Compare and Contrast:

And the MCMers so love his desire to take on SocSec and Medicare. NPR was reporting over and over how he met with Repub senators over dinner last night, to reach "common ground." Riiiiight.

And how dare he say that SocSec affects the national debt? Only by deciding, along with the Republicans, that it is cheaper to not repay money borrowed from the SS "lockbox," funds used to justify tax cuts for the wealthy by Bush/Cheney, can he justify such an approach.

But, he does have that approach and he will do everything he can to get the Repubs to go along with him and get enought votes to screw people out of their earned benefits.

This deserves the strongest condemnation, so, damn him. (Like he'll give a damn....)

And, it can't be said too often, he is an extension of Bush/Cheney in oh so many ways.

NOT be cut at all.

.... But right now there's an immediate problem to be addressed. Large numbers of people are going to be too old to work, but too poor to maintain their lifestyles.

Many of these people actually have been very responsible, if not perfectly so, like most of us. They worked as health and opportunity allowed, they obtained education, they bought homes, and they raised their children. They paid their medical and other bills when necessary, and contributed to the education costs of their children. They lived up to, roughly speaking at least, a typical vision of the American Dream. They just do not have enough money in personal savings, retirement plans, and expected Social Security benefits. It is unlikely that their children and grandchildren will, either, absent changes to our approach to funding retirement.

cut them, says Thomas Edsall in his piece, The War on Entitlements. Lots of interesting facts. About which our elites don't give a rat's ass.

These facts include the following: Two-thirds of Americans who are over the age of 65 depend on an average annual Social Security benefit of $15,168.36 for at least half of their income.

Currently, earned income in excess of $113,700 is entirely exempt from the 6.2 percent payroll tax that funds Social Security benefits (employers pay a matching 6.2 percent). 5.2 percent of working Americans make more than $113,700 a year. Simply by eliminating the payroll tax earnings cap — and thus ending this regressive exemption for the top 5.2 percent of earners — would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, solve the financial crisis facing the Social Security system.

So why don’t we talk about raising or eliminating the cap – a measure that has strong popular, though not elite, support?

When asked by the National Academy of Social Insurance whether Social Security taxes for better-off Americans should be increased, 71 percent of Republicans and 97 percent of Democrats agreed. In a 2012 Gallup Poll, 62 percent of respondents thought upper-income Americans paid too little in taxes.

Edsall also covers Medicare.

Now, we might have titled this piece The War on Earned Benefits, but Edsall uses the term in play in DC. At

The piece seems to be on line only. It's long and the TImes doesn't give that much space to most opinion pieces, esp'ly those with lot and lots of charts. Nor is there any indication of section/page for the print edition.

So, it won't be as widely read as the print edition, but it is there for the linking and promulgating.

Via Susie Madrak.

the very old Old vs. Young contest for Federal spending. Dang, but that is so old, yet NPR and other MCMers (members of the Mainstream Corporate Media) are hell bent on resurrecting this old right wing chestnut.

Of course instead of casting the old against the young, NPR could have with at least as much accuracy said that “Rich Triumph Over Young in Federal Spending and Sequester Makes It Worse.” After all, the government pays out more than 1.0 percent of GDP in interest on its debt each year. This money goes disproportionately to the wealthy. Also, no one is proposing to cut interest payments in the sequester.

NPR bought the Pete Peterson line a long time ago, Dean. But thanks for writing about it and making it clear to those who haven't noticed. No NPR reporter worth continuing to get his or her salary dares question the need to cut those "entitlements," which are actually earned benefits. NPR is a sad case of Corporate donor capture, aided and abetted by rabid rightwinger attacks of course.

should be increased.

But I must admit, I'm puzzled as to "why" many knowledgeable folks (left-leaning bloggers, journalists, etc) have mostly waited until the last minute to push this policy recommendation.

They surely have known that it's been on the chopping block since the President appointed the Fiscal Commission (not to mention from years earlier).

It's rather hard for me to take them very seriously. Heck, even I've been out (since Bowles-Simpson's Chairman's Mark The Moment Of Truth was released in late 2010), first day-in and day-out on 'liberal radio' and TV [Washington Journal and other C-Span call-in programs], until I finally resorted to blogging (which I'd never done).

I just hope that their efforts are sincere, and not tied to propagandizing for (or giving cover to) the Democratic Party.

Guess time will tell. :-)

Alexa