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Wednesday, December 15, 2004 |
CommonDreams: "The White House is hosting a two-day conference on the economy with special emphasis on Social Security.
Weisbrot is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press). He said today: The following facts have been left out of the debate on Social Security 'reform':
According to the numbers used by everyone, including the President's Commission, Social Security can pay all promised benefits for the next 38 years without any changes at all. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just upped that estimate to 48 years.
1. By either measure, the 'long-term problem' faced by Social Security over the whole next 75 years is actually less than it faced in each of the decades of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.
2. By either measure, Social Security is more financially sound than it has been throughout most of its 69-year history.
3. The projected shortfall for the whole 75-year period is about 0.7 percent of GDP (according to Trustees' numbers which the President's Commission is using) or 0.4 percent of GDP (according to the CBO). This is about one-third to one-fifth of the cost to the Treasury of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, if made permanent."
And again the mainstream media are lying about this issue.
AlterNet: "Set aside 'values' and voter fraud for a moment and just take a look at Sinclair Broadcasting Group. If the nation's largest owner of TV stations didn't actually help reelect George W. Bush it wasn't for lack of effort. Their message to America now: Our man won, deregulation will continue and we've only just begun ... to expand."
12:12:13 PM 
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IndiaTimes: "A portrait of President Bush using monkeys to form his image led to the closure of a New York art exhibition over the weekend and anguished protests on Monday over freedom of expression."
11:42:30 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Hetty Litjens.
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