"Words that make actions speak louder."
Recently I wrote that the deficit-cutting projects and media campaigns sponsored by billionaire Pete Peterson all “focus on the same narrow band of options” that “reflect far-right positions,” but nevertheless are usually described in the media as “moderate” and “bipartisan.” I received a response from an official at the Peterson Foundation. Out of courtesy, I […]
Recent remarks by a would-be Social Security cutter highlight the unspoken agenda behind proposals that claim to “fix” the program by cutting benefits, all in the name of “deficit reduction.” Social Security doesn’t contribute to the deficit. But it can help decrease it, provided you have no moral qualms about raiding a Trust Fund created […]
We expected to see an all-out assault on Social Security and progressive taxation in November, and we expected it to come under the banner of “deficit reduction.” That was always the plan: Wait until after the election, when a lame-duck Congress could pass the preferred policies with the least political blowback. Then release a flurry […]
Only 6% of Americans think Congress should concentrate on reducing the deficit or changing the tax code, according to the latest CBS News poll. Nearly ten times as many people, 56%, want it to focus on creating jobs and fixing the economy. Guess which set of policies is the center of attention in Washington right […]
Former White House budget director Peter Orszag is taking a new approach in his quest to cut Social Security. He’s playing progressive “good cop” to to the ultra-right bad cops of the White House deficit commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Now that Bowles and Simpson (Blimpson?) are done threatening the elderly with their roundhouse […]
If back-channel sources are correct, the White House deficit commission is finalizing a deal that would increase Social Security benefits slightly for low-income recipients while cutting them for everyone else. The Commissioners apparently believe that putting this “progressive” gloss on a package of unneeded cuts would allow them to move forward with their predetermined anti-Social […]
I found a clip of yesterday’s MSNBC appearance purely by accident. It had been posted by one of those automated advertising websites that scour the Internet for clips related to their product line, which in this case was – I kid you not – “Senior Dog Health Problems.” Is the universe trying to tell me […]
The following was co-written with Roger Hickey. Wednesday, the Presidential Deficit Commission’s co-chairs released a radically right-wing budget proposal. They acted without any prior announcement, just three weeks before the entire Commission was scheduled to deliver its collective report. Consider it as a sneak attack on the middle class, a pre-dawn raid on the American […]
Heard any good jokes lately? This headline was making the Internet rounds yesterday: “Sen. Conrad: Extend All Tax Cuts; Time to Get ‘Serious’ About Deficit.” It’s easy to see the humor in that. It’s almost like saying you’re serious about saving money but don’t want to put any more pennies into the piggy bank. But […]
The conservative wing of the Democratic Party just drove it over a cliff, but you’d never know if from reading Matt Bai’s latest New York Times piece. It’s the latest in a series of Bai paeans to that odd mix of ideologies and opportunism that Washington types persist in calling “centrism,” despite its ever-increasing distance […]