News & Comment

Showing the sort of balanced journalism that we have come to expect from the Washington Post, its oped page featured a column by Robert Pozen, a financial industry executive and proponent of Social Security privatization, telling liberals why they should support cuts to Social Security. The gist of Mr. read more »

God save us from sentences like this one: "Don't look now, but an adult conversation has begun on the federal budget deficit." If we've heard this cliché once, we've heard it a thousand times, so we hope we'll be forgiven for the blunt talk that follows. read more »

Thank you for making a world where once there were only a few thousand people who would stand up to prevent the oppression of middle class workers and now there will be hundreds of thousands. You have breathed new life into the worker's rights movement and given us a national stage for our struggle. Thank you for showing the whole world just how far you and other conservatives are willing to go to serve your ideology instead of your constituents. This stark example of your rhetoric being contradicted by your actions was a wakeup call that we all needed to keep motivated and focused on our goal of creating a fair economy in our country. read more »

President Obama today appealed to the patriotism of the members of the Chamber of Commerce to begin investing in America again, to begin bringing factories and jobs back and to begin sharing the gains of our economy with the American people. read more »

After President Obama declined to embrace any specific recommendation from the Simpson-Bowles proposal that originated in his deficit commission, you might have thought that the plan would be buried for good, But key senators won't let it die the death the public feels it deserves. Politico reports: read more »

Here is a letter in a recent "Mr. Roadshow" column in the San Jose Mercury News. The letter illustrates the problems in plutocratic/libertarian thinking vs democracy. (Note: Caltrain is the commuter-rail line serving towns between San Francisco and San Jose.) read more »

Those pesky founding fathers. You'd think guys who so long ago shuffled off that old mortal coil would find it harder to surprise us. With them safely dead for so long, you'd think we could easily appropriate and their past and politics in support of our own, without fear of contradiction. read more »

Okay folks, it looks like the whole country is now playing Peter Peterson's budget ball. For those not familiar with him, Peterson is a Wall Street investment banker. He has made billions of dollars through his dealings and government subsidies, and now he is using much of this money to accomplish a lifelong quest, gutting Social Security and Medicare. In Peterson's budget ball, we can't make any changes that might create any serious inconvenience for the rich and powerful. We can have some small cuts in defense and modest tax increases for the rich as window dressing, but what we are left with is a massive budget deficit and nothing but Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs left to cut. That might sound like a rigged game, but Peterson is paying for it, so he gets to set the rules. What else would we expect? The big question is whether President Obama is also playing this game. We will find out tonight. read more »

As I have previously warned — and I hope I'm wrong — President Obama seems on the verge of needlessly cutting America's most valued social program and the one that best differentiates Republicans from Democrats. This is part of a vain effort to appease deficit hawks in his own party and on Wall Street, as well as Republicans who are utter hypocrites when it comes to deficits — increasing them as long as the purpose is tax cuts but then turning around and demanding program cuts in order to reduce the deficits they created. All the choreography is in place for the president to embrace Social Security cuts in his upcoming State of the Union address. read more »

As I have previously warned--and I hope I'm wrong--President Obama seems on the verge of needlessly cutting America's most valued social program and the one that best differentiates Republicans from Democrats. read more »