deficit reduction

President Obama said that Social Security is not an "entitlement," or a "driver of the deficit or debt," at a Minnesota Town Hall meeting on Monday. Then why is he allowing a Super Committee charged with deficit reduction to address the program?

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Gandhi famously answered the question "What do you think of Western Civilization?" by saying "I think it would be a good idea." That phrase might come in handy the next time somebody asks what you think of a two-party democracy: It would be a good idea. As the economy burns to the ground, nobody's calling the Fire Department. Both parties want to throw gasoline on the fire, and their only disagreement is whether to use regular gas or unleaded.

Here's a challenge, if anyone's willing to take it: Can you read the statistics below without concluding that our current debate is a national disgrace? Both parties are pushing radical and counterproductive cuts that would devastate middle class and lower-income Americans, compounding the misery for ninety percent of us. Neither asks the top one percent of earners, some of whom caused this crisis, to help repair the damage after enjoying historically low tax rates.

And this isn't just somebody's opinion. These are the numbers talking, not me. John Boehner's plan is a radical right-wing assault on government that would have embarrassed previous generations of Republicans. Nevertheless, his party's base and members of the House will probably reject it. Harry Reid's proposal is also devastating - and his party's rank and file may very well support it. It's hard to know which is a sadder statement on the degraded state of our politics.

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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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Views expressed are those of the author, and do not reflect the views of Social Security Works or the Strengthen Social Security Campaign. more »

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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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Although specifics have yet to officially emerge, there is little doubt that among the Social Security benefit cuts the President is proposing will be a reduction in Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) through an obscure change in the COLA formula known as the chained CPI. more »

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How broken is today's political debate? The only politician standing up for most Republican voters on today’s most burning political issue is. … a Socialist.

The question is whether we reduce the deficit only through spending cuts, or also by raising taxes on the rich. This should be an easy issue for Democrats to stand on ... and run on. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll showed that 72% of of those surveyed agreed that federal taxes should be raised for households making more than $250,000 - including 55% of Republicans. Yet even with the GOP leadership far to the right of the country on this issue, Democrats haven’t taken an unequivocal position.

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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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On Face the Nation this Sunday, Sen. Mark Warner was asked by host Bob Schieffer why his ‘Gang of Six’ would take on Social Security reform in their forthcoming budget proposal. His response reflected a commonly-held myth about Social Security’s history that greatly exaggerates the changes in the worker-to-retiree ratio between 1950 and today.

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There's been so much noise about what Paul Ryan's budget plan does to Medicare and Medicaid that the damage it does to Social Security has gone unnoticed.

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