NewsTrust - Social Security - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

Shouldn't All Stories be 'Fact-Check' Stories?

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Columbia Journalism Review - By Greg Marx - Sep. 09 (Opinion) - On the subject of fact-checking the presidential debates, it’s worth noting that while the proliferation of “fact-check” stories over the last few years is probably a step in the right direction, it does come with a risk—that by assigning “fact-checking” responsibility to a particular story or blog, we send a message that the vast majority of political news...

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Olbermann's Blistering Warning To Obama

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Kieth Olbermann - Jul. 12 (Opinion) - Keith Olbermann tore into President Obama for contemplating a compromise with the Republicans over the debt ceiling that includes cuts in Social Security and major changes to Medicare.

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Growing Economic Inequality the Root Cause of Economic Stagnation

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Robert Creamer - Jul. 11 (Editorial) - The bottom line is that most of the considerable economic growth of the last several decades has gone into the pockets of a tiny percent of the population. As a result, wages and consumer buying power have stagnated, and consumers don't have the money to buy the new products and services upon which economic growth depends.

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How Fraudulent Is the GOP Budget Plan? It Wouldn't Even Make a Dent In the Deficit!

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Joshua Holland - Jun. 02 (Opinion) - The Republican budget plan is the purest expression of the Right's longstanding desire to dismantle the social safety net. It's not about the budget deficit—that's simply a premise -- it's the "Shock Doctrine" in action.

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I Remember America

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By William Rivers Pitt - Apr. 12 (Opinion) - On Wednesday, the Democratic president of the United States will stand somberly before a bank of television cameras to announce the orderly annihilation of the social contract that has guarded and sustained the American people for generations. It was a Democratic president who created that contract, followed by other Democratic presidents who defended it, and now a Democratic president is choosing to undo it. Not all at once, of course. It will take time in the doing, but the downhill run to that dissolution begins tomorrow.

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Truly Pathetic

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Talking Points Memo - By Josh Marshall - Apr. 05 (Opinion) - You can respect people's contrary opinions. But presumably it's wrong to abolish Medicare because it's wrong. And that Dems are the party who believes it's wrong.

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Political Statistics

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Town Hall - By Thomas Sowell - Apr. 05 (Opinion) - When Congress votes for all sorts of benefits, without voting for enough taxes to pay for them, they get the support of those who have been promised the benefits, without getting grief from the taxpayers. It's strictly win-win as far as the welfare-state politicians are concerned. But it is strictly lose-lose, big-time, for the country, as deficits skyrocket. Anyone who says that we don't have the money to pay what was promised is accused of trying to destroy Social Security, Medicare or Obamacare-- or whatever other unfunded promises have been made. It is like blaming the bank for saying that the check bounced.

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Is FactCheck.org What You've Been Led To Believe It Is?

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

thomhartmann.com - By Vitocaputo - Mar. 26 (Opinion) - During the Brunch With Bernie segment of the March 25 broadcast... Bernie said something like "Social Security does not contribute one cent to the deficit.." Most every member of the progressive media... both radio and Internet... have expressed the same belief. My understanding of the structure of Social Security is consistent with this progressive perspective on the relationship between Social Security and the deficit. Specifically... they are disjoint.

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Jack Cafferty Calls Social Security a 'Social Welfare Program'

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Crooks and Liars - By Heather - Mar. 24 (Opinion) - You know, I used to have some respect for Jack Cafferty even though I knew back then that we were on primarily opposite ends of the political spectrum because he spoke out against the Bush administration when that wasn't necessarily the most popular thing for a conservative to be doing, but he just lost me completely here. Calling Social Security a "welfare program" is just shameless. The widows and orphans who receive those benefits do so after a spouse or a parent paid into the system and seniors receive the benefit after paying into it for their entire lives. And unemployment insurance is just that, insurance. It's not welfare. And does Jack really think we should just leave our elderly, the disabled and young mothers and children with no help to pay their medical bills at all? What cost does he think it would be to our society to just leave those people to rot on the streets?

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On Social Security, FactCheck Didn’t ...

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Off the Charts - By Kathy Ruffing - Mar. 02 (Opinion) - “Democrats Deny Social Security’s Red Ink,” a recent FactCheck article blared. The article panned Senators Durbin and Schumer for stating that “Social Security does not add one penny to the deficit” and took Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew to task for calling Social Security “self-financing.” But the senators and the budget director are on solid ground: FactCheck’s figures ignore the substantial sums that Social Security earns — and will continue to earn for many years — on its investments in Treasury securities.

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FactCheck Gets It Wrong on Social Security and the Deficit

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

cepr.net - By Dean Baker - Feb. 28 (Opinion) - FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenburg Public Policy Center, wrongly attacked a number of prominent Democrats for correctly pointing out that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. The people attacked, included New York Senator Charles Schumer, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, and President Obama’s Budget Director Jacob Lew, who had all correctly pointed out that Social Security does not contribute to the budget deficit.

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Factcheck got it really wrong about Social Security

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Kos - By Dolly Madison - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - Too many people don't understand how Social Security is funded and don't bother to try to figure it out. Others understand, and then prey upon those who don't in order to fearmonger. Still others try to get it right, but get confused with all the info and then proceed to misinform others! I don't know what Factcheck.org's excuse is, but they posted a piece today that's extremely, undeniably false and misleading with respect to Social Security. They apparently failed to know or learn that there are 3 milestones with respect to the funding of Social Security

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How to Fix Social Security

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Robert Reich - Feb. 17 (Opinion) - So what did Greenspan's commission fail to see coming? Inequality. Remember, the Social Security payroll tax applies only to earnings up to a certain ceiling. (That ceiling is now $106,800.) The ceiling rises every year according to a formula roughly matching inflation. Back in 1983, the ceiling was set so the Social Security payroll tax would hit 90 percent of all wages covered by Social Security. That 90 percent figure was built into the Greenspan Commission's fixes. The Commission assumed that, as the ceiling rose with inflation, the Social Security payroll tax would continue to hit 90 percent of total income.

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Budget Baloney: Why Social Security Isn't a Problem for 26 Years, and the Best Way to Fix It Permanently

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Robert Reich - Feb. 16 (Opinion) - In a former life I was a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. So let me set the record straight. Social Security isn't responsible for the federal deficit. Just the opposite. Until last year Social Security took in more payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits. It lent the surpluses to the rest of the government. Now that Social Security has started to pay out more than it takes in, Social Security can simply collect what the rest of the government owes it. This will keep it fully solvent for the next 26 years.

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Social Security groups fear back-room deal

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Kos - By Joan McCarter - Jan. 04 (Opinion) - Advocate groups working to strengthen and protect Social Security are sounding the alarm about a potential back-room deal between Obama and Republicans on Social Security with the debt-ceiling and government funding fights looming. At least one Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, has threatened to take Social Security hostage, the beginning step in a potentially disastrous deal.

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Boehner Speech Preview: Will He (Republican) Party Like it's 1995?

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Arianna Huffington - Jan. 04 (Opinion) - As we get ready for John Boehner to take the gavel from Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, I find myself thinking back to the last time a Republican speaker took control of the House from a Democrat -- and reflecting on how far down the wrong road we have traveled since then.

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No Time for "Tirement"

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

truth-out.org - By Ellen Goodman - Jan. 01 (Opinion) - if we are not the change agents of aging, we'll be the change resisters. indeed, if we don't feel needed and engaged as problem solvers, we may well be part of a growing me-first senior politics.

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Bushwacking Obama

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Robert L. Borosage - Dec. 28 (Opinion) - Everything about this argument -- which is gaining ever greater force inside the beltway bubble -- is wrong. Social Security is not broken, and doesn't need to be "reformed." It contributes nothing to the deficit, and reforming it will contribute nothing to deficit reduction in the short or medium term. (In the long term, wars, recessions, future financial crises will have far greater effect than any reform of Social Security).

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Saving Social Security: Stopping Obama's Next Bad Deal

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

truth-out.org - By Dean Baker - Dec. 20 (Opinion) - President Obama insists that he is a really bad negotiator, therefore the deal he got on the 2-year extension of the Bush tax cuts and the 1-year extension of UI benefits was the best that he could do. This package also came with a 1-year cut in the Social Security tax. This cut will seriously threaten the program’s finances if next year, the Republican Congress is no more willing to end a temporary tax cut than this year’s Democratic Congress. The logic here is straightforward. Under the law, the Bush tax cuts were supposed to end in 2010.

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Abdicating to the Right: The Ascendant American Aristocracy

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Kathleen Reardon - Dec. 02 (Opinion) - Income inequality is about to get worse, according to David Segal's article in Sunday's New York Times. Those of us not in the beneficiary column, the article suggests, had better start thinking of which "artisanal services" we can provide. In short, we need to identify what the rich need and start making those widgets tout de suite.

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Eating the Old at Thanksgiving

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By David Coates - Nov. 23 (Opinion) - This Thanksgiving, inter-generational conflict is back on the political agenda -- the burden which the old supposedly place upon the young is back in public view -- because the rich and famous are after Social Security again.

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Is the Deficit Commission Serious?

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Kevin Drum - Nov. 11 (Opinion) - Bottom line: this document isn't really aimed at deficit reduction. It's aimed at keeping government small. There's nothing wrong with that if you're a conservative think tank and that's what you're dedicated to selling. But it should be called by its right name. This document is a paean to cutting the federal government, not cutting the federal deficit.

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LABOR DAY, AND THE WORK WE HAVE TO DO

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

JimHightower.com - By Jim Hightower - Sep. 06 (Opinion) - The worst news is not in today's deplorable jobs numbers, but in the fact the moneyed elites intend to make such numbers the "new normal" – an economy of planned insecurity for all but the rich, featuring long periods of joblessness for most workers, permanently-low wages, the barest of benefits, and a tattered safety net.

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What Social Security Can Teach Us About the Future of Health Care

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Richard Kirsch - Aug. 13 (Opinion) - At the heart of the right-wing attack on the new health care law's individual mandate is the fact that law has the potential to become like Social Security, a popular entitlement that is an integral part of the American social fabric. Whether that promise is realized depends on no small measure on whether Congress will make improvements over time in the health care law to assure that health coverage is affordable. If Social Security was the crowning achievement of the New Deal, health care was its greatest missed opportunity. FDR decided not to include health insurance in the retirement insurance measure for fear that opposition by the American Medical Association would end up sinking the whole package. Now 75 years after Social Security became law, the nation has finally enacted a legal promise to make health coverage affordable. It's worth taking a look at the trajectory that Social Security took after its passage in order to understand the biggest challenge facing the health care law. The history of Social Security after it became law was a great comfort to those of us who watched as the health care bill was continually weakened during the Congressional debate. It's easy to forget now just how limited Social Security was when it first was enacted. The Act included meager payments to a limited set of workers and left out job categories that included most women and minorities. The NAACP said that it was "a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through." However, over the next 15 years Social Security was expanded to include surviving spouses and dependent children. Jobs that were dominated by women and people of color were added. The miserly benefits were enhanced over time too but it wasn't until 1972 that cost of living adjustments became automatic.Continue Reading ?1 Comment | Post Comment?????

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Social Security Under Attack: Cuts Proposed, Higher Retirement Age Suggested

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Dean Baker - Jul. 19 (Interview) - The attacks on Social Security have steadily intensified in the past few months. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer recently called for a higher retirement age, and House Minority Leader John Boehner suggested raising the retirement age to seventy. Meanwhile, President Obama's bipartisan eighteen-member commission dealing with the nation's public debt is due to come out with a report in November that is expected to recommend cuts to Social Security. We speak with Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Watch Part II "Here.":http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/7/19/part_ii_social_security_under_attack_cuts_proposed_higher_retirement_age_suggested

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