Bowles-Simpson

The absolute gall! The President will take to the road in January, after the Bowles-Simpson-type "framework" has already been passed and signed into law. And he will lead the charade that there is still time to change the outcome of "entitlement reform." Even worse, he will do this with the backing of none other than Senator Bernie Sanders.

I reach this conclusion because of the wording of one of Ed's questions to Senator Sanders:

"So Senator, you want President Obama to hit the road after the first of the year (to which Sanders nods), and go sell the American people, just like Bush did in 2005, when he won relection?"

Read below the fold...

"Fiscal Cliff As A Policy Opportunity" -- PLEASE WATCH.

Pete Peterson calls Bowles and Simpson "heroes and patriots."

Alan Simpson calls Peterson "a Prince."

Bowles says: "Pete Peterson laid the foundation for this, we stand on his shoulders."

Then Bowles states the real reason for eviscerating the social safety net: "We have to have the money for investment (infrastructure, R&D, education) to compete in a knowledge-based world." Read below the fold...

After further reading, I felt that I had "mis-conflated" Mr. Clinton's words to refer to the Special Minimum Benefit.

I will address the importance of the 'Special Minimum Benefit' and the 'Hardship Exemption' in a later post. It really should be important to all of us, for several reasons. The foremost reason is that 'we' should collectively care about the most vulnerable members of our society, and this benefit is essential. Secondly, we need to realize that the PtB are "out there" strongly implying that the proposed increase in this benefit, is one reason that it is necessary for the rest of us to "take a haircut." And this is absolute hooey.

Indeed, his reference to 'how his Social Security benefit might be lowered, or done away with,' clearly demonstrates that his intended reference was to the (B-S) Fiscal Commission's recommendation that Social Security benefits be subjected to progressive price indexing, or 'means testing.'

This glaring error demonstrates that 'it is best not to start writing a blog at almost midnight.' ;)

Here's the Strengthen Social Security website.

https://twitter.com/Alexa__Blogger/status/264586834045190144

PLEASE RETWEET ME! :)

“If a dog won’t come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” -- Woodrow Wilsonafter claiming "to reduce poverty among the very poor." Read below the fold...

About Two and a half months ago, Mike Norman pointed out that when Federal spending and tax collections in fiscal 2012 were compared with those for the same calendar date in 2011, data from the Daily Treasury Statements (DTS) showed that 2012 Federal spending was lagging behind 2011 spending by $433 Billion; while 2012 tax revenue Read below the fold...

One of the most irritating things about the deficit hawk/austerity literature, is that it uses the ideas of “fiscal sustainability” and “fiscal responsibility” in an ideological way, without ever really analyzing or explaining these labels. It's almost as if the austerians know that if they clearly and directly stated what they meant by these terms, and how their meanings were actually related to the ideas of “sustainability” and “responsibility”, then flaws in their whole ideological and policy framework would be very clear to everyone else.

Of course, if you read any of the austerian literature you soon learn that they think fiscal sustainability and responsibility both relate to the impact of government spending on the federal deficit, the public debt subject to the limit, and the debt-to-GDP ratio, and to no other impacts of fiscal policy.” But the austerians never really explain why these three numbers are relevant for fiscal sustainability and responsibility. Instead, they take the relationship as obvious to all, and start evaluating fiscal policies on the basis of past and projected deficit, debt, and debt-to-GDP ratios. Invariably, regardless of the nation in which you find them, they end up advocating for lower taxes for the wealthy, less regulation for corporations, and sacrifices of Government programs and the social safety net; all this based on the ideas of fiscal sustainability and fiscal responsibility that they've never even explained to an incurious and uncritical media, but very bought media, or to the public.

Because of the very great importance of the fiscal sustainability/fiscal responsibility/fiscal crisis/solvency rhetoric, the first session of the Fiscal Sustainability Teach-In Counter-Conference covered the topic “What Is Fiscal Sustainability?” and the primary speaker was Professor Bill Mitchell of the University of Newcastle. Audios, videos, presentation slides, and transcripts for the presentation are available at selise's site and a slightly different version of the transcripts is available from Corrente as well. Read below the fold...

[I'm leaving this sticky because our enemies don't sleep. If you end up eating Grand Bargain™ cat food because Robama concocts some sleazy deal in the lame duck session due to a Shock Doctrine-style manufactured crisis, the people who engineered the crisis will be the same people who organized this shindig. Know them, and know their lies! --lambert]

Well, it's Springtime in DC. Time for the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's annual event. The Fiscal Summit, to be held on May 15, better named the Fiscal Cesspool of distortions, half-truths and lies, is a propaganda extravaganza designed to maintain and strengthen the Washington and national elite consensuses on the existence of a debt crisis, the long-term ravages of entitlement spending on America's fiscal well-being, and the need for long-term deficit reductions plans to combat this truly phantom menace. The purpose of maintaining that consensus is to keep an impenetrable screen of fantasy intact in order to justify policies of economic austerity. that have been impoverishing people and transferring financial and real wealth to the globalizing elite comprised of the 1% or far less of the population, depending on which nation one is talking about.

The 2010 Fiscal Summit

The first “Fiscal Summit” was held in Washington, DC on April 28, 2010. It was lavishly funded by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and included many “big names” associated with “fiscal sustainability” and “fiscal responsibility,” including Bill Clinton, who appeared along with personalities from Peterson's stable of deficit hawks such as David Walker, Alice Rivlin. Robert Rubin, Alan Simpson, Erskine Bowles, and Paul Ryan. Its purpose was to spread the deficit hawk message of Peter G. Peterson, including various myths of the world-wide austerity movement: Read below the fold...