social security

A Huffington Post commenter responding to my recent piece on the Washington Post's recent Social Security article by saying that I "claimed 'inaccuracies, falsehoods, and downright lies' but delivered problems of tone, and emphasis." more »

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What do they call the night before Halloween? Oh, yeah. Hell night. That makes tonight just right for grabbing a fistful of mashmallows and candy corn before sitting down to read this article.

It'll make your blood run cold, and afterwards you'll probably agree: It's time to stop letting this propaganda outlet keep dressing up as a newspaper.

A History of Mendacity more »

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If you've ever questioned whether the so-called "Super Committee" represents a breakdown in the democratic process, yesterday's proposal from the group's Democratic members should put your doubts to rest. The system's seriously broken when unelected super-legislators from both parties keep trying to top each other in proposing inhumane and unpopular programs. more »

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Bad economics makes strange bedfellows. Thanks to our nation's misguided obsession with budget cuts, disabled children and the stock market face a common threat: an undemocratically-selected "Super Committee" which was formed during a national jobs emergency in order to ... reduce deficits instead.

The Super Committee: It's like Congress, except they don't let all the democratically-elected riffraff in. Think of it as our nation's "Platinum Legislature," a members-only private club where you have to know somebody important to get past the velvet rope. And it's like Fight Club, too: The first rule of Super Committee is that you don't talk about Super Committee.

There's compelling evidence that the cuts the Committee is considering will deal a harsh blow to the stock market. But before we see it, there's someone you really ought to meet. more »

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A few weeks after calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” Rick Perry claims he has just the plan to save the program. That is nothing but a monstrous lie.

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Thanks to a hit piece by one of those Beltway pseudo-"bipartisans" we can now state conclusively what many of us have long suspected: Occupy Wall Street speaks for the American majority. We've got the polling numbers to prove it. We now know where the real center lies.

It's easy to understand why people like Douglas Schoen are lining up to attack OWS. It shines a spotlight on their cardboard centrism - that think-tank designed, artificially-inseminated, vat-grown corporate ideology so widely rejected by the public at large. OWS represents the real American consensus, and that has them running scared.

But Schoen's Wall Street Journal editorial falls so far short of the mark that it elicits only a soft sense of pity. It illustrates nothing except the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of those out-of-step Democrats who sell themselves to conservatism under the 'centrist' or 'Third Way' banner.

Oh, wait. It also provides enough data to undermine his entire argument - and possibly his entire ideology. more »

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No matter how fatigued the rest of the country is with the endless Republican debate schedule, Mitt Romney must be looking forward to tonight’s face-off in New Hampshire. more »

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For more on how we can save Social Security from conservative attacks, hear Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Campaign for America's Future's Roger Hickey, Strengthen Social Security's Eric Kingson and more at the Take Back the American Dream conference, Oct. 3-5.

At least some of the Republican Presidential candidates have gotten the memo that repeatedly demonizing Social Security has its consequences. After standing by assertions in his book that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and a “monstrous lie,” Gov. Perry has drawn harsh criticism from both angry voters and his fellow candidates. In fact, some of those other candidates, Mitt Romney in particular, are using Perry’s remarks on Social Security to create ideological distance between them on this issue.

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The Sanders bill “goes big” for Social Security--the nation’s most important pension, life and disability insurance plan.

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Washington, DC felt like a city on a deathwatch this week, after a series of White House news leaks said the President would announce cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits next Monday.

One plan was to raise the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security. Another involved an accounting gimmick that would cut the already-inadequate cost of living adjustments for Social Security benefits - and raise taxes on the middle class, too.

The response was negative, as most people might expect. Very, very negative.

Come Monday

Many elected Democrats have been dreading next Monday's speech ever since these trial balloons were first floated. They saw these proposals, probably rightly, as a fatal blow to their reelection chances.

Another dark cloud was hanging over public interest groups who represent older Americans, sound economic policy, or improvements to our health care system. They understood the damage these ideas could cause.

That was then, this is now. Today the clouds lifted ... some of them, anyway. more »

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