Author: Richard Eskow

Ryan Grim reports that Alan Simpson has apologized to Ashley B. Carson of the Older Women’s League for sending her an insulting email. Unfortunately, it’s not enough.

Alan Simpson is the co-chair of President Obama’s Deficit Commission, which is charged with creating a bipartisan consensus for balancing the budget. Lately Simpson’s foulmouthed tirades have drawn at least as much attention as the Commission’s actual work. His latest rant — which includes denigrating an activist for women’s issues with remarks about “a milk […]

The bloggers who attended briefings from a “senior Treasury Department official” last week have interpreted the concept of “deep background” in several different ways. I attended one of the briefings and initially didn’t plan to write about it at all. Others did write about it. One writer named the official, while others did not. (I […]

Progressive bloggers were ready to have a “stroke” after Mike Allen from Politico reported that the Administration wants to take action on Social Security – action that’s likely to include cuts. Many were relieved when Tim Fernholz of the American Prospect, who attended the same briefing Allen did, assured them that Allen got it wrong. […]

The Republican Party’s attempt to privatize Social Security under George W. Bush was wildly unpopular. At least one Republican Congressional candidate is openly calling for Social Security cuts, and Rep. Paul Ryan’s widely-publicized “Roadmap for the Future” includes both privatization and benefit cuts. With all these GOP threats to a popular program, why do polls […]

It sounds like the plot to a dozen movies: Picture a corporation so powerful that its tentacles circle the globe and reach into the highest corridors of power. Yet a single sentence on an ex-employee’s obscure website forces it to move into action. That sentence is so important that it leaves the corporation with no […]

Here are two numbers that should warm the heart of anyone who wants to end sectarian bickering and build a bipartisan consensus for change: 68% of likely voters polled believe that we should not cut Social Security and Medicare to reduce the deficit. 60% of Republicans agree. These figures are from a new poll conducted […]

There’s a great deal of alarmist talk these days about the fact that Social Security won’t be adding to its surplus this year. Instead it will call in some interest payments (and possibly other monies, too) on the money Uncle Sam borrowed from its fund. (When a rich person retires on interest income they’re called […]

Allan Sloan, Senior Editor at Fortune and a frequent Washington Post contributor, is usually a smart and fair guy with a knack for seeing through the usual DC economic spin. That’s why it’s particularly disappointing to see him get it wrong on Social Security trust funds, and in a way that provides ammunition to those […]

Conservative economics has often felt like religious dogma, with its elevation of “a rising tide lifts all boats” to unintended extremes and its unfounded belief that lower tax rates create higher government revenue. But, at least as far as that second article of faith is concerned, Conservanomics is becoming a church without bishops. Leading conservative […]