News & Comment
Blogs and Opinion
Americans Shocked To Learn That There Isn't Actually A Social Security Crisis by Alex Pareene, salon.com | February 1, 2013
When you tell people some proposals for fixing it, they a) overwhelmingly choose to fund it more generously and b) decide that the program actually does not face any sort of crisis at all. A marketing firm hired by the National Academy of Social Insurance surveyed a random sampling of Americans and discovered that what people want is to raise taxes on rich (and regular!) people in order to fund more Social Security benefits, which is a good idea because the program is currently pretty stingy by international standards and Americans don’t actually have pensions anymore. Deficit fear-mongering succeeded in getting 57 percent of survey respondents to believe that Social Security is a “crisis or significant problem,” until they learned that minor tax increases would make it totally sustainable for 75 years, at which point 74 percent of Americans were like “Oh, really? Then it seems fine, why don’t they ever put it like that on the news.” read more »New Poll: America's Workers Soundly Reject Social Security Benefit Cuts by Jackie Tortora, aflcio.org | February 1, 2013
The "chained" CPI is a Social Security benefit cut (not an innocuous "adjustment"), and the majority of voters understand this, with 55% opposing this policy proposal. A new poll, Strengthening Social Security: What Do Americans Want? from the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI), highlights working people's opposition to benefit cuts, including the "chained" CPI, which reduces the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). A large majority, 64%, thought the COLA should be increased to better protect seniors and other beneficiaries from inflation and rising prices of food, utilities and other necessities. read more »What Is Social Insurance? by James Kwak, baselinescenario.com | January 24, 2013
Unsurprisingly, most Americans are split between various misconceptions of what Social Security and Medicare are. Many, particularly right-wing politicians and their media mouthpieces, see them as pure tax-and-transfer programs: they gather money from one set of people and give it to another set of people. From this point of view, they are bad bad bad bad bad and should be cut. Many others, particularly beneficiaries and people who hope to see beneficiaries, see them as earned benefits. The common conception is that you pay in while you’re working, so you earned the benefits you get in retirement. You didn’t “earn” them in the moral sense that people who work hard should get benefits; you “earned” them in the accounting sense that you’re just getting back “your” money that you set aside during your career. Both of these perspectives are wrong, the latter more obviously so. read more »12 Ways Obama Smacked Down the Tea Party and the Right in Inauguration Speech by Adele M. Stan, alternet.org | January 22, 2013
With its elegant rendering of the liberal agenda before the eyes of the American people, President Barack Obama's second inaugural address was music to the ears of many a progressive. But to the ears of Tea Partiers and the Republican right, this inauguration speech, as well as the ceremony that surrounded it, was war -- not just a war of words, but a war of prayer, a war of poetry and even, perhaps, a war of song. Driving the message home were the hands of the Fates, who conspired to see the second inauguration of the nation’s first African American president fall on Martin Luther King Day, the national holiday whose very creation was opposed by so many who still today comprise the Republican Party’s right wing. Here we recount a dozen ways in which the president brought his fight to the right, in no uncertain terms, at his second inauguration. read more »All the serious people want you to suffer by Joan McCarter, dailykos.com | January 20, 2013
The 3 Percent Cut to Social Security, a.k.a. the Chained CPI by Dean Baker, truth-out.org | January 15, 2013
According to inside-Washington gossip, Congress and the president are going to do exactly what voters elected them to do: they are going to cut Social Security by 3 percent. You don't remember anyone running on that platform? Yeah, well, they probably forgot to mention it. Of course, some people may have heard Vice President Joe Biden when he told an audience in Virginia that there would be no cuts to Social Security if President Obama got re-elected. Biden said: "I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security. I flat guarantee you." But that's the way things work in Washington. You can't expect the politicians who run for office to share their policy agenda with voters. After all, we might not like it. That's why they say things like they will fight for the middle class and make the rich pay their fair share. These ideas have lots of appeal among voters. Cutting Social Security doesn't. read more »Tax Avoidance On the Rise: It's Twice the Amount of Social Security and Medicare by Paul Buchheit, commondreams.org | January 7, 2013
Three trillion dollars a year. That's how much the wealthiest Americans avoid through the system of subsidies and schemes and sweet deals that deprive middle-class workers of their earned benefits. That's three times more than the deficit. That's enough for a full-time job for every middle-class household in America. Here are the distressing details. read more »GOP Threat: Cut Social Security and Medicare or we'll kill the economy. Americans say NO to both. by Roger Hickey , OurFuture.org | January 6, 2013
Here we go again. read more »Leave Social Security Alone; It’s Irrelevant to the Deficit by Dean Baker, cepr.net | January 3, 2013
Millions of people are rightly outraged to hear that Social Security is in the gun-sights of both Speaker Boehner and President Obama in their budget negotiations. There is no reason that our political leaders should be discussing cuts to the country’s most successful social program. While the promotion of budget hysteria is one of the largest industries in Washington, the most important and widely ignored fact about the budget situation is that we have large deficits today because the collapse of the housing bubble sank the economy. This is not a debatable point. read more »Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire? by Nancy Altman and Eric Kingston, Huffington Post | January 3, 2013
Notwithstanding the White House claim that the fiscal-cliff deal is "A Victory for Middle Class Families and the Economy," we worry that it will play out as a defeat for both. Intended or not, the deal set the agenda for negotiations that will threaten the future of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- three programs that are core to economic security of working Americans. The potential impact on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid of the fiscal cliff deal reminds us of the old joke about the man who fell off a cliff and was halfway to the ground. When asked how he was, he replied, "So far, so good." read more »
The Latest
Robert Borosage is quoted in The Washington Post: Voters want the focus on jobs, voices.washingtonpost.com | January 24, 2011
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. more »
Roger Hickey is quoted in the Washington Post , The Washington Post | January 24, 2011
DCCC Chair: Dems Will Pound GOP On Social Security, Keep Retirement Age In Place , Huffington Post | August 13, 2010
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. more »
Protecting Social Security: Let's Tell The Deficit Commission Not to Slash Entitlements , dailykos.com | August 13, 2010
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. more »
At 75, Social Security Ripens as Voter Issue, USA Today | August 13, 2010
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. more »
Democracy Corps Poll: Cut the deficit by investing, not by cutting Social Security , dailykos.com | August 13, 2010
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:
Dems Plan to Attack GOP on Social Security, thehill.com | August 10, 2010
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.
In Weak Economy, More People Are Filing Early for Social Security, The Washington Post | August 9, 2010
Social Security Approaches Its 75th Anniversary, mcclatchydc.com | August 9, 2010
Evelyn Sekula's widowed grandmother struggled to survive during the Depression. Like millions of other elderly people, she had no pension and no savings. more »
Medicare Stronger, Social Security Worse in Short Run, Report Finds, The New York Times | August 6, 2010
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. more »
