Dean Baker

I apologize to BTP regulars for repeating myself, but since the confusion on the topic of the trust fund persists, I am afraid I must give another brief lecture on the Social Security trust fund. Under the law (which is what is binding here), the fact that Bush or anyone else may have spent the […]

It doesn’t seem that they do, based on a front page article in today’s paper on the war and the economy. The article comments that “the oldest boomers turn 60 [sic] this year. There is no sign of a political consensus on changing Social Security, which has expanded since Roosevelt launched it, or on making […]

The NYT says they are. A budget article reports that in bargaining over the budget, “the issues most often mentioned that might entice Democrats to the bargaining table with the administration would be a package to finance future Social Security benefits, possibly combined with a curb on some benefits.” If this is true, and we […]

Practicing the better late than never news philosopher, the Wall Street Journal stepped ahead of the pack by noting the record vacancy rate of ownership units that the Commerce Department reported last Monday. Since the impact of this record vacancy rate on the housing market will be felt for some time, it’s not too late […]

In fact, President Bush does propose phasing out Medicare in his new budget, if the NYT got its facts right. According to this article, President Bush proposes to change the rules on the means-testing of Medicare benefits, so that the income current cutoffs of $80,000 for individuals and $160,000 for couples are not indexed. This […]

This seems obvious to me, but maybe that’s because I grew up in Chicago under the first Mayor Daley. But Daley jokes aside, does anyone really believe that politicians attain high office based on their political philosophies, in this country? Politicians get ahead by making deals with rich and powerful people. Just listen to the […]

It�s budget season, which means that we can expect to see the papers filled with articles about tax and spending plans that come attached to numbers like �million� �billion� and �trillion.� Since the vast majority of newspaper readers (even the highly educated ones) don�t often have occasion to play with such numbers, most of them […]

A news article in the washington Post insists that President Bush’s health care tax break, which would lead to large cuts in the Social Security benefits received by low wage workers, is progressive. It tells readers that the White House can’t understand why Democrats aren’t interested. As I wrote before, I question whether the plan […]

After reading the reporting on the January job numbers, it seems that not many economists pay attention to the weather. If they did, they might have been somewhat more pessimistic on the January employment numbers. By itself, 111,000 is not a bad performance, especially when it follows two months in which the economy added more […]

A New York Times article discussing President Bush’s plans to cut Medicare and Medicaid spending notes that Democrats are likely to oppose these plans. At one point, it reports that Democrats in Congress want to save money by reducing payments to the private insurers that operate within the Medicare program, because they claim that Medicare […]