'AmericaSpeaks' Deficit Town Hall Meetings In Perspective

Archon Fung recently wrote a piece in the Huffington Post entitled "The Left Should Learn to Trust Americans," which mocked Dean Baker and me for criticizing AmericaSpeaks and the "national town meeting on the deficit." We both felt the presentation was skewed toward creating a right-wing set of recommendations, while Professor Fung claimed the attendees' progressive conclusions meant that we had been alarmist - and didn't trust the intrinsic wisdom of the American people (a mischaracterization he quickly expanded to include the entire "Left").

That's like making fun of the Fire Department after the fire's been put out. more »

I was on Hannah-Beth Jackson's radio show this Saturday discussing two topics:  Social Security and the "AmericaSpeaks" events, and the financial reform bill.  Here's Part I of the discussion, on Social Security.  I'll get the financial reform piece up as soon as I have time to clean up the audio.

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On Saturday, the group known as America Speaks (funded by Wall Street mogul Peter G. Peterson and two other foundations) brought together several thousand people in meetings in 60 cities. They gave participants misleading background information about the Federal deficit and economic options to achieve fiscal "balance" and future prosperity. more »

The organizers of AmericaSpeaks, tomorrow's "town hall meeting"/media event designed to focus attention on budget-cutting, have issued a document called "Myths & Facts About AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy." A number of excellent pieces have already been written about the slanted point of view in their materials, which are d more »