op-ed by Dale CoberlyIs It or Isn’t It (And what is a “budget” anyway) There have been a number of comments and counter-comments on the subject of the definition of “on budget.” I may have contributed to this “debate” by referring to Social Security as “off budget.” I knew what I meant, and I thought […]

In order to make this timely I am cut and pasting a note from CEPR pointing to the efficacy of cutting spending in the Social Security through means testing. The MSM and politicians have proposed this and raising the retirement age as answers to ‘the deficit’ crisis, some commenters indicating a ‘tipping point’ of disaster […]

By: Daniel BeckerHT: Digby More people need to hear this perspective regarding the economy and the budget debate if only to remind them that there is another perspective…if only to hear what it sounds like when a congress person is actually fighting and working for you. You, the one without enough money to influence congress. […]

Re-posted from New Deal 2.0 with permission from the author Liberal Fallacies: Protecting Social Security from its ‘Friends’by L. Randall Wray Liberal attacks on Social Security are the unkindest cut of all. The Center for American Progress’s Matt Miller has argued that liberals can learn a valuable lesson from NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget. […]

Why? Just because. Plus Dean was warning about some sort of housing bubble at the time. How nutty was that? Plus my best buddy just starting out on his pie: WaPO: WHAT CRISIS?: It Ain’t Broke, So No Need To Fix ItSunday, January 23, 2005; Page B02 By Mark Weisbrot and Dean Baker, The latest […]

by Dale Coberly Eyes on the Prize A Social Security summary. We have had twenty years and a billion dollars spent by Pete Peterson and friends telling the people that Social Security is going broke and will create huge deficits that will kill the economy and be a crushing burden to the young. Peterson has […]

Meet the Press David Gregory brings up Social Security in relation to federal debt (this is the push), but Senator Reid responds at least forthrightly. This is noteworthy given the apparent acceptance by politicos that Social Security needs fixing at all. Here is part of the transcript: MR. GREGORY: Social Security, how does it have […]

for the longest time the earliest Annual Report of the Social Security Trustees readily available was that of the second Report in 1942 and that only in a fairly clumsy PDF format that doesn’t allow my browser to cut and paste (though I can from most PDFs). But the fine people (no snark) at ssa.gov/history […]

(cross posted at SocialSecurityDefender.blogspot.com) Well the first line of attack is opening up. Lindsay Graham is threatening to hold up the Debt Limit Increase Bill, and so potentially throw this whole country and perhaps the world into default unless he gets cuts to Social Security. This is insane on several levels, not least because the […]

Bruce has made this point repeatedly. Dr. Black puts it in more direct language: [I]nevitably the Social Security Trustees will, perfectly justifiably, tweak a few assumptions about future economic activity so that there will be a DOOM scenario, an EVERYTHING’S AWESOME scenario, and a “uh oh maybe in about 40 years we will have a […]