Tax Cut Politics


Lori Montgomery of The Washington Post has found

Over the past few days, a growing number of lawmakers has publicly embraced the idea of extending expiring tax cuts for families making as much as $1 million a year. They include newly elected Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who argued on "Fox News Sunday" that "we should draw the line in the sand for millionaires."

It's not difficult to determine the reasoning of center-right politicians such as Manchin and McCaskill. Pushing a policy expected to raise the federal deficit $400 billion (over ten years) is as speedy a way as any to gain the moniker of 'fiscal conservative' and win the approval of that famous liberal media.

But support from Senators Menendez and New York's Chuck Schumer, as liberals, is a little more perplexing. Montgomery quotes Schumer claiming "There's a strong view in the caucus that if we make the dividing line $1 million, it becomes a very simple argument: We are for giving the middle class a tax break; they're for tax cuts for millionaires."

As Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer continue to negotiate with themselves, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has the GOP response we could have expected: "Republicans and a growing chorus of Democrats," the Kentucky Republican comments, "believe that raising taxes is a horrible idea" now, no matter who pays more.

McConnell comically added "it's not too late for both parties to work together." As the GOP rises up to oppose extension of unemployment benefits, its leader in the Senate finds that extending tax cuts for those with incomes at a mere $1 million is insufficient. And even above that threshold, someone with an income of $5 million would get a tax cut, inasmuch as the higher rate would kick in only at a penny above. (The increase would not be on the total income, but only at the margin.)

Nevertheless, McConnell is insistent that tax breaks go not only to millionaires, but to multimillionaires. Meanwhile, Schumer, only slightly more plausibly, appears to view middle class ending at a million dollars, an odd perspective when median household income was $49,777 in 2009. For those keeping score at home, that would make the Schumer-Menendez et al. threshold twenty- 20!- times as great as the nation's median household income.

The mega-rich already dominate the U.S. economy (graphs, from website of University of California at Santa Cruz, below) and adding to their wealth with a tax cut would do far less to stimulate the economy than would extending unemployment benefits and would add to the enormous debt (graph, from Crooks and Liars based on CBPP calculations from CBO data, further below) which "deficit hawks" reportedly are so exorcised about.








A remark by Jamelle Bouie of The American Prospect gives us a glimpse of the motivation of Schumer of New York and Menendez of adjacent New Jersey to set the threshold at $1,000,000 for discontinuing tax cuts. Bouie would "be disappointed if the 'dividing line' for middle class and rich begins around $500,000, much less $1 million." Even at $500,000, he notes, "you are rich, period. You make more than 10 times the median household income, and given your most likely occupation -- financial services -- you have been the chief beneficiary of economic growth for at least the last decade."

New York and New Jersey are high-income states (map of federal tax payments per state from visual economics.com)- and home to an enormous number of well-placed and highly influential individuals making their living (often a killing) in the financial services industry.






With acceptance from center-right Democrats and Democrats from the greater New York area, as well as the inevitable enthusiasm of Republicans, prospects for the upper class extending its advantage over the middle class are very bright, indeed.

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Bipartisanship Follies


Every week brings a new benchmark in bipartisanship.

For the new START Treaty, there have been at least two. Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal reported

The Senate's No. 2 Republican said Tuesday that he opposed a vote this year on President Barack Obama's signature arms control treaty, dealing a blow to a top White House foreign policy priority and possibly to U.S.-Russian relations.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona said there wasn't time to deal with his concerns over a treaty that would cut U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons deployments by about one third and restore weapons inspections that were halted nearly a year ago. Treaty ratification requires 67 votes in the Senate. Mr. Kyl's decision likely pushes a vote to next year, when the Senate Democratic majority shrinks to 53 from 58.

Mr. Kyl's announcement took the White House by surprise. A White House official said that just last Friday, officials from the Defense Department, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the U.S. Strategic Command briefed the senator and offered an additional $4.1 billion over the next five years that he had demanded to modernize the remaining nuclear arsenal.

Kyl (allegedly) didn't like the deal, demanded a concession (more money for nuclear weapons), and got it. Now those goalposts are being moved again for, according to The Washington Post

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has reserved judgment on how she will vote until the resolution comes to the floor, said it could make a difference if Obama could get George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, both former presidents, to appear with him in support of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START.

Neither Bush has taken a public position on the pact, which would continue trends they established with the original START agreement signed in 1991 by the elder Bush and the Moscow Treaty approved by the younger Bush in 2002.

The New START treaty continues most verification procedures established in the 1991 agreement that ended last December while adding new ones; it also lowers slightly to 1,550 the deployed warheads allowed under the 2002 pact, which were 1,700 to 2,200.

Ratification of the agreement has been endorsed by several individuals who have served a Republican administration, each of whom probably knows more about national defense and nuclear proliferation than the oil industry executives, the profession of the 41st and 42rd presidents. Consider: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Dick Lugar; former Bush-41 National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; former Secretary of State James Baker; former Secretary of State George Schultz; Reagan Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein; Reagan Chief of Staff Howard Baker; and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

They all may be wrong, of course, but they all are Republicans which, in normal times, would be considered bipartisan support. This apparently is insufficient for Collins, who says "It would be wonderful if President [George H.W.] Bush would come out for the treaty. That would be so powerful and definitely help."

Nor, apparently, is it enough for David Broder, who maintains Senate Minority Whip Jon

Kyl and Obama have been negotiating through intermediaries and have satisfied each other on most but not all points.

The Republicans could ask Obama to sit down directly with Kyl and see if they can compromise on the rest. That would be a fair first test of Obama's sincerity.

Polls generally show most Americans opposing repeal of health care reform and extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet following the recent election which will result in his elevation to Speaker of the House, Ohio's John Boehner warned "I think it is important for us to lay the groundwork before we begin to repeal this monstrosity" of health care reform. The returning Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, meanwhile offered "if there's some tweaking we need to do with the healthcare bill, I'm ready for some tweaking" and "if we need to work something out with the people who are really rich (on tax cuts), I'll have to look at that."

For his part, the President, who acknowledged a "shellacking" in November and promised "to do a better job," has said also "what I've tried to suggest is that this is one of those times where we've got to put that kind of (partisan) behavior aside, because the American people can't afford it." In February, 2009, as he began his presidency, with big majorities in both chambers of Congress.

It is a strange and wondrous bipartisanship that has Democrats reaching out to the GOP while some Republicans are defiant and media-anointed "moderates" such as Susan Collins are willing to consider supporting a treaty only if an ex-President of her own party gives his blessing. This won't, unfortunately, stop David Broder and others in the media from complaining, after Barack Obama caves, that liberals won't allow the President to compromise.

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Non-Partisan Hysteria

We interrupt our regularly scheduled discourse to bring you this special message from Planet Broder:

But nonetheless, suppose that he is serious when he says, over and over, as he did on Thanksgiving Day, that if we want to "accelerate this recovery" and attack the backlog of lost jobs, "we won't do it as any one political party. We've got to do it as one people...."

Suppose there is a chance that he is serious - that after two years of trying to govern through one party, a party that held commanding majorities in the House and Senate but now has lost them, two years with landmark accomplishments but ultimate frustration of his hopes to change Washington, he has reverted to his original philosophy of governing.

No supposing about it- after two years of negotiating- nay, pleading- with a party which fought to create a Waterloo for what it termed "Obamacare," opposed a modest, conservative stimulus program designed to reverse a near-Depression, dutifully opposed tepid Wall Street reform, and voted even against a small business program, the President remains serious about bipartisanship. Naive and foolish, but conciliatory and bi-partisan.

Broder is only arguably the most famous and oldest of the Washington insiders who (apparently) believe that if only both parties compromised, the heavens will open and there will be eternal bliss.

We've always assumed these guys and gals were selling a load of nonsense- but maybe they're victims as much as perpetrators.

And so it is with syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, one half of CNN's still-fairly new Parker-Spitzer. She lauds the new group "No Labels" which, the Wall Street Journal reports

has drawn support from supporters and advisers of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the country's most powerful independent politician (and) is led by Democratic fund-raiser Nancy Jacobson and Republican strategist Mark McKinnon, who were introduced to each other by Kevin Sheekey, Mr. Bloomberg's political adviser....

The group has raised more than $1 million to seed its effort against what it calls "hyper-partisanship."

Parker argues "Democrats and moderate Republicans alike have been banished," even "purged," and have joined the No Labels movement. She notes that Jun Choi, the Democratic mayor of Edison, N.J., "told The Wall Street Journal he lost because he wasn't extreme enough. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire state senator, thinks she lost for being too moderate." According to the WSJ, at the group's recent gathering in Portsmouth, N.H., Mayor Choi volunteered "Hi, I'm Jun Choi, and I lost because I wasn't extreme enough." He was followed by Hassan, the state senator, who, evidently mistaking the gathering for an A.A. meeting, added ""Hi, I'm Maggie Hassan, and was defeated because I was too moderate."

Choi's Edison, N.J., a large, moderately affluent suburb, had been ruled since prehistoric times by a Democratic machine which, a few years ago, Choi challenged successfully in a Democratic primary. His recent primary defeat, therefore, may be disheartening- but it doesn't appear to have been related to Persian Gulf policy, extension of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, Wall Street reform, or even education policy. According to NJ.com

Two-term Councilwoman Antonia Ricigliano, who had the backing of the township's Democratic Committee as well as the local police union, snatched the party's nomination for mayor away from incumbent Jun Choi tonight in an upset primary election victory....

Ricigliano's win is the culmination of a stinging, dramatic campaign that saw nasty allegations, protests outside town hall and hordes of finger-pointing fliers passed around Edison, making it the most heated primary in Middlesex County.

And then, given the politics of the area, came the key comment:

She also received the backing of the Edison police and fire unions, who viciously opposed Choi.

It may have served Choi well to have appeared at a No Labels convention to claim that he was the victim of liberalism run amok, and it sent a tingle up Parker's leg. But it doesn't square with reality and whatever virtue the victorious opponent may lack, her victory, spurred by the support of the representatives of police officers and firefighters, does not reek of a party consumed by leftist elitist intellectuals out of touch with the enlightened middle.

But facts may not matter. If President Obama has not been able to reverse the economic downturn, end partisan sniping in Washington, and prevent his party from experiencing a "shellacking" from voters dismayed by his leadership, it must be because he has been too liberal and has failed to reach out to Republicans. Taylor Marsh, however, notes

Since Barack Obama came into office he has unilaterally disarmed in the name of bipartisanship and “accomplishments,” without taking the time to make the Democratic case for policy prescriptions that matter in people’s lives and has been the foundation of the Democratic Party since Roosevelt. There can be only one reason for this and that is he doesn’t believe in them strongly enough. Pres. Obama even went so far as to voluntarily form a Debt Commission through Executive Order, which he wouldn’t do on DADT, to take on entitlements when they’re not the problem, while also sending signals that he’d protect the upper 2% Bush tax cuts even as Warren Buffet and other wealthy Americans served up protestations to the President’s ridiculous ode to the super rich.

Compromise does not consist of one side staking out an extreme position and the other side doing whatever it can to accomodate it. A recent Gallup poll found that most Democrats want office holders to compromise while most Republicans want those officials to stick to their beliefs. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal found three prominent politicians planning to attend the upcoming launch of No Labels: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and United States senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. You will not be surprised that they are all Democrats- like President Obama, exhorting, imploring, beseeching Republicans and others to be reasonable, pretty please.

Broder, Parker, and other Washington Wise Men are impressed. Voters, unable to detect a commitment to principle but sensing weakness, are far less so.

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Class Envy

This is an illustration of the class envy problem we're up against. Okay, so here we've got the Democrat Party, which has made a career and a life out of bashing the wealthy when they are the wealthy.


It's good that we have Rush Limbaugh, as he did here in April, remind us that it is wealthy Democrats who suffer from a "class envy problem." Apparently, we were misinformed about the political affiliation of the nation's best-known ex-governor, who recently told Laura Ingraham (audio below, for those with a strong stomach):

I think the majority of Americans don't want to put up with the blue bloods. And I say it with all due respect because I love the Bushes. The blue bloods who want to pick and choose their winners instead of allowing competition to pick and choose the winners.

Palin's crack about blue bloods was prompted when, asked a question by Larry King, Barbara Bush explained "I sat next to her once, thought she was beautiful, and I think she's very happy in Alaska. And I hope she'll stay there." Palin's crack about "blue bloods" sounds an awful lot like class envy, made no less so by her expression of victimization, the allegation that a response to a question constitutes an efort "to pick and choose the winners." And it is class envy by one who was among the wealthy back in April of this year, when she was much poorer than today:

Former Alaska governor has earned roughly $12 million since stepping down from her job as Alaska governor at the end of July, according to a "conservative estimate" on the part of ABC News.

Palin had been making $125,000 per year as Alaska's governor.

The controversial 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee was reportedly paid $7 million for her book "Going Rogue," mostly after she stepped down. She is said to be getting $250,000 per episode for her television series on the Learning Channel and charge up to $100,000 deliver a speech, which she does regularly.

ABC News writes that Palin's earnings are "probably much higher" than $12 million since she left the governorship, "but is hard to quantify because Palin does not publicize her earnings." She has not disclosed what she is being paid by Fox News to serve as a contributor or her earnings from her planned second book.

But apparently the dreaded "blue bloods," such as the Bushes, are a little more reticent about flaunting their sense of privilege than the self-described "everyday, working-class American":

Palin's contract for a June speech at California State University, found in a campus trash bin by students, dictates that she gets "first-class airfare for two and three rooms at a luxury hotel" for a speech in June, according to the Associated Press; her lectern must also be stocked with water bottles and bendable straws.

When first reported earlier this year, this story highlighting the self-absorption of the half-governor might have seemed overwrought or even a little petty. But here she was, the other day, reacting not to an idle comment by a former First Lady but rather a response to a question. The sentiment itself is nearly inarguable: Palin is attractive, obviously happy in Alaska, and unqualified to be President of the most important nation on earth. It is also more diplomatic and tasteful than commenting: "she is superficial, self-absorbed, and radical."

Tact, it appears, is a virtue only among those "blue bloods" detested by Mrs. Palin.

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Palin Is At It Again- Or Not

It's easy to ridicule Sarah Palin; easy and usually, justified. It's so easy that we shouldn't reach to do so when unjustified.

Asked by Barbara Walters, for an interview to be aired December 9, whether she will be running for president, Sarah Palin responded

I'm looking at the lay of the land now, and ... trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing....

Pretty standard stuff for a potential candidate to say: I'll do whatever is best for my family, and I'm not going to tell you now.

Then asked by Walters "if you ran for president, could you beat Barack Obama?" Palin replied "I believe so."

Apparently eager to make news, or appear to be doing so, abcnews.com commented

Sarah Palin says she is seriously considering a run for the White House, and she believes she could beat President Obama in 2012.... The headline itself was "Sarah Palin Says She Could Beat Obama."

Uh, no. Walters asked "if you ran for president, could you beat Barack Obama?" Immediately prior, the former governor had stated she is "trying to figure out" whether she would contend for the GOP nomination- which, no doubt, will be affected by her calculation as to the likelihood of success.

For any potential candidate (such as Palin) with a realistic chance at gaining a party nod (unlike, say Democratic presidential candidates Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel in 2008) the probability of actually winning a nomination and the general election is a major consideration. Just ask Beau Biden, who was scared away from seeking (and no doubt gaining) the Democratic nod for U.S. Senate in Delaware because he would have to opposite U.S. Representative Mike Castle, who would have whipped him. (Later, it turned out to be the estimable Christine O'Donnell. Stay away from the betting parlors, Beau.)

Palin merely had remarked that if she were to run against Obama, she "believes" she would prevail. That would be contrasted with "no, I don't think if I were nominated I could win." If she had thus responded, no one would have been happier than Mitt Romney or, especially, Mike Huckabee, both of whom would have told GOP primary voters (diplomatically) that they would be have to be stark, raving mad to nominate someone who already had conceded the race to Barack Obama.

But don't despair: Palin said something far more important, in an interview with a powerful ally. Again according to ABC News (non-video video below)

Was it a simple blunder or did a possible 2012 presidential contender really get her geography wrong?

That's the question being debated after Sarah Palin said in an interview with Glenn Beck Wednesday that North Korea was a U.S. ally.

When asked by Beck how she would handle a situation like the one that was developing in North Korea, Palin responded: "This is stemming from, I think, a greater problem when we're all sitting around asking, 'Oh no, what are we going to do,' and we're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is going to do."

It is unclear whether Palin is talking about sanctions against North Korea, or U.S. sanctioning -- i.e. approving or supporting -- its actions.

Palin continued: "Obviously, we gotta stand with our North Korean allies," when Beck interrupted and corrected her to say "South Korea."

"And we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes," she responded.

Exaggerating the importance of a routine statement customarily made by a politician is unnecessary, especially when that public figure frequently makes a comment that is confusing, even rambling, and often disturbing.

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Continuing The War Against The Unemployed

There is always something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day. Unfortunately, for the unemployed, it's not the GOP, as The Huffington Post reported a few days ago:

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted down a measure that would have reauthorized extended unemployment insurance for another three months, leaving no clear path forward to prevent the benefits from lapsing as scheduled on Nov. 30.

Without a reauthorization, the Labor Department estimates that two million long-term unemployed will prematurely stop receiving benefits before the end of the year....

The bill was brought to the floor under a "suspension of the rules," meaning it required approval from two-thirds of the House. It failed 258 to 154, with mostly Democratic support. Twenty-one Republicans voted in favor and 11 Democrats voted nay.

Sympathize, however, with those Republicans. It's hard to buck this guy, of whom it was written three months ago:

With millions of long term unemployed Americans losing everything they have, Fox News host Glenn Beck recently went on his show and said “Have you heard of the 99ers?” He then showed footage of the 99ers protest on Wall Street from last Thursday and said “Some of these people, I bet you’d be ashamed to call them Americans.” Most of the 99ers at the protest were locals to the area and chose Wall Street to symbolize that Congress is willing to bail out wealthy Wall Street businesses but not the unemployed.

Glen Beck was kind enough to offer some Republican solutions to the 99ers problems by adding “Don’t spend your remaining money on travel to get to a protest. Go out and get a job. You may not want the job. Work at McDonald’s. Work two jobs.”

And Beck has a powerful media figure in his corner, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. In his recent interview with the guy who runs the de facto communications arm of the Republican Party, Howie Kurtz noted

There’s one criticism that Ailes doesn’t want to hear. He admonished the staff after unnamed Fox journalists told me they are worried that the divisive Beck is becoming the face of the network.

“Yeah, shut up,” says Ailes. “You’re getting a paycheck. Go on the team or get off the team. Don’t run around here badmouthing a colleague.”

Ailes is no Roger-come-lately on Beck, having warned in April "Glenn Beck does his show and that's his opinion. It's not the opinion of FOX News and he has a right to say it. We prefer people in the tent not dumping on other people in the tent."

For Beck, as with so much of the right, unemployed people are lazy and can be ignored, despite- or perhaps because- there are so many of them (graph from Center for Budget and Policy Priorities):





In the interests of argument, let's posit that the GOP attitude is accurate, that a substantial portion of unemployed individuals lack a job primarily because they do not want to work. If this slothfulness were to apply to 60% of those on the unemployed rolls, there still would be..... two people vying for an average job.

For those of us who don't believe Americans are lazy or are enthused that the surplus of workers to jobs lowers the wage rate, that still would be too many individuals unable to find employment. And that still would demonstrate a need for unemployed benefits for those two individuals unable to find work- and for those three individuals, who, content not to be employed, better enable the other two to find work.

On the micro (individual) level, laziness needs to be discouraged; but on the macro-national- level, an economy with fully five unemployed individuals per job available little suffers because some portion of that five does not seriously pursue employment. And all five of those individuals without a source of legal income, as most of the Repub Party supports, are five individuals unable to spend and help lift our nation out of its economic downturn. Which, for the Party of No, may be the point.


HAPPY THANKSGIVING

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Advocating For The Most Privileged


President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is due to release its recommendations shortly but the two co-chairmen already have released their own draft proposal with its mix of tax increases, tax cuts, and cuts in spending. The Beltway elite, not surprisingly, are fairly enthused.

We have Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, blasting "the childishness of the extremes on both sides” for ignoring the “ looming disaster that inaction invites.” The following day and in the same publication, David Ignatius makes some sense but concludes “If Republicans and Democrats could unite to make the tough decisions needed to carry out at least some of the commission's reforms, this really could be a moment for change. That's what voters want, not more Washington tantrums and trauma.”

It's not only Marcus and Ignatius but also, according to Bob Somerby, the NY Times' Ross Douthat and David Brooks and the Post's Dana Milbank and David Broder. All deride the left but fail to address the complaint of Paul Krugman, who writes

suggest eliminating tax breaks that, whatever you think of them, matter a lot to middle-class Americans — the deductibility of health benefits and mortgage interest — and using much of the revenue gained thereby, not to reduce the deficit, but to allow sharp reductions in both the top marginal tax rate and in the corporate tax rate.

It will take time to crunch the numbers here, but this proposal clearly represents a major transfer of income upward, from the middle class to a small minority of wealthy Americans. And what does any of this have to do with deficit reduction?

Well, nothing. But it does have to do with expanding the ever-expanding gap between rich and poor, between rich and middle class, as depicted in the graphs below. (The first and second are from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities; the second, from Thomas Ricks, in an otherwise unfortunate post.)















But, wait! Marcus and Ignatius have nothing on Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (video below):

SIMPSON: You’ve gotta go where the meat is. And the meat is health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. Not balancing the books on the backs of poor old staggering seniors to make the damn thing solvent for 75 years.

SCARBOROUGH: We were stunned, Erskine, by some of the things that were said after the commission report came out, saying, “Seniors are going to be thrown out on the street!” I looked at the numbers to be really honest with you, and I didn’t think you moved fast enough on Social Security and Medicare. We calculated that I guess, it was Trumka, who I like very much, Trumka said that this throws old people out. My two year old son Jack will get Social Security at 69. People in their 20′s and 30′s will be just fine.

BRZEZINSKI: In fact, I think you could’ve gone further.

SIMPSON: I know Rich very well. He’s a good egg. He has to say for what he has to say for his membership. But he knows I’m right.

BOWLES: What we’ve done is make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. As you all know, Social Security runs out of money in 2037. We’re not making it up. That’s the law.

Scarborough says "people in their 20's and 30's will be just fine." As Think Progress notes, Scarborough's son Jack, if anywhere as economically privileged as Joe, may not need to retire at age 69. That legendary rise in life expectancy we're incessantly lectured on applies mostly to the affluent; for the others (who need Social Security income more), there has been little gain in life expectancy at retirement. Most of the gain has come from the decline in infant mortality.

Mika Brzezinski says "I think you could've gone further." Life is too short to comment on anything Mika Brzezinski says- ever.

Alan Simpson says "you've gotta go where the meat is." Yes, that's where the revenues are because the trust fund is financed by taxes on employes and employees and therefore is in relatively good shape. And because that's "where the meat is"- a self-financing, sound fund- it must be raided so that tax rates on the wealthy can be dropped from 35% to 24%. Remarkable logic- if it ain't broke, let's fix it!

And Erskine Bowles- that's Erskine Bowles, the Democrat- dishonestly says "As you all know, Social Security runs out of money in 2037. We’re not making it up." Yes, you are making it up. With no changes, full benefits are projected to be paid through 2037- and 78% of benefits as late as 2084.

And what could Bowles possibly mean by "that's the law?" It's "the law" that determines whether there are funds to pay benefits? Is Erskine Bowles deliberately trying to mislead the American people- or working on his high school degree?

The real problem is not children or extremists or short-term deficits, but journalists, television personalities, and Washington wise men just making it up.

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************************** HAPPY THANKSGIVING *******************