CAF In The News

latimes.com — In a column by Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times the Campaign for America's Future's co-director Roger Hickey is quoted about Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan's positions on Social Security and the possible re-appearance of a debate about privatization of Social Security.

Hilzik writes, "One would have thought that this proposal was done in by two major stock market crashes since 2000, not to mention the generally noisome odor arising from almost everything that Wall Street has touched in recent years. Yet ever so stealthily it's creeping back into the public debate via the presidential campaign.

"Both members of the Republican ticket, Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), have expressed great enthusiasm for the idea in the past; in 2004, Ryan even sponsored a bill in Congress that was so reliant on private accounts that it was rejected by the Bush White House as too extreme.

"Vice President Joe Biden entered the lists last week. At a campaign stop, he announced, "I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security." That's as ringing an endorsement of the program as any uttered by a politician in years.

"Biden's words heartened Social Security advocates who have gotten accustomed to waffling from the Obama White House over whether cuts in Social Security might be part of a `grand bargain' with congressional Republicans on the federal deficit. Though it's never entirely plain when Biden is talking off the cuff as opposed to expressing administration dogma, they're taking his statement at face value.

"`The good news is they haven't been walking it back,' Roger Hickey, president of the progressive Campaign for America's Future, told me. He observed that the last time Biden was thought to have spoken out of turn, by endorsing gay marriage, Obama promptly followed his lead."

To read the rest of the column by Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times visit: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120821,0,1818705.column

nytimes.com — By Bob Herbert
If there’s a better government program than Social Security, I’d like to know what it is.
It has gone a long way toward eliminating poverty among the elderly. Great numbers of them used to live and die in ghastly, Dickensian conditions of extreme want. Without Social Security today, nearly half of all Americans aged 65 or older would be poor. With it, fewer than 10 percent live in poverty.

...“If we didn’t have Social Security, we’d have to invent it right now,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future. “It’s perfectly suited to the terrible times we’re going through. Hardly anyone has pensions anymore. People’s private savings have taken a huge hit, and home prices have been hit hard. So the private savings that so many seniors and soon-to-be-seniors have counted on have just been wiped out.
“Social Security is still there, and it’s still paying out retirement benefits indexed to wages. It’s the one part of the retirement stool that is working.”

washingtonpost.com — The leaders of President Obama's fiscal commission released a final report Wednesday that is full of political dynamite, including sharp cuts in military spending, a higher retirement age and tax reforms that could cost the average taxpayer an extra $1,700 a year.

But as commission co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan K. Simpson unveiled the plan at a Capitol Hill hearing, it was unclear whether they would be able to build a convincing bipartisan consensus among the panel's members before they are scheduled to vote on it Friday.

The final plan to rebalance the federal budget would cut government spending even deeper than the commission's original proposal, while offering more help to some retirees. It offers an aggressive prescription for reducing deficits by nearly $4 trillion by the end of the decade.

nytimes.com — As President Obama’s fiscal commission faces a deadline this week for agreement on a plan to shrink the mounting national debt, liberal organizations will unveil debt-reduction proposals of their own in the next two days, seeking to sway the debate in favor of fewer reductions in domestic spending, more cuts in the military and higher taxes for the wealthy. The proposals from two sets of liberal advocacy groups highlight the deep ideological divides surrounding efforts to deal with the nation’s budgetary imbalances.

rt.com — Terrance Heath joins Thom Hartmann on the The Big Picture to discuss the recent deficit reduction commission's recommendations to cut Social Security. Interview starts at about 46:45 in the program.

politico.com — When President Barack Obama launched his fiscal deficit commission Feb. 18, he acknowledged that there are “some on the left who believe that this issue can be deferred.”

What he didn’t say was that there are some on the left who wish the entire deficit commission itself would be deferred.

news.firedoglake.com — On the last day of 2009, the Washington Post ran an article titled “Support grows for tackling nation’s debt.” Its premise was that Congress was poised to impanel a budget deficit commission to examine the nation’s long-term debt and provide recommendations, citing analysis from the Concord Coalition and the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform. The byline included the words “The Fiscal Times,” and at the bottom of the article appeared this disclaimer:
This article was produced by the Fiscal Times, an independent digital news publication reporting on fiscal, budgetary, health-care and international economics issues. Fiscal Times staff writer Adam Graham-Silverman contributed to this report.

abcnews.go.com — John McCain came under fire on Friday from defenders of the current Social Security system after his aides signaled to the Associated Press that the current market turmoil has not altered his support for changing the retirement program to allow individuals to invest some portion of their Social Security payroll taxes in stocks and bonds.

"His midnight conversion from aggressive deregulator to market critic is apparently incomplete," said Jared Bernstein, the senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

publicnewsservice.org — A 235 thousand dollar lifetime reduction of retirement benefits would push more than 39,000 future New Hampshire retirees into poverty – that’s the scenario under Social Security "privatization" according to a new study from the Campaign for America's Future.

And the research doesn't take into account current stock market woes.