Washington Post reporter Dan Balz worries about the message that the Senate's failure to pass immigration reform will send to the country. He is concerned they will ask if Washington can't solve the problem of immigration, "what hope is there for progress on health care, energy independence, or the financial challenges facing Medicare and Social Security?"
I read this piece and worried about how many more people the Post has managed to convince that the problems of rising health care costs are actually problems with Medicare and Social Security. As Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag has managed to demonstrate with a simple chart, the long-term budget problems that are so widely advertised in the Washington Post and elsewhere are the result of a projected explosion in health care costs. If we fix our health care system, there is no real long-term budget problem, and the financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare would be relatively minor.
A reporter who was really concerned about leadership would make an effort to convey this information to his readers.
A second Trump administration will cement a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court for a generation, and put our collective future in the hands of someone who will be virtually unchecked by our institutions. The country has shifted rightward, and the reverberations will ensue for potentially the next few decades. In this climate, a robust independent media ecosystem will be more important than ever. We're committed to bringing you the latest news on how Trump's agenda will actually affect the American people, shining a light on the stories corporate media overlooks and keeping the public informed about how power really works in this country.
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