VP candidate Paul Ryan fails math

Mathematically challenged Paul Ryan, official portrait.

I studied basic math as an eighth-grader in the public school system decades ago. We were taught how to balance a budget and given other useful training prior to entering high school. So it’s a little shocking to read Paul Krugman’s latest post at the Conscience of a Liberal (NY Times) and discover that House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan, recently appointed VP candidate on the Republican ticket, is worse than mathematically challenged. The man obviously skipped eighth grade math and hasn’t paid much attention since as to how numbers add up – or not. Unfortunately, the beltway media seems to be as oblivious to financial reality as Ryan.

In an effort to wake up our delusional media, Krugman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, responds to Ryan’s “fantasy” budget proposals here:

Look, Ryan hasn’t “crunched the numbers”; he has just scribbled some stuff down, without checking at all to see if it makes sense. He asserts that he can cut taxes without net loss of revenue by closing unspecified loopholes; he asserts that he can cut discretionary spending to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge, without saying how; he asserts that he can convert Medicare to a voucher system, with much lower spending than now projected, without even a hint of how this is supposed to work. This is just a fantasy, not a serious policy proposal.

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Elizabeth Warren stands for the middleclass on the Daily Show (video)

Here's Elizabeth standing up for all of us on the Daily Show:

The Daily Show
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America’s social welfare state: relief for the rich!

In her campaign for the senate in Mass., Elizabeth Warren continues to take on the big banks. Photo courtesy of 1000awesomewomen.tumblr.com.

Dan Froomkin’s recent post, “Social Welfare State, American-Style, Means Relief For The Rich,” has attracted more than 8,000 comments from its readers. A quick scan indicates that hundreds of those comments support Froomkin’s thesis.

Anyone who followed the budget debates in 2011 is already aware that both Democratic and Republican leaders, supported by our corporate-owned media, favored cuts in Social Security and Medicare to reduce the deficit.

But keep in mind that those going after the safety net for the poor and the elderly repeatedly used the euphemism “entitlement programs” to equate even self-funded Social Security with welfare.

It’s good news that Froomkin’s post is drawing multitudes of readers as he emphatically points out that the real entitlements in our country benefit primarily the wealthy. Hopefully, members of both parties will reflect on that fact:

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has taken to accusing President Barack Obama of trying to turn the United States into a European-style social welfare state.

The hyperbole about Obama's actions aside, the United States already is a social welfare state -- almost right up there with the Europeans -- if you measure the total amount of drain on the Treasury caused by spending and subsidies on such things as health care and retirement. 

The one big difference is that in the American social welfare state, a lot of the benefits go to the rich. 

"We spend a tremendous amount on private social welfare through tax subsidies," said Christopher Faricy, a political science professor at Washington State University whose forthcoming book is about our divided welfare state.

"It just goes to a drastically different population than what we usually associate with welfare programs," Faricy said.

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Tell Harry Reid: Warren Buffett wants you to raise his taxes

Hi all, 

It's time, Harry!

I just got this note from Matt Lockshin at Credo. I signed, how about you?

Dear Virginia,

We hear a lot about "shared sacrifice" and belt-tightening out of Washington, but as billionaire investor Warren Buffett noted on Sunday:

"Our leaders have asked for 'shared sacrifice.' But when they did the asking, they spared me...and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks."¹

As complicated as some want to make it, this issue is very simple. In a time of economic crisis, it's both healthy for our democracy and fundamentally fair to ask the super rich to pay more.

Senator Bernie Sanders has a bill to do this and make millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has yet to call a vote on it.

Tell Harry Reid: Warren Buffett wants you to raise his taxes. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

One of the main drivers of our federal deficit are the Bush tax cuts, which have driven down tax rates for the wealthiest Americans to the lowest levels we've seen since the 1950s.

Tax rates for the richest Americans have fallen sharply despite the fact that taxing millionaires and billionaires is wildly popular, and the cost of not taxing them extremely high. The Sanders bill alone would bring in an additional $50 billion a year in revenue.

When someone like billionaire investor Warren Buffett says that he and his friends "have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,"² people pay close attention. And with Washington focused on what to cut and by how much, Mr. Buffett asking for Congress to raise his taxes represents an important opportunity.

This is a rare moment to inject common sense into the debate over budgets and get senators on the record about being for or against record low tax rates enjoyed by billionaires like Mr. Buffett.

Tell Harry Reid: Warren Buffett wants you to raise his taxes. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

With the creation of a new twelve member Super Committee empowered to fast-track through Congress budget-slashing legislation that cannot be amended, it's more important than ever that we pressure our representatives to deal with the crisis caused by their inability to end the Bush tax cuts and bring back rational taxation rates for the richest Americans.

And before the congressional Super Committee issues a draft of its budget plan, we need all senators to go on the record about whether they support or oppose the simple notion that the super rich need to pay their fair share. This will create much needed momentum to help Democrats on the Super Committee hold the line on our demands for revenue increases.

Tell Harry Reid: Warren Buffett wants you to raise his taxes. Click here to automatically sign the petition asking Harry Reid to call a Senate vote on Sen. Sanders' bill to tax millionaires and billionaires.

Republican hostage-taking and other deeply undemocratic tactics by members of both parties have left us with a budget process that is broken, and as a result most senators avoid taking a stand on important issues like whether we should raise taxes on the very richest among us.

But in the face of massive budget shortfalls, and with a billionaire like Warren Buffett literally asking for it, there's no excuse for Congress not to vote on taxing millionaires and billionaires.

Tell Harry Reid: Warren Buffett wants you to raise his taxes. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Notes:
¹"Stop Coddling the Super-Rich," Warren Buffett, New York Times, Aug. 14,2011.
²Ibid.

Debating the term “entitlement” with NewsHour Economics correspondent Paul Solmon

PBS NewsHour Economics correspondent Paul Solmon.

Finally, someone else in the media is protesting the use of the word "entitlements" for Social Security and Medicare. Art Pronin at TaylorMarsh writes:

The term “entitlement” is one of late I have begun using and should not. And you should not. Obama calls SS, Medicare and Medicaid “entitlements,” but this a term no Democrat should use. Why?:

“Entitlement” is a misleading word because it masks the ugly reality of reducing medical aid for the poor, the disabled and anyone over 65 as well as cutting Social Security. Calling such programs entitlements is much more comfortable than describing them as what they are–Medicare, Social Security and money for good schools, unemployment insurance, medical research and public works construction that would put many thousands to work.

It’s also a Republican word. It implies that those receiving government aid have a sense of entitlement, that they’re getting something for nothing. 

Well, Art, entitlement may be a Republican word, but it’s been a popular one in recent months among our faux liberal pundits at major online news sources and the self-righteous PBS NewsHour crew. Last February, I complained to the PBS ombudsman regarding the repeated use of the term by NewsHour correspondents to describe the self-funded Social Security and Medicare programs. As a result, NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solmon and I exchanged emails on the issue, and despite our disagreement, I do appreciate the courtesy, time, and patience demonstrated by Solmon throughout our debate.

Solmon replied to my initial complaint as follows:

Dear Ms. Bergman,

As a NewsHour "regular" for a quarter century now who has covered "government entitlements" the whole time, I've been asked to respond to your complaint to the PBS Ombudsman. The plain fact is, "entitlement" implied a legal RIGHT to a benefit for more than a century, long before it acquired any "derogatory" tinge whatsoever. Indeed, "entitlement" was a term meant to cement that right, not stigmatize it, as MIT political scientist Michael Wallerstein noted in an article in 1978.

 Even today, the term "entitlement" is generally defined as "a right granted by law or contract" (wordnetweb.Princeton.edu) or "right to benefits" (Merriam Webster). Princeton's wordnetweb lists 14 definitions from different web sources, of which 12 carry this meaning. Two suggest "privilege," although even they do not mention a pejorative connotation. In Merriam Webster, this is the third of three definitions: "a belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges."

Paul Solmon

To which I replied:

Dear Mr. Solman,

I appreciate very much the great lengths you went to in order to prove that NewsHour regulars mean no disrespect to America's seniors in their use of the word 'entitlement.'

And I suppose you would also defend the punditry back in 08 who accused Hillary Clinton of feeling 'entitled' to be the next president - always said, of course, with contempt.

I would argue that words acquire different meanings over the years and 'entitlement' has definitely acquired negative connotations. I was startled the other night when the NewsHour's Gwen Ifill repeatedly badgered Jacob Lew, director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, in an attempt to provoke him into explaining why the Obama Administration’s budget didn’t address those 'entitlement' programs. Ifill repeated the word 'entitlement,' at least four consecutive times until Lew finally explained to her the Administration’s rationale for dealing with the issue. I'm sure there's a video of the interview somewhere - check it out.

I came away suspecting that NewsHour regulars are determined to cut Social Security and Medicare to defend their own 'entitlement' to government funding.

Sincerely,

Virginia Bergman

Finally Solmon rather grudgingly acknowledges that “entitlements” may have acquired negative overtones in recent years:

Dear Ms. Bergman,

You are, I can't resist acknowledging, entitled to your opinion. I simply submit that you're wrong when you impute derogation of social security to me and my colleagues on the basis of a word all of us have long used to describe it, in my case for three decades or more.

I understand that what you think you hear and what we consciously mean don't jibe. In responding, I hoped to reassure you that your fears were unwarranted. My failure notwithstanding, your persistence is instructive: 'entitlements' seems to have acquired an overtone of which I was unaware. To my considerable surprise, I was told the same about 'homosexual' just last week. It's now a pejorative, I was told. If confirmed, the word will leave my casual vocabulary, as has the 'Negro' and 'colored people' of my youth, 'Indians,' 'patsy' and 'hooligan' (anti-Irish) and who knows how many more. As may 'entitlement' with regard to retirement benefits, if the meaning has widely morphed. But if I do so it will be because I can't know what's in the heads of others until they tell me, any more than anyone can know what's in my head -- until I tell them.

As for economic motivations, both I and my wife are seniors, counting on social security and Medicare.

Sincerely,

Paul Solman

The game of chicken between the Republicans and Obama

Photo credits: Public Domain

In a recent post titled “The End Game: Saving Obama from Himself,” Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of the American Prospect, offers some disturbing insights into the game of chicken being played out over the budget deficit between the Republicans and President Obama. 

The most likely losers in this game? You guessed it, the unemployed, the elderly, the disabled, and the poor.

Kuttner writes:

As the debt doomsday of August 2 draws closer, what sort of end-game can we imagine? The worst scenario would be for an outbreak of common sense and self-interest to overtake the extremism of the House Republican caucus. If the Republicans were to accept Obama's proffered deal, they would weaken Social Security and Medicare -- and put the Democrats' fingerprints on the deed -- depriving Democrats of their traditional defense of America's best loved social programs. They would also get a ten-year deficit-reduction agreement that is mostly program cuts. And they would get an austerity package that guarantees high unemployment as Obama heads into a difficult re-election. And a Democratic president is offering this deal!

The Republicans would also get to savor the spectacle of a badly divided Democratic Party, as the White House twists arms of unwilling House and Senate Democrats to vote for a right-wing package.

It's quite a drama. Who will save us from a perverse approach to deficit reduction that is bad economics and worse politics -- the unreality of the Republicans, or the principled resistance of rank and file Democrats?

Obama and his advisers, weirdly, believe that his stance as "the only grownup in the room" who forces his own party to abandon its core principles for the sake of an austerity program will somehow win the gratitude of voters struggling with declining incomes and rising joblessness.

The unemployment may be stuck near ten percent, but good old Obama brokered a deal to balance the budget in 2021. So re-elect this man.

On which planet is this?

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Congressional newcomers on spending spree while urging budget cuts

House speaker Boehner preaches spending cuts while reps blow tax dollars on office budgets.

It figures. Both incoming Republican and Democratic representatives spend like crazy while fueling the deficit debate over which entitlement programs have to be cut. In case you haven’t noticed, “entitlement” lumps self-funded Social Security and Medicare with government welfare programs. Take that, seniors!

Politico’s Sherman and Bresnahan put the spotlight on the spending sprees of these freshman reps:

They rode into Washington on an anti-spending wave, but some House Republican freshmen are already enjoying one of the perks of incumbency, spending their office budgets on everything from $1,000-a-month car leases to pricey online advertising contracts.

At least 15 GOP freshmen have shelled out tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on mass communication — or franking — designed to boost their exposure back home, even as they call for budget cuts and pared-back government spending, according to quarterly disbursement reports released by the House.

The biggest newly elected spender in this realm is Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who authorized spending $78,518 in taxpayer money on “mass mailings and communications” — just under $900 for every day he was in office during the first three months of his congressional career. Kinzinger sent a pamphlet to his constituents explaining “some of the ways we can help” in interactions with the government. Kinzinger also advertised the “state-of-the-art multimedia section” on his website.

His office told POLITICO in a statement that it has no more plans for franked mail after it sent a mailing to 217,000 houses across the district.

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It’s morning at the NY Times: the budget crisis “is all obfuscating nonsense”

Morning in NYC, photo public domain

A surprising editorial in the NY Times appears this morning titled “The Hollow Cry of Broke,” which suggests that John Boehner, Scott Walker, and company are exaggerating the nation’s so-called financial crisis in order “to break unions and kill programs they never liked in the first place.”

Keep in mind that in recent weeks, NY Times op-ed writers have railed time and again at those “entitlements” as the source of the nation’s scary budget deficit and more specifically, said pundits have blamed Social Security, a self-funding program, and Medicare for our current economic woes.

I’ve yet to see David Brooks or any of his colleagues at the Times mention that the government has violated federal law in raiding the Social Security Trust fund to pay for its two wars of choice and avoid taxing the wealthy or closing tax loopholes for major corporations. And they’ve certainly not mentioned that the nation’s seniors paid into the Social Security Trust Fund throughout their working lives with high payroll taxes.

So what’s with this Times editorial that begins:

“We’re broke! We’re broke!” Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday. “We’re broke in this state,” Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said a few days ago. “New Jersey’s broke,” Gov. Chris Christie has said repeatedly. The United States faces a “looming bankruptcy,” Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

It’s all obfuscating nonsense, of course, a scare tactic employed for political ends. A country with a deficit is not necessarily any more “broke” than a family with a mortgage or a college loan. And states have to balance their budgets. Though it may disappoint many conservatives, there will be no federal or state bankruptcies. 

The federal deficit is too large for comfort, and most states are struggling to balance their books. Some of that is because of excessive spending, and much is because the recession has driven down tax revenues. But a substantial part was caused by deliberate decisions by state and federal lawmakers to drain government of resources by handing out huge tax cuts, mostly to the rich. As governments begin to stagger from the self-induced hemorrhaging, Republican politicians like Mr. Boehner and Mr. Walker cry poverty and use it as an excuse to break unions and kill programs they never liked in flush years.

Those programs "they never liked in flush years" included Social Security and Medicare. Anyway, it’s good to see the Times editorial board is waking up. I’m resisting the temptation to say, “Good morning, fellas.”

Read the rest of this on target editorial here.

 

PBS will keep its federal subsidy even if benefits for veterans, the poor, and the elderly are cut

 

Mark Shields

David Brooks

Okay, while watching the PBS NewsHour this evening, including the Analysis of Shields and Brooks, I finally got it. By zealously going after gutting those “entitlements” that refer to benefits received by veterans, the poor, and the elderly, the NewsHour allies itself with conservatives and can therefore better defend itself against long-time charges by the Republican Party that it is has a liberal bias. The NewsHour crew will thereby increase the odds that Federal funding of PBS will not be cut in order to reduce the Federal deficit.

Never mind that Social Security beneficiaries paid into the system throughout their working lives or that Washington has raided the trust fund to pay for its two wars and avoid taxing the rich and closing tax loopholes for large corporations – ever notice how many of those corporations underwrite the NewsHour?

And why should veterans of the US Armed Forces consider themselves more worthy of benefits than the NewsHour crew?

Still, I must say it was especially disheartening that last Friday night, Mark Shields stood up to David Brooks in his attacks on “those entitlements,” but in tonight’s so-called analysis, he had evidently been silenced by his superiors.

Doonesbury’s startling take on who Americans are as a people

Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury

Doonesbury character Mark Slackmeyer at his mike offers a summary in Garry Trudeau’s comic strip this morning of who Americans are as a people by looking at two sets of facts:

Fact #1:           Nine years ago we were attacked. 3000 people died.

In response we started two long, bloody wars and built a vast homeland security apparatus – all at a cost of trillions!

Fact #2:           Now consider this. During those same nine years, 270,000 Americans were killed by gunfire at home.

                        Our response: We weakened our gun laws.

Thoughtful Americans would add a couple more facts:

Fact #3:           In order to pay for our costly wars and homeland security apparatus, we chose not to raise taxes or cut back on the millions we gave to support dictatorships around the world.

                        Instead of raising taxes on the wealthy or closing tax loopholes to force corporations to pay their fair share in paying for our wars, etc., the government borrowed billions and raided the Social Security trust fund.

Fact #4:           Today, America’s political leaders from both major parties are concerned about the huge deficit they’ve created by the above practices.

                        In response, 2011 budget proposals submitted by Obama feature deep cuts in the federal energy assistance program for poor people, and both Republicans and Democrats are hinting at gutting Social Security and Medicare in attempts to offset the scary deficit.

In the last panel of Gary Trudeau’s comic strip this morning, Slackmeyer’s guest on his radio show, an illegal alien, apparently from outer space, responds: “Fail. Cannot comprehend.”

Here in St. Paul, Minn. this Sunday morning, I’m with the little green creature  - I also find incomprehensible who Americans are in terms of our government’s actions since 9/11.

Only 25 percent of Americans living past 65 have annual incomes over $33,667

Photo courtesy of rippdemup.com.

The US government and its lackeys in the media need a scapegoat to blame for the nation’s out of control budget deficit. So rather than questioning the wisdom of  pumping up the regimes of dictators like Egypt’s Mubarak with billions in foreign aid over the past 30 years and pouring more billions into fighting two futile wars for a decade, they are increasingly pointing the finger at elderly Americans benefiting from so-called entitlement programs, namely Social Security and Medicare.

Buried in Judith Viorst’s review of Susan Jacoby’s recently published book on the realities of aging titled “Never Say Die,” is this interesting statistic: “only 25 percent of Americans living past age 65 have annual incomes of over $33,667.”

That is to say a majority of American seniors, most of whom worked hard all their lives and paid high payroll taxes into the Social Security system, are now living below the poverty level, and many are relying on food stamps while doing without insurance coverage for dental, optical, or hearing problems.

So where do you look first to solve the deficit problem? Why you start with cutting those entitlement programs – as I've mentioned elsewhere, “entitlement” implies that Social Security and Medicare recipients are unworthy citizens relying on government handouts.

Heaven forbid that you raise the taxes on the wealthy, get out of the war business, and funnel just a small percentage of the billions in foreign aid to those Americans who need it most.

Democrats Resort to “Soft Money” to Fund Denver Extravaganza

Well, maybe they’ve gone overboard a little with the fancy menus, renting that football stadium for the coronation, etc., but now Dems are faced with a large budget deficit in meeting expenses for their national convention estimated at $60 million. And although Obama, the self-appointed titular head of the party, has ostensibly opposed soft money in favor of small donations, it looks as if that’s where the party is headed in funding the extravaganza, which the Denver Host Committee has been busily putting in place the past several weeks.

The LA Times reports:

“Facing a large deficit in the Democratic National Convention budget, officials from Barack Obama's campaign have begun personally soliciting labor unions and others for contributions of up to $1 million. In exchange, donors could get stadium skyboxes for Obama's acceptance speech and other perks.

“Obama has regularly criticized politicians seeking large donations outside the framework of campaign finance regulations -- so-called soft money -- while touting the virtues of relying on small donations.

“But campaign officials last month reluctantly decided they had to take a hand in raising large donations from individuals, unions and corporations. Some of the donors get special bundles of perks, including use of the party suites at Denver's Invesco Field, as well as special policy briefings by Obama advisors, choice hotel rooms and party invitations.”

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