted the Republicans into Congress.

Sadly, these people will never learn. The alacrity with which they fire bullets into their own feet is stunning to observe. The people most opposed to government health care tend to be the most obese, if your metric is geographical location. While women comprise over half our population, they are the most oppressed, thanks to large numbers of women who are conservative and anti-feminist. While clearly the minority, conservative Blacks and gays undermine their own communities' civil rights. Rural families advocate for Farm Bills that favor not small farmers but large agricultural corporations that wind up out competing them. Wal-Mart shoppers contribute to the success of a corporation that destroys local businesses and supresses the wages of their own rmployees, ensuring that the only place people living near that Wal-Mart can afford to shop is that same tumor that is choking off the local economy. Thus, the people resident there destroy their own employment and yet cannot escape the trap. In spite of their condition, most Wal-Mart shoppers tend to be conservative in both political and religious senses.

Why are we so self-destructive?

I too believe that the Yellow Pages are unwanted, wasteful, and out-dated. I also believe that they were right to win the lawsuit as they were being singled out over the waste we receive in those packs of mailing adverts (like Safeway's weekly ad). They were a easy whipping boy for a large problem.

Sequester is the new dividing line.

Pro = Republican
Anti = Democrat

Everyone go to the correct side of the room!

Who cares about the sequester, I need to know more about the naked guy in a tree. Why didn't the cops just shoot him?

Purring along a stretch? Yes, okay. Let's make it 'limping along'. That's more accurate, and still quite charitable to the president I never voted for.

@19, Obama didn't have time to declare him to be a possible terrorist or they would have sent a drone in to .... "take care of him"

@8...WTF is wrong with you?

@ people who don't work and expect a free ride! Now get a job!! This is America!!!

@23:
You mean those of us who have worked and PAID INTO social security all of our lives shouldn't get any of it back?
I would have much preferred to never have paid into it in the first place and saved that money.

Social Security isn't going anywhere. The people that buy into the chicken little mentality are the same people that keep spam, chain emails, and telemarketing alive, and the people who think you should just save for retirement and everything will be peachy are they same people who get ripped off by people like Wade Cook and Berhnard Goetz.

We can either support old people by Social Security, or we reopen the county poor homes.

While SS going away entirely is a strawman, there is no doubt that neoliberals want to privatize it at great cost to the public. The Chicago Boys did it to Chile and the privatization model has been relentlessly pushed by the IMF since, until recently when the obvious couldn't be avoided anymore: fewer people are covered, the system cannot afford the "administrative costs" of middlemen and pensions are at risk of disappearing when speculative bubbles burst.

Conservatives and neolibs are set out to prove that government doesn't work so they'll make sure to break it. Lowering SS benefits is part of that process in addition to being a continuation of the usual trickle up economics.

@27 is right: conservatives have hated Social Security from the start, because it's a government program that really really works - and is really really cheap. The overhead costs for administration are crazy low: no private business could make an obscene^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hreasonable profit with single-digit overhead rates (and IIRC, the SS overhead cost is about 3%).

Stewie Griffin, I keep reading your posts in your voice. GOD DAMMIT.

@23: "and to think the sequester was Obama's idea."
Um, to think that is ignorant and inaccurate. The Republicans refused to allow the debt ceiling to be raised unless the sequester deadline was set up. Keep fucking that chicken.

#25

You don't "pay into" Social Security...it is not a savings account. The current workers support the retired workers in realtime. So, I've been supporting GenX and their parents all my life.

Wonder if Dennis Rodman can persuade his new friend for life to give his people (who aren't in the North Korean Army) more than mice and dirt to eat.

@31: I quite sure that such an altruistic thought, or anything like it, ever crosses his mind.

Oh dear, 'ever' should be 'never' in @32.

The sequester wasn't Obama's idea BUT he can and will use it to "save" Medicare and Social Security...by cutting those benefits. If you're under 50 enjoy your cat food in your senior years!!

Now, does anyone know of any companies that are going to start putting up huge dormitories to house the incoming surge of poverty stricken seniors who can't afford even the cheapest in senior housing? 'Cause there's MONEY to be made in that upcoming industry!!!

Amazing how the Stranger agitated and agitated against yellow page distribution then flakked unceasingly for the patently unconstitutional opt-out, and now that it's going to cost the city a million bucks that could have been spent on homeless shelters and bike lanes, they bury the story. I guess you have to be utterly without shame to write there.

@35: "If a person invested the money the government takes in SS them self they would retire with a zillion bucks when they hit 65.
And SS is eaten up with fraud.
The number of slobs on "disability" has DOUBLED under Obama."
[citation needed]