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voices.washingtonpost.com — Call it the pre-prebuttal. Anticipating a heavy focus on reducing the deficit in President Obama's State of the Union address next week, liberal groups are already attacking the idea, arguing that deficit reduction should not come before further stimulus to help the economy.
“An activist group called the Campaign for America's Future and the liberal polling firm Democracy Corps released a survey Tuesday that they say illustrates that American voters care more about job creation than deficit reduction.
Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO coalition of major labor unions, will give a speech Wednesday in Washington criticizing what he calls a "misguided and shortsighted" focus on the deficit, according to aides who have released some of his prepared remarks."
The White House prematurely turned to deficit reduction," said Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future. "Voters are clear, they care about the deficit, but their first priority is jobs and the economy.

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washingtonpost.com — "Most of us would like to see the Democrats remain the strong defenders of Social Security, which they have to be if they want to win the next election," said Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future.

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huffingtonpost.com — Top officials insist that among all the issues they've tested with voters, the one that yields the best results for the party is a pledge to protect the retirement program from privatization. And with the economy in the midst of a slow but painful recovery, health care reform still largely a mixed bag in terms of popularity, and an unpopular war in Afghanistan, Social Security has climbed to the top of the list of conversation topics out of both expediency and necessity.

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dailykos.com — Earlier today I sent a letter to the White House, signed by myself and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Lynn Woolsey, making it clear that we will stand against any potential cuts to Social Security benefits. Whether they come from the president's debt commission or from members of Congress, any proposals to reduce entitlement benefits -- one of the most fundamental bonds between the American people and the federal government -- will be dead on arrival in the House of Representatives.

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usatoday.com — They spent months on health care and Wall Street in Congress, but as lawmakers talk with voters during the summer recess they are increasingly focused on an entirely different issue: Social Security.

Hoping to capitalize on the popular program before the midterm elections, lawmakers in both parties are using this weekend's 75th anniversary of Social Security to position themselves as guardians of its 53 million beneficiaries.

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dailykos.com — The most salient result from the polling, said Greenberg is that it reflected that the electorate is "remarkably sophisticated about the economic crisis and its causes" and hold the firm belief that the only way to address the deficit long term is with investment in the economy. The survey of 1,000 people who voted in 2008 was conducted at the end of July. Here are the key findings:

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thehill.com — House Democrats are planning more than 100 events around this week’s anniversary of Social Security to attack Republicans who want to reform the popular entitlement.

Democrats and interest groups on the left have scheduled “birthday parties” and other events to highlight Saturday’s 75th anniversary of the program signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt.

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washingtonpost.com — In one of the most striking fallouts from the bad economy, Social Security is facing a rare shortfall this year as more people opt to collect payments before their full retirement age. Adding to the strain on the trust are reduced tax collections due to unemployment levels hovering at 9.5 percent.

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mcclatchydc.com — Evelyn Sekula's widowed grandmother struggled to survive during the Depression. Like millions of other elderly people, she had no pension and no savings.

"She had no income at all except for what my father gave her," said Sekula, 90, who lives at the Atria El Camino Gardens senior residence in Carmichael. "She was always looking for a way to make money. My father probably gave her $10 a month."

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nytimes.com — Medicare will remain financially solvent for 12 additional years, until 2029, because of the cost-cutting measures in President Obama’s recently enacted health care legislation, the program’s trustees projected on Thursday.

The financial outlook for Social Security is “little changed from last year,” the report said. In the short run, it added, the financial condition of the retirement program has worsened because of high unemployment, which has reduced payroll tax revenues. For the first time, money flowing out of the program this year exceeds money flowing in.

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