Roger Hickey

No Super Committee Deal. Good. Now Focus on Jobs—Best Way to Lower Deficit

Roger Hickey — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:50:51 -0500

The reason members of the Super Committee didn’t reach an agreement is that Republican members insisted on damaging cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicare – AND they wouldn’t budge from their refusal to roll back tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans.

If the so-called “Super Committee” had made a bipartisan deal based on the announced negotiating positions of the Republicans and Democrats on that panel, the result would have been higher unemployment, serious damage to the social safety net -- and worsening deficits.

Super Committee Democrats, concerned about being seen as blocking a deal, clearly offered Social Security and Medicare benefit cuts in return for a pitifully small increase in taxes and large and damaging spending cuts in the middle of a struggling economy.

The deal on the table – whose failure is much lamented by beltway pundits – would have seriously harmed the economy, without significantly reducing deficits. In fact, it might have made it worse.
Luckily, the progressive base – and the Democratic Caucus in the House and Senate – convinced those negotiators that a bad deal is worse than no deal.

Democrats should have been guided by the message of the September 6th press conference at which Super Committee appointee Rep. Chris Van Hollen, standing with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, declared “Job growth will contribute to deficit reduction,” according to the Washington Post coverage:

Van Hollen, who made the remarks at a news conference with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and other members of the Democratic leadership, argued that the most recent Congressional Budget Office report states that for every 1/10 of one percentage point increase in the U.S. gross domestic product, the deficit is reduced by $310 billion.

“Now, they project over the next 10 years that average GDP, average growth of the economy will be about 2.9 percent,” he said. “What those numbers tell you is that if you got that growth rate up by half of one percent, you would actually reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion, which is the target laid out in the legislation before us.”

Clearly, this is what all progressives believe: the weak economy should not be allowed to fall backward into another recession – which could happen if we cut spending too fast or too deeply. And action to get the economy growing robustly would be the most effective thing we could do to bring down the Federal deficit.

Progressives will therefore push for public investment to create jobs and create consumer demand, which is the missing factor preventing American business from investing in expanded production and growing employment. All of the elements of President Obama’s American Jobs Act should now be taken up by everyone in Congress who professes to be concerned about the deficit. As progressives, we will work with our allies and partners in the American Dream movement to push for extended unemployment benefits and other stimulus spending programs that both Democrats and Republicans have supported in the past.

In this post-Super Committee period, you can be sure that the Campaign for America’s Future will be fighting for policies that will spur growth and create enough jobs to bring down our chronically high unemployment. We will fight to get Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the 1% expire. We will fight for reductions in the military budget. And we will remind all Americans that job creation (and long term health reform to control health costs) are the most effective things we can do to reduce the deficit.

AARP Tells Members They Won't Fight Social Security Benefit Cuts

Roger Hickey — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:46:46 -0400

The front page of today's Wall Street Journal features an article [Key Seniors Association Pivots on Benefit Cut] reporting that AARP "is dropping its longstanding opposition to cutting Social Security benefits." The piece is based on a conversation with AARP policy director John Rother. This is a big deal - not because AARP was ever such a strong force against proposed benefit cuts (other groups are doing that much more effectively), but because the mainstream media is now full of headlines like this from ABC News: AARP Appears to Switch Stance on Social Security Cuts and this column by David Von Drehle, from Time Online: Victory! The Grey Goliath Gives Way on Social Security.

AARP members across the country are outraged. Some are burning their membership cards. The timing of this front page story couldn't be worse. Conservatives have fixated Congress and the White House on deficits and spending cuts that will kill jobs -- even though most Americans care more about jobs than deficits. Most Americans were heartened when Paul Ryan's plan for dismantling Medicare was decisively rejected by the very Republican voters of New York's 26th Congressional District - after Ryan got almost every Republican in the Congress to vote for it. Democrats were starting to re-learn how to campaign as defenders of Medicare and Social Security. And now this - from a top level AARP leader - a real momentum killer.

Now, this obviously well-planned article in the Wall Street Journal, timed just as Joe Biden's deficit reduction talks are moving to "the difficult stuff," gives aid and comfort to conservatives and New Democrats who are on a jihad to make Social Security cuts a focus of deficit reduction - even though America's largest retirement program has its own source of funding and can't contribute to the deficit.

It is well-known that Obama administration officials would like to have a deal on Social Security which changes the index by which benefits are raised each year (a big benefit cut) and which raises the retirement age (another big benefit cut) and also the lifts the cap which limits the percentage of their income that richer people pay in Social Security taxes (a revenue increase). So far, that's been a non-starter with Republicans, who can't support tax increases on the wealthy. But with the press now trumpeting AARP's dramatic move toward benefit cuts, Republicans might come under pressure to make a deal. The irony here would be the White House using the AARP to leverage a deal that cuts benefits - while doing nothing to reduce the federal deficit! Their answer if they could pull this off: It will reassure the bond markets.

This just in: The AARP has just issued a statement by their CEO, A. Barry Rand, entitled AARP Has Not Changed Its Position on Social Security. In it, Rand calls the WSJ piece inaccurate and misleading, but doesn't clarify what they think was inaccurate.

In the Journal article, John Rother was clear that he's willing to support SS benefit cuts. AARP in its statement just reiterates its commitment to "solvency" of the program. I believe SS can be made solvent without benefit cuts. John Rother disagrees. Where does the AARP as the largest organization claiming to represent seniors stand? They are not clear.

The AARP statement claims to oppose including Social Security in the deficit discussions. If they really mean that, the group that promotes itself as the most powerful defender of seniors in America should get their vaunted citizen's lobby in gear - to make sure Social Security doesn't become the sacrificial lamb of this dangerous season of budget cutting blood on the floor.

Baby boomers are now beginning to retire - and we have many fewer retirement assets (no pensions, devastated savings, unconventional work histories) - and we are going to depend on Social Security even more than previous generations. We know we didn't join for the movie discounts. If we can't depend on AARP to fight for decent Social Security benefits, maybe we need a more activist organization that will.

Click Here and Send The Vice-President A Message: Stand With The American Majority. Reject Republican Cuts To Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Reject Bad Advice and Bad Policy. Defend Medicare, Social Security.

Roger Hickey — Mon, 30 May 2011 22:48:40 -0400

Last week’s special election in New York’s 26th Congressional district was a political earthquake, demonstrating that the American majority, even in the most Republican of districts, will reject a candidate who embraces cuts to Medicare benefits or major changes to that most popular program. And, since almost every Republican in the House – and now the Senate – has voted for such drastic changes, Democrats across the country are happily learning how they can campaign to win back the House and keep the Senate.

But we can’t let Democrats undercut themselves again. Even as most of them practice their talking points about the Republican plan to dismantle Medicare, prominent beltway Democrats and Washington pundits are advising candidates that pressing their advantage on Medicare would not be the right thing to do. And others are urging Democrats to embrace policies – like cutting Social Security benefits – which would just as unpopular as dismantling Medicare and would confuse voters and undermine a winning message.

On May 25th, the day after Cong. Paul Ryan’s budget was soundly trounced in NY-26, when all around the country progressives were celebrating, Ryan was warmly received at a Washington conference on the deficit, sponsored by Wall Street mogul, Peter Peterson. At that event, former President Bill Clinton declared from the stage that, while he opposed Ryan’s plan for dismantling Medicare, he hoped that the NY-26 election didn’t mean that Medicare would be untouchable this year – a message he then delivered offstage directly to Rep. Ryan, the leader of the GOP plot to kill Medicare. And at that same Peterson event, Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling publicly declared the Administration’s strong interest in cutting Social Security benefits – either by raising the retirement age or by messing with Social Security’s cost-of-living formula.

So here we go again. Democrats start to unite around a winning economic issue, but major leaders of their party, repeating the case made by Washington Post editorialists and many beltway think tankers, warn them not to go there – that serious “adjustments” to Medicare (and Social Security) are inevitably necessary – and that campaigning as the champions of these programs is irresponsible, because, while it might help Democrats win the next election, it would be bad for the country. Reducing America’s deficits must be our priority, they solemnly declare, and these entitlement program must be cut.

This is horrible political advice that would deprive Democrats of a winning message.

But it is also bad policy advice. If Democrats side with the huge American majority who want a party that will protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security, they shouldn’t campaign with their fingers crossed behind their back. A new Democratic majority in the House can come back to Washington in 2013 and join a strengthened Senate majority in pursuing good public policy that can revive the economy and bring down the deficit – while keeping their promise to protect the social contract.

There are plenty of serious economic proposals that accomplish those goals, without cutting or undermining Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, starting with CAF’s Citizen Commission on Jobs and the Deficit and Representative Jan Schakowsky’s Deficit Reduction Plan. And, while they didn’t get the prominent visibility in an event designed to drum up panic on the deficit, the Peterson Deficit Summit actually featured plans from the progressive Economic Policy Institute and the Roosevelt Campus Network, both of which achieve reasonable budget balance while investing in growth and without doing stupid damage to our increasingly popular social safety net. (The Progressive Caucus Budget Plan also accomplishes the same goals.)

Apparently Bill Clinton agrees with Republicans that Medicare benefits have to be cut. What the various progressive plans have in common is the recognition of a simple fact: the growing costs of entitlements are driven by spiraling health care inflation in the larger economy. Medicare and Medicaid actually have a better cost control track record than the health care system as a whole. And all these “progressive“ deficit reduction plans repeat the truth that seemingly eludes Gene Sperling: Social Security has its own source of revenue and does not contribute a dime to the deficit. Now the policy implications of these insights are not easy, but they can be politically popular. In addition to attacking the immediate causes of deficits by reversing the Bush tax cuts for the rich, ending at least two wars, cutting obsolete military spending , and regulating the banks – all popular with the American majority – we are going to have to go after the driving forces in the American health care system: the complex of insurance companies, drug cartels, hospital and doctor syndicates, and the food-chemical industrial complex, all of which make Americans unhealthier, while driving up the cost of health care far above the Medicare trend line.

So Democrats have a choice: they can follow the advice of Bill Clinton, Alice Rivlin, and the Washington Post editorial board and give up on making the 2012 election a referendum on the very popular idea that we should protect and strengthen Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. Or we they can fight like hell for these programs the American majority strongly supports, win that election, and come back to Washington ready to create jobs, stimulate healthy economic growth, and bring down deficits through healthy growth, new revenues, and good public policy designed to control overall health care costs. There is no doubt which is the best political strategy. It also happens to be better policy.

NOTE: One of the things that encouraged Democrats like Kathy Hochul to fight and win on Medicare is the strong speech President Obama made on April 13 declaring he would fight to protect Medicare. Because of that speech, the protests at Republican town meetings during Congressional recesses allowed Dems to stand up and fight. But we didn’t know what Obama was going to say until he gave the speech. So BEFORE the speech, we mobilized: we and other groups like MoveOn generated thousands of emails and phone calls to the White House. As you can see from this pdf of press coverage, even Nancy Pelosi was moved to call Obama by our email alert. The President should give us advance warning, especially when he’s going to do something progressive. But we have to work together to push the President – and his party – in the right direction.

American Majority Rejects Washington Austerity Consensus – And We Demand Media Coverage

Roger Hickey — Mon, 09 May 2011 21:01:53 -0400

Out in America, unemployment is back up to 9 percent, but inside the Washington Beltway bubble the consensus, driven by conservatives, seems to be for austerity. An unholy alliance of pundits, politicians and even reporters— who differ only in degree—is insisting on the need to slash federal spending over the next few months.

As we approach the deadline for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, not a hour goes by in the 24-hour cycle without the media interviewing some expert who declares that the deficit is the most important threat facing the country, that tax increases are off the table, and that a severe crisis awaits if the Congress doesn’t cut and radically restructure Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

But one voice is missing from this discussion: that of the American Majority.

Occasionally some talking head on TV will acknowledge the almost daily public opinion polling showing conclusively that strong majorities of Americans:

oppose cutting benefits for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid recipients;
reject the idea of raising the age of eligibility for these popular programs;
hate the proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher or privatize Social Security;
support taxing the rich and corporations to close the deficit and fund needed investment;
favor cutting military spending for both obsolete weapons systems and current wars;
and, while acknowledging the need to reduce deficits, place a higher priority on creating jobs and getting the sputtering economy growing.

Rarely in the public discussion are the views of the American majority presented in such a comprehensive way. Instead, some budget expert from a think-tank like Brookings or an honest reporter will nervously interject that “recent polls show Americans may resist taking the medicine,” and then the discussion moves on to why austerity is absolutely necessary. Rarely on talk shows or even in serious print news article does anyone challenge the predictable Republican mantra that “we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.” And, given the consensus that we face a “debt and deficit crisis” that could soon hurt the economy, rarely is anyone allowed to warn that a strong dose of spending cuts might hurt America’s faltering recovery.

And so the inside-the-bubble discussion moves on to how much to cut which programs—and whether automatic spending caps might work to appease the bond markets.

No more silent majority. Today the Campaign for America’s Future is sending letters to all the major media demanding that the views of the American Majority be represented in the news programs, print articles and opinion pages, and in the non-stop daily and Sunday talk shows in which the debate about America’s future is being conducted as we move toward the showdown over the budget.

We are demanding representation in the media proportional to the size of the American Majority. And we are making the point that the views of the majority are not irrational—and that in a democracy the majority deserves to be heard, not patronized. We are also supplying the media with an extensive list of economists, experts and advocates who share the majority view that deficits are not now the major threat to U.S. prosperity, and that getting revenue back into the budget is far less damaging (and more just) than cutting spending and crippling important programs for the poor and the elderly. And we are telling them that occasionally featuring the great Paul Krugman, as though his views represent a lonely majority, is not enough.

Out in the real world, despite being excluded from the Beltway discussion, the real people who represent the American Majority are finding their voice, as Republican members of Congress, including Rep. Paul Ryan, discovered when they went home last month to defend the Ryan/GOP budget they all voted for. They encountered well-informed and angry constituents protesting the plan to turn Medicare into a voucher and demanding to know why unemployment is still so high and why the rich are still enjoying the Bush tax cuts. It didn’t make any difference to these voters that columnists at The Washington Post thought Ryan’s plan was “bold and brave.” They were just angry that all the Republicans in the House voted to dismantle Medicare.

You can also see the American Majority stirring powerfully in the huge populist rebellion against the attempt to cripple workers’ rights in Wisconsin, Indiana, Maine and around the country. The right-wing governors in these states thought they could isolate what they see as a small unionized minority and pit other working people against them. Instead, citizens of all kinds are seeing the assault on union workers as an extension of the war on the battered middle class—a war in which conservatives preach austerity to the rest of us while demanding tax cuts and bailouts for themselves.

In the dangerous looming showdown over the budget and the debt ceiling, those of us who share the views of the American Majority must demand to be heard. We have to get over our self-image as an embattled, if righteous, minority.

In recent weeks millions of our fellow Americans who voted in 2010 for conservative candidates who promised jobs have begun to realize what an extreme and destructive that their real agenda poses for our country. Even most rank-and-file Tea Party supporters reject dismantling Medicare and cutting Social Security. In April, when the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner read a list of the programs likely to be cut by across-the-board spending caps (which Republicans and some Democrats are demanding as the price of raising the debt limit), 72 percent said they would rather raise taxes on those earning more than one million dollars. In March, Bloomberg asked Americans to choose a priority—creating jobs or cutting spending—and 56 percent said creating jobs, rather than spending cuts, is the more important priority for the federal government right now. See all the polling that we have compiled at ourfuture.org/americanmajority.

So it is time for all of us to ask, if we are the American Majority, why aren’t 72 percent of the pundits on television talking about raising taxes on the rich? Why don’t we read about—and hear from—the 56 percent of Americans (and experts) who think that jobs and economic recovery is more important than austerity. We don’t need to demand quotas—but equal time would seem to be justified.

The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority.

And while we challenge the media to present the views of the American people on the economy, let’s get to work on the politicians as well. (More on that soon.)

Sen. Conrad Unifies Dems Against Ryan. Yes, Kent Conrad!

Roger Hickey — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:03:19 -0400

House Budget chairman Paul Ryan’s budget resolution has been rightly condemned by anyone who cares about economic recovery, Medicare, Medicaid, public investment, programs for the poor and disadvantaged, tax justice, and just plain honesty in budgeting. The Huffington Post has been full of good analysis – see this great piece by R.J. Eskow. The House Progressive Caucus even put out this video taking apart what will undoubtedly be the lock-step Republican approach to long austerity budgeting.

The House Democrats, even most Blue Dogs, will vote together against this monstrosity.
There is a real chance for a clear contrast between the parties.

But what about the Senate Democrats? Far too many, like the famous gang of three (Senators Conrad, Durbin and Warner), have been negotiating a “compromise” that might take the Democrats over to the dark side.

That’s why a new statement by Senate Budget chair Kent Conrad is surprisingly encouraging. Released today (April 5), here is the heart of what he had to say about the Ryan plan:

“Representative Ryan’s proposal is partisan and ideological. He provides dramatic tax cuts for the wealthiest, financed by draconian reductions in Medicare and Medicaid. His proposals are unreasonable and unsustainable.

“His plan is most troubling because it lacks balance. A balanced long-term deficit reduction plan would include discretionary spending cuts, including defense; entitlement changes; and tax reform that simplifies the tax code, lowers rates, and raises revenue. That is what the President’s bipartisan Fiscal Commission proposed. Representative Ryan’s plan, on the other hand, fails to include savings in defense and actually reduces revenue. The result is that his plan relies on deep cuts in the safety net for seniors, children, and other vulnerable populations, as well as deep cuts in critical areas like education, which are needed to promote long-term economic growth.

“I am also concerned about his proposals to replace Medicare with a voucher program and to block grant Medicaid. These steps would simply shift costs and increase the number of uninsured. The President’s Fiscal Commission rejected both of these measures and chose instead to build on the savings proposals and delivery system changes in last year’s health reform.

The rest of Conrad’s statement goes on to praise the deficit commission as a model for budget balancing, not a sentiment most Democrats would echo. But the basic gift that Conrad may be giving Democrats is the opportunity for unity against draconian austerity and for a rousing defense of Medicare and Medicaid.

Every group imaginable is working to make sure the whole country knows what the House plan for next year’s budget (and the decade after that) would do to our economy, to our social contract (Medicare, Medicaid, education and more). And, thanks to Ryan’s rigid and extreme ideological vision, now publicly embraced by the Republican party, the 2012 elections are shaping up to give the country reason to repudiate extreme conservatism and embrace a progressive vision of investment in job creation and robust defense of those public programs that most Americans (even tea party rank and file) want Democrats to defend.

I never thought I’d have the opportunity to thank Senator Kent Conrad for helping to unify his fellow Democrats against Republican excess. Ryan gets some of the credit, but I’m happy to praise Senator Conrad, whose finest hour before retirement could be to help rally his party to fight Ryan’s frontal attack on the American middle class. Now, let’s get to work and urge his Senate colleagues to be even tougher. And let's urge Sen. Conrad to incorporate his criticisms of Ryan into a Senate budget resolution we can all support.

Tell the President: Stand Up to the Hostage-Takers! Defend Social Security and Medicare.

Roger Hickey — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 08:00:11 -0500

Republican hostage-takers got President Obama to go along with their tax cuts for the wealthy by threatening to raise taxes on the middle class and blocking even modest stimulus funds for our struggling economy.

Now the Republicans have identified their next hostage: They're going to threaten to destroy the international financial stability of the United States by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. What are they demanding for ransom? They want President Obama to slash Social Security and Medicare before this next hostage crisis comes to a head in March or April.

Who can stop this next hostage crisis? We can. We is everyone who cares about our country. We have to start by sending a message to the President here: No more surrendering to hostage takers' demands. Pledge to defend Social Security and Medicare. Click here to take action.

Here are two scenarios. Which one will you work to make happen?

Scenario One: In his State of the Union speech (around January 27), Obama declares that he is willing to "meet the Republicans half way". In fact, he will preempt the hostage-taking crisis altogether, by accepting some of the harshest recommendations of his deficit commission. He announces his support for legislation to cut Social Security benefits for today's retirees, by changing the cost of living index. He pledges to cut Social Security benefits for future middle-class retirees even more and declares his intention to raise the retirement age. What's more, he says he will cap Medicare benefits for each retiree, and they will either have to pay for the rest of their medical care out of pocket or do without the care they need.

This is looking like an increasing likely scenario. What would happen then? Let's play it out a little further:

In response to the President's statements, several senior Democrats announce their plans to quit public service, Republicans, flush with their latest victory, start issuing their NEWEST set of demands. If these new demands aren't met, they say, they'll refuse to pass the debt ceiling - which would crash the US economy. Soon the Democrats and Obama are attacked by Newt Gingrich and other Republican presidential candidates as the party and the President who cut Social Security. Republican prospects for 2012 improve greatly as the public recoils at this attack on a popular program, Democratic activists erupt in fury, and the true Democratic base of working families and independents becomes even more disillusioned.

Scenario Two: The White House and the Democrats in Congress are flooded with emails, faxes and phone calls that say: "We elected you to protect Social Security and Medicare." "Stand up and Fight against hostage takers." Over 200 Members of Congress join together to declare: "Social Security and Medicare are our 'line in the sand." In his State of the Union, the President reminds the country that Social Security doesn't contribute a single dime to the deficit, and says unequivocally that he will defend it against any attempt to cut benefits or raid its trust fund to pay down the Federal Deficit. He might even announce a new commission charged with strengthening and improving Social Security, composed of well-informed people who care about the program. He vows additional reforms to cut health care costs and improve the quality of care, and pledges not to harm or cut Medicare. And, channeling Bill Clinton from 1994, he declares he will refuse to give in to extortionists who would harm the US economic system in an attempt to force him to dismantle America's social contract. In response, nervous Wall Street financiers denounce the extremist politicians who would crash the world financial system in order to win their political goals. Chastened, the Republicans back down and agree to support extension of the debt limit.

Working Americans rally to the President, filled with newfound respect for his willingness to stand up and fight for them. 2012 starts looking much better for Obama - and for Democrats in the Congress.

Which scenario will become reality? That's up to you. Progressive activists - the kind of people who are reading these words - need to become even more active if we want to make Scenario Two our future.

Many people are disappointed and disillusioned by the outcome of the first hostage confrontation with Republicans in the new post-majority era - a confrontation that ended before it began. As a result, too many are succumbing to cynicism, assuming that all is hopeless and that the first Scenario is inevitable. We all know that if Scenario One happens, it will trigger a firestorm of protest and we will be part of that firestorm. Why not channel that energy into changing history instead, by using it to get President Obama on the road toward revival and real economic change?

If we get off our asses before a tragic mistake is made, we'll discover the American people are with us in this next fight. Poll after poll shows that, despite the coordinated conservative deficit scare campaign, strong majorities reject cuts to Social Security benefits or messing with Medicare. And people hate the idea of raising the retirement age - that includes already-retired people and baby-boomers, and younger workers who would have to work two more years - no matter how bad the economy is or how badly their bodies have been battered. Americans are strongly supportive of our modest but fair social insurance system - and, especially in these bad economic times, they'll fight any politician who tries to damage it. Let's fight a fight that unites all Americans - even the majority of Tea Partiers.

In the few weeks before the President's late January State of the Union speech, we need to clearly and forcefully tell him and the Democratic party what we think: Capitulating to hostage takers on Social Security and Medicare would be a disaster and politically and the wrong thing to do morally.

You can take your first action right here.

And then, if we succeed at getting the President to hold off, we can mount a massive campaign that would bring unions, citizens' organizations, grass roots groups of all kinds together. It would speak directly to the voters - blue collar and white collar, independents and partisans, middle class and working class - attacking those Republicans who would threaten to crash the US economy in order to cut popular programs. We can flood conservatives in Congress with angry protests and end this next hostage crisis with the first defeat of the new right wing Congress - and the first victory of America's progressive majority.

We can suffer through the first scenario, or make a better reality. It's up to you.

In Deficit "Town Meetings," People Reject America Speaks Stacked Deck

Roger Hickey — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:40:11 -0400

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.

But Peterson cannot be pleased with the participants' mainly progressive policy choices, which will be presented on June 30 to the Deficit Commission that Peterson encouraged President Obama to create.

According to America Speaks own press release, when a scientifically selected group of participants picked up their electronic voting devices, they overwhelmingly supported proposals to

Raise tax rates on corporate income and those earning more than1 million.
Reduce military spending by 10 to 15 percent,
Create a carbon tax AND a securities-transaction tax.

This pretty progressive set of solutions emerged from the process many feared would be skewed to the solutions of conservative deficit hawks.

America Speaks was certainly not pushing the discussion in a progressive direction. The background materials - and policy options -- provided to participants were anything but fair and balanced, as analysis by economist Dean Baker demonstrated. Most egregious were the following:

Social Security. America Speaks gave participants no explanation of the fact that Social Security has its own source of funding, and thus does not contribute a dime to the deficit. Americans actually have been paying extra payroll taxes to create a trust fund that will make sure full benefits can be paid for decades into the future - and thus there is no rational reason to cut Social Security benefits (or raise the retirement age) in order to reduce the Federal deficit. But you wouldn't know that from the America Speaks materials or explanations. The Social Security program is simply presented as another big spending program and participants were presented with various ways to cut benefits. Given all this, a majority endorsed raising the retirement age for full benefits to 69 - a benefit cut for future retirees. But they also chose the progressive plan to raise the cap on taxable earnings subject to Social Security taxes, thus producing income for the system from greater portion of higher income peoples' wages.

Medicare and Medicaid. The America Speaks background materials actually did acknowledge that the rising budgetary costs of Medicare and Medicaid are driven by the fact that our whole health care system is broken - and costing both the private sector and government programs much more per person than in countries that have much better health outcomes. They even acknowledged that thoroughgoing reform - like single-payer health care system - is the only way to control those rising costs. However, when it came to options the participants were allowed to vote on, they were all variations on how much people wanted to cut Medicare and Medicaid benefits. At this point in the proceedings, the America Speaks founder and President, Carolyn Lukensmeyer had to acknowledge a rebellion in the ranks. People were demanding to have the option of voting for "single-payer" reform instead of cutting Medicare and Medicaid, and when she announced a complicated process of writing in that alternative, a roar of approval went up from the crowd in several locations. Their press release doesn't report how many people chose this difficult to select option, but the organization clearly had had to scramble to quell a revolt by participants. (Note: their press release states that people chose to "cut health care spending by at least 5 percent," but the choice was really to cut government health programs 5 percent - and my reading of the charts online was that only 21 percent of participants chose that option, with 71 percent choosing "no change.")

Austerity vs Growth. Finally, the organizers had heard enough protests from the Economic Policy Institute and the AFL-CIO that they felt they had to assure the audience that they were not prioritizing deficit reduction over the need for economic stimulus to get the economy to start producing jobs. But after that ritual disclaimer, they went on to devote the vast majority of the day to deficits as our defining economic program.

David Dyen, an LA participant, wrote in a post on firedoglake,

"While the cumulative effect of all this tends towards social safety net cuts rather than tax fairness, the crowd in Los Angeles, at least, wasn't biting at first. In surveying the discussion groups, most people seemed more concerned about the desperate need for more stimulus spending to move the economic recovery forward. They feared a double dip recession without job creation, and fretted about the lack of unemployment insurance extensions to help the less fortunate. "No one is talking about the long-term unemployed," said one participant. In the nationwide instant survey, taken by participants through electronic devices at all 19 America Speaks sites, 61% said the government needed to do more to strengthen the recovery, with only 25% opposed. Even with a push poll question asking if participants supported government programs to increase growth "if it increases the deficit," got a majority, 51%, of the nation-wide group of participants.

My next day posting here - claiming participants mostly rejected conservative nostrums - is based on watching the process online, from reports from people who attended events around the country - and on a fairly sketchy press release put out by America Speaks on Thursday, just after the town meetings. But America Speaks billed these events as a nation-wide scientific experiment in finding out what the "American people" think about the economic way forward. They are thus duty bound to publish a full report on the details of every single question - and voting results - that participants were asked to make decisions about. It is especially important that they put out this comprehensive report because they are also scheduled to summarize their findings before a special public meeting of the White House Deficit Commission on June 30. Only then can the people who participated in the process judge whether their surprisingly progressive decisions are being accurately presented to the Commission.

Note: Click here for a blog post on the Augusta, Maine America Speaks event by participant Barbara Burt, director of the Frances Perkins Center.

Third Way ConservaDems Get it Wrong: Progressives Are The Champions Of Growth and Wealth

Roger Hickey — Sun, 09 May 2010 16:58:01 -0400

Anne Kim and Jonathan Cowan of Third Way took to the Politico Arena op ed page (and url) on Thursday with the hoary slander that progressives care only about "expanding the entitlement state" and have no interest in economic growth or expanding wealth. Apparently blind to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, they then replay New Democrat staples from the 1990s as if they were somehow new or relevant. They get it wrong.

As Barack Obama took charge of an economy in free fall, progressives urged the new administration to undertake the largest investment-led stimulus in our history. Third Way Democrats worked to make it smaller and weaker. Despite that, the recovery act did stop the fall and begin to pull the country out of recession. With unemployment still nearly at 10%, progressives continue to push for more job creation and aid to the states to forestall brutal cuts in teachers and police and other vital services.

Looking towards the new economy that we must build out of the ruins of the old, the president has it right. We can’t go back to the old bubble-bust economy built on debt and speculation. We need to build on a new foundation. That includes public investment in areas vital to our future: education and training, a 21st century infrastructure, research and development, new energy. It includes a new global strategy and industrial policy to insure that we make things in America once more. And it should include an extension of our basic social contract, insuring retirement security, affordable health care and education, a living wage and safe working conditions, first rate public education to all Americans. On that foundation, we can build an economy – as we did after World War II – that works for working people, and revives America’s broad middle class.

Kim and Cowan recycle the conservative canard that progressive support for the Obama health care plan is motivated by a desire to turn the US into (gasp!) Denmark, where (they think) everyone lives on "entitlements." Apparently these Third Way Democrats reject the argument advanced by their Democratic president that health care reform, in addition to being a matter of economic justice, is also the first step toward getting control of health care costs -- which every economist agrees is the real driver of long term public deficits. (Denmark, with a more comprehensive public healthcare system spends only 9.8 percent of it's GDP on health care. The US spends 16 percent. Far from luxuriating on entitlements, the Danes have the most extensive worker training program in Europe, successfully sustaining a high wage economy that enjoys a trading surplus with its neighbors. Denmark has also outpaced the US in exports. They have a 2.2 percent trade surplus compared to the 5.2 percent US chronic trade deficit.

There is one thought in the Kim-Cowan op ed that every progressive completely agrees with: they say we can deal with growing deficits "only if we generate the kind of supercharged economic growth we had in the 1950s and mid-¹60s." Exactly.

But how do these Third Way Democrats propose to achieve that kind of growth? Their program is austerity for the paycheck class (cutting spending on vital domestic investments) and tax cuts for business and the wealthy.

Right now, conservative Democrats, especially in the Senate, are resisting efforts to invest in more job growth – and efforts to help the states who are cutting back spending and firing public workers, making the economy worse.

Progressive Democrats are pushing for more spending on jobs. But Third Way austerity advocates in the Congress (and in the President’s deficit commission) want to slash spending (and cut Social Security and Medicare). All this threatens to choke off a still-fragile economic recovery. Their tax cuts for the wealthy reflect a trickle down economics that led us into our present straits, and ignore the reality of a tax code in which Warren Buffett, one of America’s wealthiest men, admits he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Kim-Cowan might want to check the tax rates of the 50-60s (which included a 90% upper tax bracket) before touting that as their model.

You would think Third Way Democrats, who post "growth and wealth creation" on their op ed banner would spend a little time explaining the economic crisis that has just seen massive and dangerous economic contraction -- and destroyed several generations of wealth. Instead they blame progressives who pushed for "entitlements."

For three decades, government economic policy has been dominated by a conservative ideology that is not so much pro-business as obsequious to a set of business interests that ultimately had little to do with the long-term health of the national economy. It was an ideology that said we could send much of our manufacturing base overseas; see millions of living-wage jobs disappear and not be replaced with other secure, living-wage jobs; and still somehow prosper on a economy largely based on finance, information and services. It was an ideology that has given us an historic concentration of wealth at the very top — 65 percent of the income growth since 2000 has gone to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population, while median household incomes have dropped 4 percent when adjusted for inflation.

As it turns out, there is nothing pro-growth about tax cuts that further enrich the wealthy but starve our schools and allow our infrastructure to crumble. There’s nothing pro-business about having regulatory agencies turn a blind eye to Wall Street greed, in the mistaken belief that addicted gamblers will police themselves amid the glittering lights of the Wall Street casino. There is certainly nothing pro-wealth in the decades-long effort by conservatives to weaken unions and otherwise disempower workers; the “experiments to eliminate teacher tenure” that Kim and Cowan apparently applaud are but one example of the effort to treat workers as disposable and suppress their wages.

And it is more than a little bizarre to recycle the New Dem 1990 agenda for the economy coming out of the mess. “Experiments to eliminate teacher tenure” is but idle chatter at a time when literally tens of thousands of teachers, tenured or not, are facing layoffs in the brutal budgets of states and localities. Kim-Cowan support affordable college—but fail to note that despite passing the greatest increase in student aid since the GI Bill, soaring tuitions are pricing college out of the reach of more and more students.

The old nostrums of the right have been tried and failed. The New Dem/Third Way conservative light program offers no remedy. This country must, as the president has stated, build on a new foundation. The Kim-Cowan call to go back to the 1990s won’t get us there.

This post is part of our ongoing "Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy."

Fiscal Times Scandal: 21 Experts Seek Meeting with WaPost Chair Don Graham

Roger Hickey — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:48:19 -0500

Today (Jan. 4) 21 policy experts sent a letter (below) to Washington Post Board Chairman Donald Graham, requesting a meeting. Why? Because we've gotten no response to our protest letter to The Washington Post's ombudsman.

In that earlier letter we demanded an explanation for publication by the Post of an article about the U.S. federal deficit by The Fiscal Times, a "news content provider" founded and financed by Wall Street billionaire Peter G. Peterson, whose budget-cutting ideology promotes cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

The group noted that while The Fiscal Times article focused on the Peterson-promoted Conrad-Gregg budget commission—and quoted several Peterson-supported "experts"—it ignored the views of those who oppose that approach to the deficit, including a coaltion of 40 groups representing workers, women, seniors and others.

Here's our letter (sent today) demanding a meeting:

Donald E. Graham
Chairman of the Board
The Washington Post Company
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. Graham.

On January 1, we contacted the Ombudsman to express our dismay at a slanted piece of journalism that ran in your newspaper and our deep concern about the Post’s decision to partner in the future with the Fiscal Times, which produced the article. The Fiscal Times was created and is funded by Peter G. Peterson, who has engaged in a decades-long effort to have changes to Social Security considered under a fast-track commission which shields members of Congress from political accountability.

Consistent with Mr. Peterson’s longstanding objective, the article the Post published is rife with factual errors, important omissions and significant distortions, which lead the reader to see a fast-tracked commission as sound policy and without opposition – indeed, virtually inevitable. Representative of the errors, omissions, and distortions are the following:

• The Administration has not taken a public position on a so-called fast-track commission, and we have talked to high-level advisers in the White House who have told us privately that they oppose the fast-tracking, yet the first sentence of the second full paragraph states, “President Obama has voiced support for such a plan.”

• Speaker Pelosi and her staff have been clear about her opposition to a commission whose recommendations are fast tracked, yet the article implies that she has changed her position. A close reading suggests that the article seeks the reader to draw that inference, though her position, in reality, remains unchanged.

• . The article fails to report that the powerful Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, is strongly opposed to the proposal. The article obviously fails to note that Senator Baucus delivered an impassioned speech in opposition, in which he described the proposal as a plan under which Congress would “outsource its core fiscal responsibilities,” and warned that “this commission and its new fast track process are truly dangerous… we would risk setting in motion some truly terrible policy…it is clear from their press release that Senators Conrad and Gregg have painted a big red target on Social Security and Medicare. That’s what this commission is all about.”

• The article omits the fact that the AARP is on the public record in opposition of the fast-track commission, but rather implies otherwise by including at the conclusion of the lengthy story some tepid, relatively-narrow concerns of a spokesman for the AARP .

• .The article omits the fact that the AARP sent a letter to Congressional leaders stating the AARP’s unequivocal opposition. It also omits the fact that the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations sent a letter representing 27 national aging organizations. The article further omits that a letter signed by over 40 national organizations, including the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Common Cause, NAACP, NOW, and SEIU, was sent in opposition. Also, omitted was the fact of a letter from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, an organization representing millions of members. Obviously the article provided no quotes from the letters, all of which are posted online.

• No academics or policy analysts are quoted in the story with the exception of the executive director of the Concord Coalition. The story fails to disclose that the founding President of the Concord Coalition is Mr. Peterson, a longtime advocate of the commission that was the focus of the story (and to repeat, the founder and financial backer of the Fiscal Times, which produced the story).

Every error, commission and omission in the article is in support of the objectives of Mr. Peterson. By printing the article, the Washington Post has let itself be used by that powerful individual who is now able to influence policy not just through opinion pieces but through what purports to be objective news.

Of greater concern to us than the one story is the Post’s announced partnership with Mr. Peterson’s enterprise and the plans to publish other articles, as objective news stories, from that biased source. The Post’s highly respected imprimatur is likely to cause local papers to print these biased pieces, as well.

We respectfully request that you meet with a delegation of the undersigned so that we can further discuss our concerns in person. To facilitate the arrangement of the meeting, the contact information of the first signatory appears at the end of this letter

Sincerely,

Nancy J. Altman, co-director of project to protect and improve America’s economic security
Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
Merton C. Bernstein, Coles Professor of Law Emeritus, Washington University
Robert H. Binstock, Professor of Aging, Health, and Society, Case Western Reserve University
Suzanne Blouin, retired, Office of Communications, Social Security Administration
Barbara Burt, Executive Director, Frances Perkins Center
Dale Coberly, co-author of the Northwest Plan to restore Social Security to balance
Nancy Dapper, Executive Director, Western & Central WA Chapter, Alzheimer's Association
Patricia E. Dilley, Professor of Law, University of Florida
Stephen Gorin Professor, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, NH
Lori L. Hansen, former member, Social Security Advisory Board
Roger Hickey, Co-Director, Campaign for America’s Future
Karen Holden, Emeritus Professor, La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-
Madison
Eric Kingson Professor, Syracuse University School of Social Work
Robert Kuttner, Founding Co-Editor, American Prospect
Theodore Marmor, Professor Emeritus, Yale University
Gerald A. McIntyre, National Senior Citizens Law Center
Lawrence Mishel, President, Economic Policy Institute
Steve Regenstreif, Director, AFSCME Retirees
Maya Rockeymoore, President, Global Policy Solutions
Max J. Skidmore, University of Missouri Curators' Professor of Political Science, Thomas Jefferson Fellow, University of Missouri-Kansas City

Contact information for Nancy Altman
(Office) 301-229-2651
(Cellular) 301-873-2610
Njalt@aol.com

The Washington Post Lets Pete Peterson Write The News On The Deficit

Roger Hickey — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:13:05 -0500

On the last day of 2009, The Washington Post published an article, presented as a news story, which could be a signal of the death of the Post as an independent and objective news source.

The piece, entitled "Support grows for tackling nation's debt," appeared to be one of those background news pieces common in newspapers like the Post. But article was written not by the newspaper’s reporters – and not by an objective wire service, like the Associated Press – but by a new organization called The Fiscal Times, whose founder and major backer, Peter G. Peterson, has a long-term ideological commitment to convincing Americans that “support is growing for tackling the nation’s debt.”

These are indeed hard times for journalism, but The Washington Post is sealing its own fate as a fake news source if, as the press release for the Fiscal Times claims, this new “independent” digital news publication reporting on fiscal, budgetary, health-care and international economics issues has forged its first media partnership, a content-sharing agreement with The Washington Post. This deal, the first evidence of which is Thursday’s article, would be the equivalent of the Post reviving its old relationship with United Press International to cover religion and politics – without informing their readership that since 2000 the once-proud UPI has been owned by News World Communications, a media company owned by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church! The only difference is that Peter G. Peterson is starting his own news service instead of buying an old one.

Economist and media critic Dean Baker was the first to blow the whistle in his Beat the Press blog at The American Prospect website:

The piece [by Fiscal Times and published by the Post] conveys Peterson's view that there is a drastic budget crisis which requires circumventing normal congressional procedures. It implies that the huge surge in deficit in the last year was attributable to the irresponsibility of Congress rather than an economic collapse that resulted from incredibly incompetent policy and Wall Street greed.

The amazing thing is that, given the desire of the new Fiscal Times (and presumably the Post) to present their new partnership as an objective and journalistic endeavor, the actual article is so obviously slanted to the conservative point of view Peter G. Peterson (partner in Wall Street’s Blackstone Group and former Republican Treasury Secretary) has used his millions to promote over many years.

Nowhere in the “story” would the reader find reference to the fact that it is now official government policy to increase the federal deficit in order to stimulate growth and economic recovery from the worst recession since the great depression. The whole piece seems designed to give prominence to the legislation, advanced by Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., that would create a commission to come up with a plan for slashing deficits which would be voted on – without amendments and with limited debate – by both houses of Congress.

No mention is made of the fact that Pete Peterson recently testified in favor of such a commission before Conrad’s Senate Budget Committee. The piece contains one quote from a high level official at the AARP questioning whether such a commission would be willing to consider progressive tax increases. But nowhere in the Fiscal Times article could a reader find that over 40 national organizations – including the Alliance for Retired Americans, the National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare, the AFL-CIO, SEIU, AFSCME and the Campaign for America’s Future – have circulated a statement opposing such a commission and warning that it could undermine Social Security, Medicare, health care reform, and the fragile economic recovery.

The Fiscal Times piece does quote the “the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform” (funded by Pete Peterson’s foundation). And the executive director of the Concord Coalition is quoted as noting rising support for action on the deficit – without noting that one Peter G. Peterson serves as president of the Concord Coalition.

This is not journalism. It is big money purchasing a relationship that allows Peterson to put faux news pieces into The Washington Post news pages.

In July, the Washington Post’s Ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, admitted that his publisher’s “ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record "salons" was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions.” When Katharine Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli realized how horrendous a PR problem they had on their hands, they apologized and rescinded their plans for “a series of 11 intimate dinners to discuss public policy issues – at which for a fee of up to $25,000, underwriters were guaranteed a seat at the table with lawmakers, administration officials, think tank experts, business leaders and the heads of associations.” Obviously, the program looked too much like “pay to influence coverage.”

But Peter Peterson has found a better way: not content with advocacy, he is using his vast wealth to create a “news service” and forged a deal to get the Post to treat his advocacy as news. A group of policy experts and advocates, led by author Nancy Altman (and myself) have just sent a letter to Andrew Alexander, who still appears to be the Post’s ombudsman. He has another ethical hot potato on his hands – but this one goes to the heart of the journalistic mission of the Post. Our letter, which can be found here, awaits a response from The Washington Post.

If you care about journalism – and if you care about this important Washington newspaper, you should make your views known to the Post at ombudsman@washpost.com.

(Note: I have writen about the proposed budget commission, Peterson and his critics recently at The Huffington Post and TPMcafe and OurFuture.org)