As Washington debates whether to cut federal retirement programs as part of a deal to tackle the nation’s debt, one of the most powerful advocates for preserving them could have millions of dollars riding on the outcome. AARP, the highly influential lobby for older Americans, is fiercely opposing any Medicare or Social Security cuts and emphasizes that it is fighting for the good of its members. But the proposals for changing Medicare also could affect AARP’s bottom line. AARP has long played a...
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Sen. Richard Durbin says that “Social Security does not add one penny to our debt.” That’s false. It was wrong 21 months ago, when Durbin said it once before, and it’s even more off the mark now. The federal government for the first time in its history had to borrow money in 2010 to cover Social Security benefits to retired and disabled workers — a trend that worsened in 2011 and will not change at any point in the future unless changes are made. Durbin made his remarks about Social Security on...
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Republican fiscal cliff negotiators are infuriated because they can't get the White House to propose serious spending cuts. They complain that behind closed doors the White House team and congressional Democrats want only one thing: higher taxes. The House Ways and Means Committee, run by Dave Camp of Michigan, issued a statement yesterday that said Democrats have proposed "nearly $5 in tax increases for every $1 of spending cuts." In exchange for a $1.6 trillion tax hike, they have offered a m...
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Do Democrats really believe Social Security doesn't contribute to federal deficits and the national debt? They're certainly saying it a lot: "Social Security does not add one penny to our debt, not a penny," Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, insisted Sunday on ABC'sThis Week. During Monday's briefing at the White House, press secretary Jay Carney repeated the theme: "We should address the drivers of the deficit, and Social Security is not currently a driver of the ...
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ObamaCare is due to land in a mere 10 months—about 300 days—and the Administration is not even close to ready, so naturally the political and media classes are attacking the Governors and state legislators who decline to help out. Mostly Republicans, they’re facing a torrent of abuse in Washington and pressure from health lobbies at home. But the real story is that Democrats are reaping the GOP buy-in they earned. Liberals wanted government to re-engineer the entire health-care system and ramme...
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Temps are telling us something, and it isn’t good. Temporary employment is one of the better predictors of what the job market will do in the months ahead. And recent trends point toward even slower job creation in the final months of the year than the sluggish hiring that has been evident throughout 2012. Temp employment counts for less than 2 percent of jobs, but it makes intuitive sense that it would be a good indicator of what is to come in the job market overall. When times are rough, a co...
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The Agenda has now profiled three small businesses that are struggling in different ways with providing health insurance to employees. The companies are very different — they trade in very different parts of the economy, and couldn’t be located much further apart geographically — but they do have one thing in common: Though all three have fewer than 25 employees, not one has qualified for the tax credit in the Affordable Care Act that was intended to help small businesses pay for health insuranc...
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Earlier this year the Obama administration announced it would be issuing waivers that affect the work requirement included in the landmark reform of the nation's welfare system. As soon as they did, politicians on both sides of the aisle ran to the barricades, digging in for a protracted fight. The Republicans—led by GOP president nominee Mitt Romney—immediately accused President Barack Obama of "gutting" welfare reform. Obama and his allies fired back that Romney was "lying" and that, in any ca...
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