Journalists in the service of Pete Peterson (aka The Social Security/Medicare Murderer).
Pete put a billion dollars of his own money into killing those two programs by influencing the opinions around us. (Coincidentally, that's about the same amount, in 1935 dollars, that the NLRB found business spending to break unions and kill families. But I digress).
Starting about the 40th year of his pogrom against the American people. If you see him on the street, keep your kids a safe distance away. I wouldn't even trust any of these people that collaborate in pushing his plans to hurt others.
Peterson, however, is hardly a disinterested and dispassionate observer of such discussions. In fact, he is now beginning his fourth decade of arguing that there is no alternative to enacting “entitlement reform” (read: cut Social Security and Medicare) and “tax reform” (read: raise regressive taxes and lower progressive ones) in the name of curbing the country’s “unsustainable” debt and deficits.
An essential and successful element of the Peterson strategy is to create an environment where it is widely if not universally believed that there is no alternative to his vision. In this view, it’s “not realistic” to believe the country can afford the same programs it once did. Those who are prepared to be “adults” will look at these “hard truths” without flinching and recognize that it is time to take citizens-have-to-do-with-less medicine.
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A review of the proceedings of the Fiscal Summits of the last three years makes agonizingly clear that most of the journalists who conducted interviews or moderated panel discussions both reflected and amplified the Peterson worldview — entirely unselfconsciously, it would seem.
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Virtually none of the reporters thought to ask about or suggest an alternative path, such as preserving Social Security benefits and bolstering the system’s reserve by raising the cap of wages subject to Social Security taxes (currently annual wages above approximately $110,000 are not subject to any Social Security tax).
Remapping Debate,
here.
A little more sunlight into the process of pushing more people into poverty seems like a good thing.
= new reply since forum marked as read
