Given that the federal deficit is basically the only thing that almost every major political figure has been talking about, the fact that the deficit only ranks as a top issue with 16 percent of the country is truly remarkable. I suspect the issue wouldn’t even rise above single digits if politicians and pundits hadn’t been continuously force feeding the public deficit hysteria for months.

I called Hoyer’s office this morning to ask if he considers cutting the COLA a benefit cut, but haven’t received a response.

President Obama Endorses Plansto Cut Social Security Donate $10 to help us run Google and Facebook ads targeted at retirees NOT to vote for anyone who cuts benefits. » Click here to donate. Now that President Obama has come out in support of the Gang of Six’s plans to cut benefits, there should no longer [...]

It appears that the bulk of the Gang of Six’s deficit reductions come from simply empowering the relevant Senate committees to decide on cuts at predetermined levels. The Senate committees would then write the pieces of legislation that get fast-tracked through Congress. It would be another move by the Senate to consolidate the actual task of legislation in the upper chamber.

A “plan” entails laying out specifically what policies you all agree to change. Saying you told someone else to work out basically every important detail at a later time isn’t a plan. It’s grandstanding. It is just another form of the magic asterisk trick we have used in the past so politicians can pretend they have reached an agreement on really big numbers without actually doing anything.

I spoke with Barney Frank today about the current debt ceiling debate. He said he would not vote for any bill that raised the debt ceiling which included cuts to Social Security or Medicare benefits, including a chained CPI, which is included in the Gang of 6 deal.

The truly historic importance of what is happen right now can’t be repeated enough. It is a Democratic President who is the driving force now behind cutting Medicare and Social Security. It is a Democratic President who feels that deficit reduction during a recession and keeping tax rates near historic laws are both much more important policy goals than protecting Social Security and Medicare Benefits.

I was one of the 2700 people who pledged to go to the office of their member of congress and let them know that if they support cuts to Social Security or Medicare, we won’t support them in the next election. And moreover, that “supporting cuts” meant voting for the creation of any committee with the power to make recommendations that would be given an up-or-down vote in Congress, bypassing regular procedure (Catfood II).

Writers like, Ezra Klein and Greg Sargent, who have bought into the idea that that debt ceiling must be raised by August 2nd to avoid catastrophe, are very worried about this new Pew poll that found the country evenly divided on the dangers of the debt ceiling. The poll found that 39 percent thought we [...]

Former President Bill Clinton said he would use the 14th amendment to get around the debt ceiling if there was no other option in an interview with the National Memo. Former President Bill Clinton says that he would invoke the so-called constitutional option to raise the nation’s debt ceiling “without hesitation, and force the courts [...]