Month: March 2005
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The party that cried private accounts
It looks like bluster is winning as the private accounts strategy de jour. Any minute now, supporters say, the public is going to rise as one and turn out everyone who opposed the President’s plan. Any minute! Just you wait! In the meantime, well, they’re going to make stuff up about the impending doom that
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Quoted in NY Press
My post on Robert Byrd is quoted by Russ Smith in his New York Press column this week: Brendan Nyhan, a committed Democrat who’s fallen under the spell of fellow blogger Josh Marshall in the ultimately futile War to Save Social Security As We Know It, nevertheless wrote on March 3 what the Times couldn’t
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More bogus mandate claims
Vice President Cheney pushes the mandate claim again: Asked if he believes the president’s election victory was a mandate from voters for his Social Security plans, Cheney answered: “I think so – I think for the notion of personal retirement accounts.” Said Cheney: “I think (for) people who thought about it, focused on it, there
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Factcheck.org puts words in AARP’s mouth
FactCheck.org’s summary of their latest article on Social Security: Can the current Social Security system — without individual accounts — be fixed with only “a few moderate changes,” as AARP suggests in a recent newspaper ad? What the ad (PDF) actually says: Let’s not turn Social Security into Social Insecurity. Yes, the program is in
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More “add-on” doubletalk from the White House
WashingtonPost.com’s Dan Froomkin has a nice wrapup of the confusion and obfuscation surrounding Bush’s description of his private accounts proposal as an “add-on,” including this doubletalk from Dan Bartlett during an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday”: WALLACE: Mr. Bartlett, that’s not right. The president’s plan is not an add-on, is it? BARTLETT:
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What is R. Glenn Hubbard talking about?
During a “Marketplace” commentary yesterday (Real Audio), R. Glenn Hubbard, the head of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2001-2003, said the following: [The late Princeton economist David Bradford’s tax reform] proposal would repeal the dreaded alternative minimum tax. The AMT was meant to tax the wealthy but is affecting more and more middle-income
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Lindsey Graham’s empty threats
One rule of thumb in politics is to limit the number of empty threats you make for fear of looking powerless and foolish. But today, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham offers two particularly silly threats on consecutive pages of the New York Times — is he the new go-to guy for partisan bluster? The Larry
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How to be the next Joe Klein
Here at Nyhan HQ, the inane and bizarre discussion of Social Security on “Meet the Press” caused a lot of yelling at the TV. But the worst moment by far came from Joe Klein, who offered what can only be described as a primer in idiotic inside-the-Beltway punditry. Here’s how to be the next Joe
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Does David Gregory understand Social Security?
Here’s how David Gregory reported on Alan Greenspan’s testimony during Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News: GREGORY: On Capitol Hill today, it was Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan sounding the alarm, urging Congress to fix Social Security by adding private accounts before the program can no longer keep its promises to seniors. GREENSPAN: We owe future retirees
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More Byrd on the “nuclear option”
After comparing the “nuclear option” to Hitler’s takeover of Germany, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) has published a Washington Post op-ed on the subject that’s almost as offensive. The whole article is a rhetorical sleight of hand where filibusters are equated with “free speech,” even though (a) legislators don’t have a right to unlimited debate, (b)