Famously, on the last day of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin pointed to an image of the sun painted on the back of George Washington’s chair and said that he finally had “the happiness to know it is a rising and not a setting sun.” Ever since then, Americans have had the same […]
Columns
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Mangling Franklin
When I appeared on FOX News’ The Big Story on February 4, anchor John Gibson asserted that Franklin D. Roosevelt anticipated George W. Bush’s privatization plan, quoting FDR as saying in 1935 that Social Security “ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.” I told Gibson that FDR couldn’t have been referring to private […]
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A Double-Barreled Attack
George W. Bush’s Social Security proposals have come under heavy and deserved attack over the past few months. But a few key points should be made clearer. First, repeat after me: Cutting Social Security benefits does not mean “saving” Social Security. It means “cutting” Social Security. We can debate whether that’s advisable, but we shouldn’t […]
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Bush’s Tipping Point
The great Social Security battle of 2005 could well be remembered as the tipping point that ended George W. Bush’s remarkable winning streak. It’s now clear that Democrats are not about to provide Bush bipartisan cover for privatization. Even usually reliable Republicans are putting some distance between themselves and the president. Bush and his allies […]
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State Corporate-Tax Follies
If you’re unhappy with the mess George W. Bush has made of the federal corporate income tax, you’ll be less happy to learn that things are even worse in the states. Last September, my group published a study showing that America’s biggest and most profitable corporations now shelter more than half of their U.S. profits […]
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It’s Medicare, Stupid
Of the nation’s two giant entitlement programs, only one is in real trouble. It’s Medicare, not Social Security. As our special supplement makes clear, the Social Security system isn’t in a crisis. The system has been in surplus for years now, and those surpluses have been used to cover part of the government’s annual budget […]
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You Better Think!
On February 12, the 447 members of the Democratic National Committee are to elect a new chairman to replace Terry McAuliffe. Four days later, an important new book — John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics, by Richard Parker — is due to hit bookstores. These two events actually have a lot to […]
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The Enemy of Comfort
A week after the presidential elections, Iris Chang, the much-acclaimed author of The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, was found dead in her car on a highway just south of Los Gatos, California. Before shooting herself, Chang left a carefully written suicide note at her home in San Jose and […]
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New Year’s Resolutions
Over the next few years, we’re going to face monumental tax and budget decisions. President Bush wants to privatize part of Social Security, make the tax code far less progressive, borrow many more trillions of dollars, and probably slash domestic programs. It’s crucial that people understand what’s at stake as these issues unfold — and […]
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Security Flaws
Republican plans to privatize social security raise two different security questions. One is the impact on the retirement security of workers if they become dependent on the stock market for their basic livelihood in old age. The other concerns the nation’s security if, as news reports indicate, the Republicans decide that rather than raise taxes, […]
