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"We're playing with fire" by ignoring Social Security »

If so many of us are barely saving enough for our retirement years, can we really afford to rely on a smaller Social Security benefit?

That’s the situation Americans are facing in 2033, when Social Security’s trust fund is projected to be exhausted, and retirees will be paid just about 75 percent of their benefit.

To reignite the debate over how to close Social Security’s funding gap, a panel of experts gathered at a Capitol Hill forum on Tuesday and urged lawmakers to “shake off their complacency” and take action now, not years from now.

“… voters have rejected both parties on Social Security. Although Democrats have spent billions of dollars over the past decade to bludgeon Republicans for seeking to privatize Social Security and voucherize Medicare, the only age group that Democrats cannot seem to win is senior citizens. In 2012, President Obama lost them by 12 points and congressional Democrats lost them by 11.”

“It’s Time for a National Commission on Social Security” by David Brown, Gabe Horwitz, Jim Kessler, and David Kendall

Read the paper here.

PoliOptics Podcast - Matt Bennett, Stuart Connelly, and Richard Klumpp

PoliOptics Podcast

Matt Bennett, Stuart Connelly, and Richard Klumpp

Third Way’s Matt Bennett, Senior Vice President for Public Affairs, sat in as guest host on PoliOptics this week, and took a look behind the scenes of two of the most compelling aspects of American politics.

First, Stuart Connelly provided an amazing new look at Martin Luther King’s March on Washington and his “I Have a Dream” speech. Connelly, the co-author (with Clarence Jones) of “Behind the Dream,” talks about the tense days leading up to the March, with civil rights leaders literally sweating out the final days, hoping that the crowd would show up, that the money would get raised, and that the speeches would get written. On the night before the speech, Connelly explains, his co-author Jones, the road buddy, lawyer and confidant of King, went up to his room to scratch out a draft of the speech. King delivered it verbatim the next day, until prompted to change gears a bit and talk about his dream. The rest, literally, is history.

Matt also talks to Air Force Brigadier General Richard Klumpp. Back in the 90s, when he was still a Major, Rich served as a Military Aide to Vice Presidents Gore and Cheney. Rich pulls back the curtain on those strong silent types who follow the President and Vice President everywhere to ensure the continuity of government, handle the nuclear launch codes, and take care of other security business. Klumpp tells stories from the road, the campaign and transition of 2000, and the differences between Gore and Cheney. After serving as a Military Aide,  Klumpp changed seats on Air Force Two and took over as chief pilot for the veep.

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Time for US immigration reform?

Undocumented migrants were arrested outside a Barack Obama fundraiser in Chicago on Wednesday as they aired their demands, calling for a halt to deportations. 

The group tried to take their fight directly to the US president, calling for immediate action after he declined a similar request to halt deportations earlier this year, saying he is focused on “getting reform passed, and not easing up on enforcement”. However more than 400,000 people were deported from the US last year - a record high.

Next month, the US Senate is expected to begin debating a bill that is heavy on enforcement. The proposal was put together by a group of Republicans and Democrats.

It would put 11 million undocumented migrants on a path towards citizenship but only after border security provisions are met, including the deployment of the National Guard to build a border fence along the US-Mexico border as well as the funding of more than 3,500 customs agents.

Only after such security measures are enforced will undocumented workers have a chance to gain legal status in the US.

Nonetheless migrants have proven to be very supportive of the American economy.

A study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School measured immigrants’ contributions to the government-administered fund that covers hospital care for the elderly.

It found that immigrants generated surpluses ranging from $11bn to $17bn every year between 2002 and 2009. This led to an overall surplus of more than $115bn. During the same period, people born in the US incurred a deficit of $28bn.

Non-citizens contributed most of the surplus from immigrants due to the high proportion of working-age taxpayers in this group.

One group, strongly in favour of immigration reform, the ‘Nuns on the Bus’, have been outspoken on a range of social issues. On Wednesday, they embarked on a national tour to put forward the case for change. On Thursday, they held a rally near Capitol Hill in Washington.

“The current proposal that passed out in the Senate committee is a significant step forward, it deals with all of the key issues … I’ll tell you, we cannot afford to lose this opportunity,” Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director of Network, the Catholic justice group that organised the tour, told Al Jazeera.

“We have got to make sure that comprehensive immigration reform passes, passes soon and well, the basic bill is fine, it will be a significant step forward … and later we can worry about tweaking some details, but we got to accomplish it now. 

“Immigration absolutely is a moral issue, because we have a moral responsibility to care for all …. But it is also smart economics, because one out of four businesses in the US is started by an immigrant, and the last time we did immigration reform in 96 the economy grew, because immigrants where then able to fully participate, engage in our society, start businesses, employ people, pay taxes, and be a full participating part of our community,” she added.  

So, will migrants’ voices ever be heard in the US? Can a reasonable immigration bill be passed in Congress? And can this be achieved under Obama’s administration?

To discuss this, Inside Story Americas, with presenter Shihab Rattansi, is joined by guests: Uriel Sanchez-Molina, one of the 12 immigrant activists arrested (and later released) on Wednesday; Lanae Erickson Hatalsky, the director of the Social Policy and Politics Program at the Third Way think tank; and Sarahi Uribe, the national campaign coordinator for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

 

It’s Time for a National Commission on Social Security»

Social Security’s trust fund has 20 years to live, according to the 2013 annual report released this morning by the Social Security Trustees.

In our new idea brief we make the policy and political case that a Social Security fix can only be accomplished through a national commission and that it must happen pre-2016. We also examine effective U.S. commissions and identify the critical lessons for structuring a commission to succeed where Simpson-Bowles fell short.

Heating Up Here’s the good news: the percentage of Americans who believe the seriousness of global warming is “generally underestimated” has been going up. It’s now one in three. It had gone down to one in four in 2010, the year of the Tea Party. Here’s the bad news: more people think the problem is “generally exaggerated” (41% in the April Gallup poll). There’s still a lot of skepticism out there, and it’s mostly among Republicans. Over the past 15 years, more and more Republicans have come to believe that climate change is exaggerated. Only 34% of Republicans felt that way in 1998. Now 64% do. The gap between the parties on global warming has widened considerably. In 1998, the difference was 11 points. It grew to 32-38% in the early 2000s. Since President Obama took office in 2009, the difference has gotten huge. Republicans are 41-47 points more likely than Democrats to believe the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated.  

Heating Up

Here’s the good news: the percentage of Americans who believe the seriousness of global warming is “generally underestimated” has been going up. It’s now one in three. It had gone down to one in four in 2010, the year of the Tea Party. Here’s the bad news: more people think the problem is “generally exaggerated” (41% in the April Gallup poll).

There’s still a lot of skepticism out there, and it’s mostly among Republicans. Over the past 15 years, more and more Republicans have come to believe that climate change is exaggerated. Only 34% of Republicans felt that way in 1998. Now 64% do.

The gap between the parties on global warming has widened considerably. In 1998, the difference was 11 points. It grew to 32-38% in the early 2000s. Since President Obama took office in 2009, the difference has gotten huge. Republicans are 41-47 points more likely than Democrats to believe the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated.

 

“If you had told me 10 years ago that one of the few things that could get done in Washington is trade policy, my head would have exploded. But it seems to be the case that trade is actually something we can get done.”

Ed Gerwin, Senior Fellow at Third Way, on the surprising likelihood that major trade legislation could pass through Congress this year. 

Follow Ed @EdGerwin for more on trade and global economic policy.

Party Opinion Usurps Public Opinion

By Bill Schneider

We are witnessing the slow death of public opinion in this country.  It’s being displaced by party opinion.

These days, more and more Americans are inclined to judge issues from a partisan viewpoint.  In March, according to a Pew Research Center survey, twice as many Republicans (53 percent) as Democrats (27 percent) said the economy was poor.  Yet, from everything we know, Republicans are not suffering more economic deprivation than Democrats.

Elections today are less and less about persuasion and more and more about mobilization: You rally your supporters in order to beat back your opponents.  Republicans did that in 2004, when President George W. Bush got re-elected with 51 percent of the vote. Democrats did that in 2012, when President Barack Obama got re-elected with 51 percent of the vote.

Republicans today are all fired up over the controversies involving the Internal Revenue Service, the State Department and the Justice Department.  They see Watergate.

Read more

What are America’s security interests in Syria? 

Despite a recent CBS/New York Times poll that noted a clear majority of Americans do not wish to be involved in the Syrian conflict, the U.S. has significant interests in the struggle, primarily because of the regional instability caused by the war. 

  • Syria borders Turkey—a NATO member with which the U.S. has a military alliance and a mutual defense treaty—and Israel. The fighting could easily spill over into those countries, drawing the U.S. into the conflict.
  • Syria also borders Lebanon and Jordan, two countries on already shaky political footing. The war is already causing internal security problems in those nations.

The Syrian conflict is creating a humanitarian crisis both inside and outside of the country.

  • The UN estimated in April that 70,000 people have been killed in two years of fighting. 
  • The UN further estimated that the war has created 1.4 million refugees, with over a million of those in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon.

The refugees are placing enormous pressure on these nations’ economies and infrastructure, potentially destabilizing them as summer approaches and water, food, and power resources are strained even further.

For more info, read our new policy memo: What is America’s Best Bad Option in Syria?

Tips for Talking to the Middle About Immigration Reform

The politics of immigration are certainly warming, but that does not mean that passing comprehensive reform will be easy.

Polling shows that a solid majority of voters support a path to citizenship for most of those who are here illegally now—just as polls in 2006 showed big margins in favor of citizenship. But a closer look at the middle shows that behind their support is a cloudy layer of doubt and concerns.

This memo outlines the best way to reach the conflicted middle—using the key words tough, fair, and practical.