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

Poor economy worsens Social Security's finances

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Stephen Ohlemacher, Ricardo Alonso Zaldivar - Apr. 24 (Opinion) - High energy prices and an economy that has been slow to rebound are worsening Social Security's finances, shortening the life of the trust funds that support program by three years, the government said Monday.

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GOP War on Voting Targets Swing States

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Ari Berman, Rolling Stone - Mar. 10 (Opinion) - 'Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012.' Ari Berman, Rolling Stone

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Failure Is Good

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Nov. 18 (Opinion) - In Democrat-world, up is up and down is down. Raising taxes increases revenue, and cutting spending while the economy is still depressed reduces employment. But in Republican-world, down is up. The way to increase revenue is to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and slashing government spending is a job-creation strategy.

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Why Obama won’t face a primary challenge

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Harold Meyerson - Aug. 04 (Opinion) - President Obama is faring poorly these days, but he can console himself with the fact that he’ll probably be spared the fate of previous presidents who fell on hard times: a primary challenge. Those groups within the Democratic Party that might otherwise be shopping around for a more forthrightly progressive alternative are deterred by two factors: the likelihood that any challenge will end up helping a radicalized Republican Party and the fact that Obama is black.

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How the GOP lost on the debt deal

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Daniel Markovits - Aug. 03 (Opinion) - The deal reached by Congress eliminates the leverage that would have been created by another imminent default until after the next election, where it will be exercised by new and possibly differently constituted players.

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Men of a Certain Rage

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Jul. 15 (Opinion) - If Obama and Congressional Republicans don't settle their heated argument by raising the debt ceiling, man will be sentenced to an eternity of licking his own pets' genitals.

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Let’s Take a Hike

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Apr. 25 (Opinion) - When I listen to current discussions of the federal budget, the message I hear sounds like this: We’re in crisis! We must take drastic action immediately! And we must keep taxes low, if not actually cut them further!

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Raise America’s Taxes

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Apr. 14 (Opinion) - President Obama in his speech on Wednesday confronted a topic that is harder to address seriously in public than sex or flatulence: America needs higher taxes.

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My budget proposal

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Apr. 13 (Opinion) - Here’s a realistic list of what I’d like to see done.

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Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicaid gamble

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

The Politico - By Jonathan Allen - Apr. 05 (Opinion) - Rep. Paul Ryan says his plan to slash entitlement programs will hand Democrats a “political weapon.” The truth is that the Republicans’ fiscal 2012 budget, due for release tomorrow, is a calculated political gamble that will define the fiscal battleground for the next two years.

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The Fiscal Illusion and How to Face It

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Tyler Cowen - Mar. 06 (Opinion) - Fiscal policy debates often focus on technocratic questions about how much money the government should spend and when, yet the actual course of events depends not on the experts but on politics. The more that our government runs up unfunded obligations and debt, the more we are setting a trap for ourselves.

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Stop borrowing from Social Security

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

USA Today - By Bill Moore, Ann Laurie Moore - Feb. 28 (Comment) - What bothers us the most is the opposing view by Jacob Lew, director of White House office of Management and Budget ("Social Security isn't the problem"). He states, "When more taxes are collected than are needed ... funds are converted to Treasury bonds — backed with the full faith and credit of the U.S. government." MORE LETTERS: Americans believe people born with rights What he doesn't say is "converted" means the excess is being spent by Congress and replaced with potentially useless bonds. He then says the bonds "are held in reserve for when revenue collected is not enough to pay the benefits due." He evidently didn't have the nerve to say where the money would come from to convert the bonds into cash.

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Chuck Schumer on Social Security

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

CNN - By Candy Crowley, Chuck Schumer - Feb. 28 (Interview) - ... I think that the negotiations going on among the bipartisan group of six are a very good thing, and I want them to continue, and I hope they will be successful, and I think most Democrats share that view. Social Security, however, does not contribute one penny to the deficit and won't until 2037. And so therefore... CROWLEY: And yet people in your own party believe that it is urgent that you deal with Social Security, to deal with the overall debt picture. SCHUMER: Well, we believe -- the vast majority of Democrats, overwhelming, believe that since Social Security doesn't contribute to the deficit, since Social Security will not contribute until 2037, that by including it in these specific negotiations it makes it harder to deal with what is the immediate and dangerous problem which is our immediate deficit over this year and the next several years. And, therefore, most of us think that Social Security should be kept for generations, and the way to do that is like what happened in 1983: Democrats and Republicans get together and come up with how we can extend Social Security.

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GOP budget strategy is lies and deception

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

San Francisco Chronicle - By Robert B. Reich - Feb. 27 (Opinion) - The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working classes - pitting unionized workers against nonunionized, public-sector workers against nonpublic, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them and the poor against the working middle class. By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans want Americans to believe that we can no longer afford to do what we need to do as a nation. They hope to deflect attention from the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish. Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to provide additional tax cuts for the rich - making the Bush tax cuts permanent, further reducing the estate tax and allowing the wealthy to shift ever more of their income into capital gains taxed at 15 percent.

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Social Security isn't the problem

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

USA Today - By Jacob Lew - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - Social Security benefits are entirely self-financing. They are paid for with payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers throughout their careers. These taxes are placed in a trust fund dedicated to paying benefits owed to current and future beneficiaries. When more taxes are collected than are needed to pay benefits, funds are converted to Treasury bonds — backed with the full faith and credit of the U.S. government — and are held in reserve for when revenue collected is not enough to pay the benefits due. We have just as much obligation to pay back those bonds with interest as we do to any other bondholders. The trust fund is the backbone of an important compact: that a lifetime of work will ensure dignity in retirement.

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Social Security: a target without a cause

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

Christian Science Monitor - By David R. Francis - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - Conservative Republicans want to cut Social Security, even though it's not a major contributor to US debt. A better solution to future Social Security shortfalls is a thriving economy. Before President Obama's State of the Union message Jan. 25, Social Security supporters were "really scared," as one Washington pundit put it. They worried that Mr. Obama would suggest cutting Social Security benefits as a way to trim the massive federal deficit. One liberal analyst, Robert Naiman, even called for citizens to occupy the offices and dog public events of members of Congress who refused to protect the program. It turned out that Mr. Naiman's "jihad," as he called it, wasn't needed. The president's Social Security proposal is relatively mild and vague. He called for strengthening Social Security for future generations. But Social Security remains a target of some conservative Republicans. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, states that Social Security is "going broke"; that it faces a $5.4 trillion deficit over the next 75 years, an amount equal to more than one-third of the annual size of the US economy. He maintains that if nothing is done, beneficiaries will face "a painful 22 percent across-the-board benefit cut" in 2037 when the Social Security trust fund is exhausted. His message: Cut Social Security before cuts are forced on it. Partially privatize it, Mr. Ryan has further suggested. In other words, Social Security is a good place to cut even if it is not the cause of huge projected federal budget deficits.

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Our view: Fix Social Security sooner, not later

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

USA Today - Feb. 22 (Editorial) - Many Americans get angry at the suggestion that Social Security should be on the table for this year's budget debate. That's not surprising. They've repeatedly been told that while the program might have long-term problems, it's absolutely fine now and has nothing to do with the deficit. President Obama's budget director, Jacob Lew, said as much last week during his briefing on the president's budget. Obama wants to find ways to "work together to find a solution to the long-term issues in Social Security," Lew told reporters, but the program "does not contribute to the deficit in the short term." That would be nice if it were true. It's not. Social Security is a cash-in/cash-out program. It went into the red last year, when payroll tax revenue came up about $37 billion short of the benefits paid to retirees. Initially, that shortfall seemed a temporary consequence of the recession. But new projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that factors such as the payroll tax cut Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to last year mean that Social Security will instead come up short every year from now on — at least $45 billion this year, and a staggering half a trillion dollars over the next decade.

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Durbin, Graham on Social Security and the Deficit

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Meet the Press - By David Gregory, Sen. Richard Durbin, Sen. Lindsey Graham - Feb. 20 (Interview) - Sen. Durbin: Social Security does not add one penny to the deficit. Social Security untouched will make every promised payment for more than 25 years. ... The Social Security program, as it's currently put together, does not have any impact on the deficit.

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What the budget says about America

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:49:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Feb. 14 (Opinion) - American politics is one long argument about what government should or shouldn't be doing, and how it should or shouldn't be doing it. It's rare that we step back, take in the larger picture and ask what it is doing. The release of the president's proposed 2012 budget is a good time to do that. If you want to know what the federal government is really doing, just look where it's spending our money.

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Honoring the man who saved Social Security

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Baltimore Sun - Feb. 03 (Opinion) - Most Americans would not know the name Robert M. Ball, but all owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

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Tax-reform fundamentalists want to broaden the base

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By George Will - Dec. 24 (Opinion) - Many conservatives, writes George F. Will, believe that although most Americans should be paying lower taxes, more Americans should be paying taxes. Free-riding people have scant incentive to restrain the growth of government they are not paying for with income taxes.

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The politics of avoidance

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Robert J. Samuelson - Nov. 22 (Opinion) - America's budget problem boils down to a simple question: How much will we let programs for the elderly displace other government functions - national defense, education, transportation and many others - and raise taxes to levels that would, almost certainly, reduce economic growth?

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Obsessed with the Deficit -- and Ignoring the Economic Mess

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Time - By Joe Klein - Nov. 18 (Opinion) - I'm not opposed to long-term deficit reduction, so long as it's equitable. But I do wonder why these righteous burghers are leading the charge on this particular issue and are so obviously AWOL on a more pressing problem: finding a way to encourage productive investment that creates jobs while discouraging the financial speculation that creates bailouts.

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Making Social Security less generous isn't the answer

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Sep. 05 (Opinion) - Raising the Social Security retirement age has become as close to a consensus position as exists in American politics. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) supports it. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) has said that "we could and should consider a higher retirement age." And for a while, I agreed with them, too. It seemed obvious: People live longer today, and so they should work later into life. But as I've looked at the issue, I've decided that I was wrong. So let me be the skunk at the party.

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Attacking Social Security

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Aug. 16 (Opinion) - Critics of the program claim that its future is in peril. But their math doesn’t add up, and underneath their hostility is ignorance of the realities of life for many Americans.

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