Federal Budget Deficit

On Tuesday, May 15, one of America's wealthiest men, Peter G. Peterson, will use his foundation's money to lecture the rest of us about why the federal deficit is the most serious problem facing our country. more »

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The chained Consumer Price Index (CPI), a provision included in the Gang of Six's deficit reduction package, raises taxes on low- and moderate-income workers, according to a recent report by the Joint Committee on Taxation. This belies the claim that the harm done to the middle class by the chained CPI's benefit cuts would be partly off-set by the revenues it would generate.

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In a recent Politico column, Jon Cowan and Jim Kessler, respectively the president and senior vice-president of The Third Way, criticize “progressives” for opposing deals which cut Social Security benefits. They advise the Strengthen Social Security Coalition to “wise up and buck up the president so Social Security reform gets done in the coming weeks.” But their advice belies the expressed wishes of the American people, who poll after poll reveals, overwhelmingly favor eliminating Social Security’s projected shortfall through increased revenues, not through reductions in Social Security’s already modest benefits, just $13,000 a year on average.

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AARP’s damage control did little to dampen the significance of Rother’s leak to the Wall Street Journal. It wasn’t the content of Rother’s remarks to the Journal that had progressives up in arms. It was, as Roger Hickey has pointed out, the timing.

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Ten years ago today, the first Bush tax cuts were signed into law. The fiscal damage they have inflicted is still unparalleled. But while the tax cuts for the top 2 percent of American earners will stay off the table until December 2012, there is any number of other progressive tax increases that Washington could adopt, but won't even consider. Below are my picks.

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In “What Would FDR Do,” a paper for the Progressive Policy Institute, retirement policy expert Sylvester Schieber not only gets FDR’s legacy wrong—he gets the facts about Social Security wrong. And in exaggerating Social Security’s shortfall to make the case for regressive benefit cuts like raising the retirement, Schieber also gets the meaning of the word “progressive” wrong.

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Cross posted from the Huffington Post more »

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