Author: Dave Johnson

In today’s New York Times, One Liberal Voice Dares to Say, Cut the Budget, by Matt Bai. Bai’s piece frames the federal debt as almost entirely the fault of Social Security, with cutting Social Security the only real way to fix the problem. Bai claims that “liberal groups” are unhappy with attacks on Social Security […]

Former Wyoming Republican Senator Alan Simpson is co-chair of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission. This is what he said the other day about the relationship between the American people and our government: “We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits!” This country of We, the People and government “of […]

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) gave a speech yesterday describing his party’s positions on jobs & the economy going into the fall election. Summary: Our economic policies destroyed the country’s economy and millions of lives, but it made a few of my buddies really REALLY rich, so let’s do more of it. I write […]

The President has appointed a commission to study ways to reduce the deficit, but the only thing anyone is hearing from this commission (they meet in secret) is that they are going after Social Security instead. For this reason it has become known as the “Catfood Commission” instead of the “Deficit Commission” because any reductions […]

The things that people “know” are very different from the “reality-based” things those of us reading a blog like this know, and those things seem to always, always serve the corporate right. I have been away on vacation. While away I have been talking to “regular” people who are outside of the circles many of […]

China has a national economic/industrial policy and we don’t. They create the conditions for key industries to thrive and we don’t. They make sure all of the infrastructure, finance, supply chain, educational, legal, technical and policy elements are in place for an industry to take hold and take off and we don’t. If they don’t […]

Tomorrow is the 75th birthday of Social Security. It is the most successful government program, demonstrating that government of the people, by the people and for the people works. For this reason a new poll shows that politicians will face major voter backlash if they advocate cuts in Social Security benefits or choose deficit reduction […]

The DC-elite think that “the responsible thing to do” is to cut Social Security benefits. The public who they are supposed to represent overwhelmingly thinks that Social Security is one of the few remaining lifelines and must not be cut. The public strongly favors investing in rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, returning to taxation of the […]

After all the noise and fluff about China letting its currency float, and the Obama administration deciding not to declare China a currency manipulator, is turning out to be just noise and fluff. And our trade deficit just grows, outsourcing our jobs and our economic growth. Senator Schumer, on the trade deficit numbers, “These numbers […]