A former Republican congressman from Ohio found himself in the difficult position Tuesday of explaining the policy of not paying back Social Security funds that were used for things like tax cuts for the rich.

Guest hosting MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show, Cenk Uygur gave former Rep. Bob McEwen the task of defending his idea that Social Security should be cut.

Uygur pointed out that the Social Security Trust Fund has actually run surpluses for the last 25 years.

In an op-ed for Politico, Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote:

First, let’s be clear: Despite all the right-wing rhetoric, Social Security is not going bankrupt. That’s a lie!

The truth is that the Social Security Trust Fund has run surpluses for the last quarter century. Today’s $2.5 trillion cushion is projected to grow to $4 trillion in 2023. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, experts in this area, say Social Security will be able to pay every nickel owed to every eligible beneficiary until 2039.

Got that? In case you don’t, let me repeat it. The people who have studied this issue most thoroughly and have no political bias report that Social Security will be able to pay out all benefits to every eligible beneficiary for the next 29 years.

“It’s has a $2.5 trillion surplus,” said Uygur. “It will pay 100 percent of your benefits through 2037. In a worst case scenario, pay 78 percent of your benefits through 2084.”

“You just said they’ve already spent it,” argued McEwen. “So either it has been spent and nothing is there. We have to decide on one or the other.”

“If we have a debt to China or we have a debt to Saudi Arabia, we have to pay it or the bond market will flip out,” replied Uygur. “Now if we have a debt to the American people, which we do under Social Security, and you want to bilk them on that, well that also involves our faith in credit. That’s not right.”

“You guys spend it on the tax cuts for the rich and senseless ridiculous wars. How about we get our money back?” Uygur demanded.

“The fact is that it’s gone. It has been consumed and spent and there is no treasury,” said McEwen.

Uygur was becoming frustrated. “No. Every economist agrees it will pay 100 percent until 2037. Are you disagreeing with all those numbers?”

“Yes,” replied McEwen.

“Of course, you are,” said Uygur. “Because you’ve already spent our money. You’re not going to give it back to the American people, are you?” he asked.

Before the congressman could answer, Uygur shouted, “They put it — every year, every year, every single year that comes out of our paycheck. We put it in and you’re saying we were suckered. That you just took the money and gave it in tax cuts to the rich, and you’re just not going to give it back. Is that what you’re saying?”

McEwen attempted to explain that because people are living longer something has to be done. “You can go to the parking lot of the House and Senate today and see the same bumper sticker that I saw when I was a kid. And it said, ‘Vote Democrat. Save Social Security.’ In other words, they’ve been riding this thing for 30 years. We knew this day would come. It’s now here. There’s no alternative,” he said.

Uygur loved the irony. “Congressman, you just told them you were going to cut their Social Security. You just told them I’m not going to pay you back. You just told them you were going to raise the retirement age. You said 65 is too young, now you’re saying that Democrats are demagoging it?”

“You tell me what to do when you’re running short of money? What are your options,” asked McEwen.

“There are a hundred other things to cut. For example, billions in defense contracting, waste in defense contracting. Here’s one. How about we didn’t go into that dumbass war in Iraq and waste a trillion dollars when we found zero weapons of mass destruction?” answered Uygur.

As RAW STORY recently reported, Republicans aren’t the only one eyeing cuts to Social Security.

Prominent progressive economists are warning liberals and senior citizens not to take Social Security for granted simply because Republicans are out of power, arguing that structural incentives are propelling Democratic leaders to support scaling back the cherished program.

“Social Security faced its greatest danger when Bill Clinton was in the White House,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in an e-mail. “The reason is that the Wall Street Democrats can be counted on to oppose cuts coming from Republicans for partisan purposes. When they are in power, they have no reason to oppose these cuts.”

This video is from MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show, broadcast Aug. 31, 2010.

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There is no question that the Superfund program, first established 30 years ago, is facing a budget crunch. For 15 years, the federal government imposed taxes on oil and chemical companies and certain other corporations that went directly into a cleanup trust fund, which reached its peak of $3.8 billion in 1996. But the taxes expired in 1995, and because Congress refused to renew them, the fund ran out of money.

Now the Obama administration will push to reinstate the so-called Superfund tax. The Environmental Protection Agency, which rarely urges the passage of specific bills, will send a letter to Congress as early as Monday calling for legislation to reimpose the tax.

The move will spark an intense battle on Capitol Hill, with Democrats and the administration lining up against oil companies and chemical manufacturers. The measure’s proponents say it will ease the burden on taxpayers, who are currently funding the cleanup of “orphaned” sites, where no one has accepted responsibility for the contamination. Opponents suggest that it amounts to an unfair penalty.

“This is really about who should pay for the cleanup,” said Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. “Should it be the taxpayer, who has no responsibility for contaminating the sites, or should it be those individuals who create hazardous substances that contaminate the site?”

Since the fund ran out of money at the end of fiscal 2003, the federal government has appropriated public dollars each year to pay for orphaned sites, which account for 606 of the 1,279 sites across the nation. But that has slowed the rate of cleanup. The program completed just 19 sites last year, compared with 89 in 1999, the EPA says.

“It’s clearly slowed down as the money’s dried up,” said Mike Charles, senior manager for government relations at the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Superfund sites are found in the District of Columbia and every state except North Dakota (whose one site was restored to health). Orphaned sites abound, including Ordinance Products in Cecil County, Md., and Atlantic Wood Industries in Portsmouth, Va. The Washington Navy Yard is still struggling with contamination dating from the 1800s, and federal authorities have yet to remove all the toxins from the area’s groundwater.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee who has been pushing to reinstate the Superfund tax for more than three years, said the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico might encourage lawmakers, even some Republicans, to embrace a new tax on oil and petrochemicals.

Blumenauer’s bill would raise about $18.9 billion over 10 years by imposing excise taxes of 9.7 cents a barrel on crude oil and refined oil products, excise taxes of 22 cents to $4.87 a ton on certain chemicals, and an income tax of 0.12 percent on certain corporations’ modified alternative minimum taxable income above $2 million.

“I think the stars have aligned to make it not only possible for the first time in 15 years but likely that we will reinstate the Superfund tax,” Blumenauer said in an interview. He added that for industries facing the tax, “it’s a golden opportunity to demonstrate their environmental responsibility and their willingness to solve problems.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also supports the reinstatement of what her spokesman Drew Hammill called the “polluter pays” tax.

But a similar measure in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), could face a greater challenge, given Republicans’ inclination to filibuster any measure that lacks the support of 60 senators.

Oil producers and refiners, now facing the prospect of Congress raising the Oil Spill Liability Fund tax from 8 to 49 cents a barrel, are furious at the idea of another tax burden.

“Policymakers — Congress and the administration — have simply got to stop using the domestic refining and petrochemical industry as an ATM machine,” said Charles Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. “They seem to think we’re an endless supply of cash for other programs.”

Chemical manufacturers are just as opposed, and they note that the chemicals in question are used in everything from plastics to public water treatment. Cal Dooley, president of the American Chemistry Council, said members of his association “have invested literally billions of dollars” in sites that they have taken responsibility for cleaning up.

“It is blatantly inequitable and unfair for the administration or Congress to reinstate a Superfund excise tax,” Dooley said in an interview. He said it would undermine the goal of “an economic recovery in the manufacturing sector in the United States” because it would result in “shifting jobs outside the United States to chemical manufacturers that would not be subject to this tax.”

If a company’s actions, product or services cost society, should the company pay those costs? Or does profit trump the public good?

If a company’s actions, product or services cost society, should the company pay those costs? Or does profit trump the public good?

Genetically modified crops were last night given enthusiastic backing by the Environment Secretary.

Caroline Spelman shocked colleagues by suggesting that the coalition government will take a more pro-GM stance than its Labour predecessor.

The Tories have traditionally taken a sceptical approach to so-called ‘Frankenstein foods’, and at present no GM varieties are cultivated commercially in the UK.
Despite little appetite for the so-called ‘Frankenstein food’ in Britain, a change in EU rules could open the floodgates for member countries to plant new GM varieties.

Labour ministers shied away from promoting GM foods in recent years over concerns about a public backlash.

But Mrs Spelman insisted last night they could bring ‘benefits to food in the marketplace’.

Her intervention drew fierce criticism from anti-GM campaigners, who accused her of getting her facts wrong and highlighted her background as a lobbyist for biotechnology.

Mrs Spelman set up a food and biotechnology lobbying company Spelman, Cormack and Associates with her husband, Mark Spelman, in 1989. Although she resigned as a company director last year, the firm remains in the hands of her husband.

Yesterday Mrs Spelman said she was in favour of GM foods ‘in the right circumstances’, though she insisted they should not be promoted using public money and expressed concerns-about some aspects of the technology. ‘GM can bring benefits in food to the marketplace. The sale should not be promoted by the taxpayer,’ she said.

‘Lord Henley [the new environment minister] has approved a trial of a potato blight-resistant variety. That’s the kind of modification that can reduce the amount of agro-chemicals which need to be applied.’

She added: ‘There are benefits to developing countries, like drought resistance or resistance to high salt content in water. The principle of GM technology is [ok] if used well. The technology can be beneficial.’

EU pushes for more GM crops

However, she criticised Labour’s GBP500,000 official public consultation into genetically modified food, which is in turmoil following protests that it has been rigged. This week, two academics on a Food Standards Agency committee resigned in protest saying they could not support a spin exercise to promote GM food.

‘The Food Standards Agency should not be spending taxpayers’ money promoting GM foods,’ Mrs Spelman said. Aides insisted last night that the minister had been speaking before any firm policy on GM crops has been established.

Pete Riley, director of GM Freeze, welcomed her remarks about the GM consultation. But he added: ‘The Secretary of State needs to check very carefully before making claims about

‘There are no salt tolerant or drought resistant crops on the market and none seem likely in the foreseeable future.

‘Non-GM blight resistant potatoes are already on the market, whilst the GM ones are still being developed despite a £1.7million investment of public money to date.

‘Mrs Spelman needs to be very careful in how she deals with GM issues given her background as a lobbyist in the area and should take advice from a far wider spectrum before making policy.’

Mrs Spelman also said she would block the practice of building on green belt and create new green belt areas.

She confirmed that badgers would be culled in England and that there would be a free vote on repealing Labour’s hunting ban.

Sources close to Blackwater and its secretive owner Erik Prince claim that the embattled head of the world’s most infamous mercenary firm is planning to move to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Middle Eastern nation, a major hub for the US war industry, has no extradition treaty with the United States. In April, five of Prince’s top deputies were hit with a fifteen-count indictment by a federal grand jury on conspiracy, weapons and obstruction of justice charges. Among those indicted were Prince’s longtime number-two man, former Blackwater president Gary Jackson, former vice presidents William Matthews and Ana Bundy and Prince’s former legal counsel Andrew Howell.

The Blackwater/Erik Prince saga took yet another dramatic turn last week, when Prince abruptly announced that he was putting his company up for sale.

While Prince has not personally been charged with any crimes, federal investigators and several Congressional committees clearly have his company and inner circle in their sights. The Nation learned of Prince’s alleged plans to move to the UAE from three separate sources. One Blackwater source told The Nation that Prince intends to sell his company quickly, saying the “sale is going to be a fast move within a couple of months.”

Mark Corallo, a trusted Prince advisor and Blackwater spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny the allegation that Prince is planning to move to the United Arab Emirates. “I have a policy on not discussing my client’s personal lives—especially when that client is a private citizen,” Corallo, who runs his own crisis management and PR firm, said in an e-mail to The Nation. “It is nobody’s business where Mr. Prince (or anyone else) chooses to live. So I’m afraid I will not be able to confirm any rumors.”

A source with knowledge of the federal criminal probe into Blackwater’s activities told The Nation that none of Prince’s indicted colleagues have flipped on Prince since being formally charged, but rumors abound in Blackwater and legal circles that Prince may one day find himself in legal trouble. Former Blackwater employees claim they have provided federal prosecutors with testimony about what they allege is Prince’s involvement in illegal activity.

If Prince’s rumored future move is linked to concerns over possible indictment, the United Arab Emirates would be an interesting choice for a new home—particularly because it does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. “If Prince were not living in the US, it would be far more complicated for US prosecutors to commence an action against him,” says Scott Horton, a Columbia University Law lecturer and international law expert who has long tracked Blackwater. “There is a long history of people thwarting prosecutors simply by living overseas.” The UAE, Horton says, is “definitely a jurisdiction where Prince could count on it not being simple for the US to pursue him legally.”

The UAE is made up of seven states, the most powerful among them being Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Since 9/11, they have emerged as hubs for the US war industry. “Global service providers” account for some three-quarters of Dubai’s GDP, while oil represents only 3 percent. “They have established themselves as the premiere location in the Middle East for offshore banking and professional services,” says Horton, who has legal experience in the UAE. “If you have connections to the royal families, then the law doesn’t really apply to you. I would be very surprised if Erik Prince does not have those kinds of connections there.”

As a matter of policy the Justice Department will not discuss possible investigations of people who have not yet been charged with a crime.

Two former employees made serious allegations against Prince last August in sworn declarations filed as part of a civil lawsuit against Prince and Blackwater. One former employee alleged that Prince turned a profit by transporting “illegal” or “unlawful” weapons into Iraq on his private planes. A four-year employee of Blackwater, identified in his declaration as “John Doe #2,” stated that “it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct.” He also stated that “Mr. Prince feared, and continues to fear, that the federal authorities will detect and prosecute his various criminal deeds,” adding: “On more than one occasion, Mr. Prince and his top managers gave orders to destroy emails and other documents. Many incriminating videotapes, documents and emails have been shredded and destroyed.”

John Doe #2′s identity was concealed in the sworn declaration because he “fear[s] violence against me in retaliation for submitting this Declaration.” He also alleged, “On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince’s employ, Mr. Prince’s management has personally threatened me with death and violence.” Doe #2 stated in his declaration that he provided the information contained in his statement “in grand jury proceedings convened by the United States Department of Justice.”

Prince is also facing civil lawsuits brought by Iraqi victims of Blackwater. Among these is a suit filed in North Carolina by the family of 9-year-old Ali Kinani. Kinani’s family alleges he was shot in the head and killed by Blackwater operatives in the infamous Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in 2007. Earlier this year, Prince claimed he was spending $2 million a month in legal fees and on what he described as a “giant proctological exam” by nearly a dozen federal agencies.

Even if prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to charge Prince with a crime, because of the classified nature of some of Blackwater and Prince’s work for the CIA and other agencies of the US government, prosecuting him could prove challenging. Prince has deep knowledge of covert US actions that the US government or military may not want public, which could be revealed as part of a potential defense Prince could offer. Blackwater—and Prince specifically—long worked on the CIA’s assassination program.

Some observers believe that Prince has already engaged in “graymail” by revealing some details of his classified work for the CIA and military, specifically in a January 2010 article in Vanity Fair, written by a former CIA lawyer. Graymail is a legal tactic that has been used for years by intelligence operatives or assets who are facing prosecution or fear they soon will be. In short, these operatives or assets threaten to reveal details of sensitive or classified operations in order to ward off indictments or criminal charges, based on the belief that the government would not want these details revealed.

After Jackson and the other former Blackwater executives were indicted, their lawyers claimed that the US government approved of their conduct. “All of this was with the knowledge of, the request of, for the convenience of, an agency of the US government,” Jackson’s lawyer Ken Bell told the judge during a bond hearing in April. Bell did not reveal which agency he was referring to and did not answer questions from reporters.

The latest developments in the Blackwater story come after a two-year campaign by Blackwater to rebrand itself as “Xe Services” and the “US Training Center.” In March 2009, Prince announced he was stepping down as CEO of the company, though he has remained its sole owner. While Blackwater continues to be a significant player in US operations in Afghanistan under the Obama administration—working for the State Department, Defense Department and CIA—it is facing increased scrutiny on Capitol Hill and continued pressure from the Justice Department.

On June 11, federal prosecutors filed a massive brief in their appeal of last year’s dismissal by a federal judge of manslaughter charges against the Blackwater operatives alleged to be the “shooters” at Nisour Square. In the brief, prosecutors asked that the indictment of the Blackwater men be reinstated. Meanwhile, two other Blackwater operatives were indicted in January on murder charges stemming from a shooting in Afghanistan in May 2008. Senator Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee has called on the Justice Department to investigate Blackwater’s use of a shell company, Paravant, to win training contracts in Afghanistan.

Blackwater has been spending heavily this year on lobbyists—particularly Democratic ones. In the first quarter of 2010, the company spent more than $500,000 for the services of Stuart Eizenstat, a well-connected Democratic lobbyist who served in the Clinton and Carter administrations. Eizenstat heads the international practice for the powerhouse law and lobbying firm Covington and Burling.

Prince sold Blackwater’s aviation division earlier this year for $200 million. In announcing last week that the rest of Blackwater was up for sale, the company said in a statement that Blackwater’s “new management team has made significant changes and improvements to the company over the last 15 months, which have enabled the company to better serve the US government and other customers, and will deliver additional value to a purchaser.” While Blackwater has tried to shed the Blackwater name in many aspects of its business, the company has recently opened a series of Blackwater “Pro-Shop” retail stores, offering merchandise bearing the Blackwater name and original logo. Among the items for sale: pink Blackwater baby onesies, Blackwater pint glasses, Blackwater beach towels and, of course, rifles.

In a speech in January, obtained by The Nation, Prince said that he intends to publish a book this fall. He was originally slated to come out with a book in June 2008 with the title We Are Blackwater.

(June 11) — Just when it looked as if the Gulf of Mexico oil spill couldn’t get much worse, it has — big time. Based on figures gathered by a panel of scientists, the estimate of oil gushing from the ruptured BP well each day has been doubled.

The new data, based on improved techniques, puts the estimate of leaking oil at 25,000 to 30,000 barrels a day, or nearly 1.3 million gallons every 24 hours.

By comparison, the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989, until now the worst of its kind in the U.S., gushed nearly 11 million gallons into Prince William Sound, Alaska.

Under intense political pressure from the White House to make financial retributions its top priority, BP has decided to defer paying dividends to shareholders, according to The Times of London.

While final approval is not expected to come before next month, The Times said it had learned that the money for the second quarter will be put into an escrow account until its total liabilities are known.

The new estimate, by a government panel called the Flow Rate Technical Group, was made before BP cut a pipe called a riser last week so it could install a new cap on the well. A new estimate is being prepared to cover the period after that step was taken.

The numbers have varied widely since an explosion killed 11 rig workers on April 20 and sent oil gushing toward the Louisiana coast, and later as far as Florida. BP has issued its own estimates, some more positive and others more negative, and the government has increased its own numbers three times.

Speaking at a briefing in Washington after the new numbers were released, Adm. Thad Allen of the Coast Guard, the Obama administration’s point man in the spill, said reliable numbers on the severity of the crisis are hard to get.

“I think we’re still dealing with the flow estimate,” he said. “We’re still trying to refine those numbers.” But he said experts still hoped to capture more of the spill as equipment is upgraded and made available.

The director of the United States Geological Survey, Marcia McNutt, who is also director of the technical group, said more detailed analysis of the video showing the gushing oil as well as the use of sonar equipment was used to arrive at the new estimates, The New York Times reported.

Two scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution made the measurements on May 31, the Times said, but another team came up with even higher estimates, The Associated Press reported.

President Barack Obama, who has made three trips to the region to inspect the environmental damage and talk to some of the thousands of people affected by it, is scheduled to take part in a meeting of administration officials at the White House on Wednesday with BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg.

The company, which hopes to increase the amount of oil it’s capturing from the spill by next week, has been fighting off increasing criticism on both sides of the Atlantic. Its stock rose slightly in London today after dropping to a 14-year low in U.S. trading on Wednesday.

BP, one of Britain’s biggest companies, plays a large role in almost every U.K. pension fund, The Times of London reported, and any move to suspend or defer dividend payments could send stocks down again and lead to public anger.

Credit Suisse says BP could end up paying as much as $15 billion to $23 billion to cover cleanup costs, plus $14 billion in claims, according to The New York Times.

But like most if not all oil companies, profits are high, with BP’s net gain last year at $17 billion.

“This company, I think, will stay solvent,” said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who is chairman of a committee looking into the disaster, adding, “And we’re going to make sure that the shareholders wait until the victims are paid first.”