The Vermont Independent believes America needs a “political revolution”
social security
Obama Aide Won’t Say Whether President Still Backs Social Security Tweak
A year after he backed it to entice Republicans to negotiate
Democratic Divide on Social Security Spills Into Streets
On a brisk, sunny Wednesday afternoon a handful of protesters stood outside of 1025 Connecticut Ave NW in Washington, while a boisterous woman led the group’s chants. “What is America going to be?” they asked. “Corporate …
Voters Beware: What the Obama Campaign Doesn’t Tell Julia
The Obama campaign came out with a nifty, interactive online graphic Thursday that guides America through the life of Julia, a hypothetical young web designer who appears to have been drawn by Chris Ware or Dan Clowes. She has …
Newt Gingrich’s ‘Big Ideas’ Campaign Lumbers Toward a Small End
The new Newt Gingrich slipped into Washington with little fanfare. As his campaign downgrades from long shot to longer shot, the happy-go-lucky Speaker who slogged cheerfully through a series of defeats is finally letting his …
What Mitt Romney’s Fiscal Plan Says About GOP Tax Cut Mania
Dick Cheney was once memorably quoted as declaring, during a Bush White House debate about tax cuts, “deficits don’t matter.” In the telling, Cheney insisted that Ronald Reagan had proven the axiom by overseeing a huge expansion …
Rick Perry’s Social Security Position Evolves
With Social Security sure to come up again at Monday night’s Republican presidential debate, Rick Perry set the stage with an op-ed in USA Today that, er, contextualizes his recent descriptions of Social Security as “a Ponzi …
Social Security: Picture of a Ponzi Scheme or Not?
In 2008, I found myself in the Crystal City office of Doug Holtz-Eakin, the top economic adviser to Republican presidential nominee John McCain. When talk turned to Social Security, he said a version of what just about every serious fiscal analyst says these days: This is not that hard of a nut to crack. Sure there is a debate about just …
Romney’s Best Hope for Wounding Perry
The punditocracy has achieved consensus: given the latest crop of national horse-race polls, Mitt Romney can no longer hope to claim the Republican presidential nomination by default; he has no choice but to knock off Rick Perry. There’s just no real consensus on how exactly he should do it.
A few of the current ideas and their …
Rick Perry Was Against Social Security Before He Was For It
As widely discussed, Rick Perry wrote a book, published last November, in which he argued that the program is unconstitutional, a Ponzi scheme, and “a crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal.” Now that the national eye has turned to the matter in light of his presidential run, well, this is happening:
[Perry’s] communications
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Rick Perry’s Social Security Conversation
Rick Perry wants to have a conversation about federal entitlement programs. That conversation is, in effect, about how to end them. “I would suggest a legitimate conversation about [letting] the states keep their money and implement the programs,” he said of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to Newsweek’s Andrew Romano last …
Behind One of These Three Doors Is a Debt Ceiling Deal
Washington these days feels like a 1960s game show. Our lucky contestants, House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama, are on the stage in front of three doors, listening intently to the audience cheer before they …
Will the AARP Support an Overhaul of Social Security?
So, did they or didn’t they?
Did the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) – easily the country’s most influential seniors group – abandon its opposition to cutting Social Security benefits?