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Boo! W. Post Dresses Up Like a Newspaper To Tell a Social Security Ghost Story by Richard (RJ) Eskow, OurFuture.org | October 30, 2011
What do they call the night before Halloween? Oh, yeah. Hell night. That makes tonight just right for grabbing a fistful of mashmallows and candy corn before sitting down to read this article. It'll make your blood run cold, and afterwards you'll probably agree: It's time to stop letting this propaganda outlet keep dressing up as a newspaper. A History of Mendacity read more »Wanna See a Real Ass Kicking (Itself)? Read the Dems' Disastrous "Super Committee" Proposal by Richard (RJ) Eskow, OurFuture.org | October 27, 2011
If you've ever questioned whether the so-called "Super Committee" represents a breakdown in the democratic process, yesterday's proposal from the group's Democratic members should put your doubts to rest. The system's seriously broken when unelected super-legislators from both parties keep trying to top each other in proposing inhumane and unpopular programs. The party of the donkey is about to give itself a real ass-kicking. read more »Disabled Kids And The Dow Jones: Their Common "Super Committee" Threat by Richard (RJ) Eskow, OurFuture.org | October 26, 2011
Bad economics makes strange bedfellows. Thanks to our nation's misguided obsession with budget cuts, disabled children and the stock market face a common threat: an undemocratically-selected "Super Committee" which was formed during a national jobs emergency in order to ... reduce deficits instead. read more »Perry’s Social Security Plan: A “Monstrous Lie” by Daniel Marans, OurFuture.org | October 26, 2011
A few weeks after calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” Rick Perry claims he has just the plan to save the program. That is nothing but a monstrous lie. read more »Occupy Wall Street Speaks For America: A "Centrist" Hit Job's Polling Data Helps Prove It by Richard (RJ) Eskow, OurFuture.org | October 18, 2011
Thanks to a hit piece by one of those Beltway pseudo-"bipartisans" we can now state conclusively what many of us have long suspected: Occupy Wall Street speaks for the American majority. We've got the polling numbers to prove it. We now know where the real center lies. read more »Charles Koch to Friedrich Hayek: Use Social Security! by Yasha Levine and Mark Ames, The Nation | September 30, 2011
There’s right-wing hypocrisy, and then there’s this: Charles Koch, billionaire patron of free-market libertarianism, privately championed the benefits of Social Security to Friedrich Hayek, the leading laissez-faire economist of the twentieth century. Koch even sent Hayek a government pamphlet to help him take advantage of America’s federal retirement insurance and healthcare programs. The private correspondence between two of the most important figures shaping the Republican Party’s economic policies — billionaire libertarian Charles Koch and Nobel Prize–winning economist Friedrich Hayek, godfather of today’s free-market movement — offer a rare glimpse into how these two major free-market apostles privately felt about government assistance programs — revealing a shocking degree of cynicism and an unimaginable betrayal of the ideas they sold to the American public and the rest of the world. read more »Gutting Social Security Would Devastate Blacks and Hispanics by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Huffington Post | September 21, 2011
Two fresh dangers in the looming Social Security battleground confront blacks and Hispanics. The GOP presidential candidates posed one when they again called for partially privatizing Social Security in recent stump speeches and statements. The idea is nothing but a rehash of the idea floated by George W. Bush in 2005. The idea mercifully went nowhere, Bush dropped it. The other danger is the soaring poverty numbers. Social Security stands squarely in the middle of the two dangers. The recent census report found that the number of Americans in poverty has hit a near all time high. A disproportionate number of those are blacks and Hispanics. This is where privatizing or any tweak, reduction, or downsize of Social Security would virtually guarantee that the economic pain to blacks and Hispanics would be unimaginable. read more »Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme? Is the Washington Post a Criminal Enterprise? by Dean Baker, Huffington Post | September 20, 2011
Ever since Texas Governor Rick Perry attacked Social Security as a Ponzi scheme as an opening gambit in his presidential campaign we have been treated to a spirited debate in the media on the truth of this proposition. Those of us who consider this to be ill-informed nonsense that has the effect of misleading the public about the state of Social Security's finances were told to lighten up. After all, what is wrong with debating the topic? In this spirit of free and open debate, perhaps our attention should be devoted to the question of whether the Washington Post is a criminal enterprise. While it is ostensibly a newspaper that purports to give the public an objective take on key events in the country and the world, it has been involved in several actions that raise serious questions about this status. read more »The White House Won't Touch Social Security. Great! Now, About Medicare ... by Richard (RJ) Eskow, OurFuture.org | September 15, 2011
Washington, DC felt like a city on a deathwatch this week, after a series of White House news leaks said the President would announce cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits next Monday. One plan was to raise the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security. Another involved an accounting gimmick that would cut the already-inadequate cost of living adjustments for Social Security benefits - and raise taxes on the middle class, too. read more »Making Us Stupid by Digby , OurFuture.org | September 15, 2011
If you want to know why we are so screwed as a nation, you can probably find a couple of dozen good reasons. But this, I say, is right at the top of the list. From MSNBC, with Chuck Todd filling in for Andrea Mitchell: read more »
The Latest
Robert Borosage is quoted in The Washington Post: Voters want the focus on jobs, voices.washingtonpost.com | January 24, 2011
Call it the pre-prebuttal. Anticipating a heavy focus on reducing the deficit in President Obama's State of the Union address next week, liberal groups are already attacking the idea, arguing that deficit reduction should not come before further stimulus to help the economy. read more »
Roger Hickey is quoted in the Washington Post , The Washington Post | January 24, 2011
DCCC Chair: Dems Will Pound GOP On Social Security, Keep Retirement Age In Place , Huffington Post | August 13, 2010
Top officials insist that among all the issues they've tested with voters, the one that yields the best results for the party is a pledge to protect the retirement program from privatization. read more »
Protecting Social Security: Let's Tell The Deficit Commission Not to Slash Entitlements , dailykos.com | August 13, 2010
Earlier today I sent a letter to the White House, signed by myself and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Lynn Woolsey, making it clear that we will stand against any potential cuts to Social Security benefits. read more »
At 75, Social Security Ripens as Voter Issue, USA Today | August 13, 2010
They spent months on health care and Wall Street in Congress, but as lawmakers talk with voters during the summer recess they are increasingly focused on an entirely different issue: Social Security. read more »
Democracy Corps Poll: Cut the deficit by investing, not by cutting Social Security , dailykos.com | August 13, 2010
The most salient result from the polling, said Greenberg is that it reflected that the electorate is "remarkably sophisticated about the economic crisis and its causes" and hold the firm belief that the only way to address the deficit long term is with investment in the economy. The survey of 1,000 people who voted in 2008 was conducted at the end of July. Here are the key findings:
Dems Plan to Attack GOP on Social Security, thehill.com | August 10, 2010
House Democrats are planning more than 100 events around this week’s anniversary of Social Security to attack Republicans who want to reform the popular entitlement.
Democrats and interest groups on the left have scheduled “birthday parties” and other events to highlight Saturday’s 75th anniversary of the program signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt.
In Weak Economy, More People Are Filing Early for Social Security, The Washington Post | August 9, 2010
Social Security Approaches Its 75th Anniversary, mcclatchydc.com | August 9, 2010
Evelyn Sekula's widowed grandmother struggled to survive during the Depression. Like millions of other elderly people, she had no pension and no savings. read more »
Medicare Stronger, Social Security Worse in Short Run, Report Finds, The New York Times | August 6, 2010
Medicare will remain financially solvent for 12 additional years, until 2029, because of the cost-cutting measures in President Obama’s recently enacted health care legislation, the program’s trustees projected on Thursday. read more »
