Dean Baker contributes to the progressive oeuvre to be filed under "Social Security Denialism", assuring like-minded NY Times readers that there is no Social Security crisis, there will be no crisis, there never was a crisis, and all this talk of a crisis is merely a Republican scheme to oppress the oppressed.
Do tell. Back in reality, Social Security is contributing to the growth of our publicly held national debt and is projected to do so for the foreseeable future, so yes, if we have a long term debt problem Social Security is part of it.
Over to Dean Baker:
Millions of people are rightly outraged to hear that Social Security is in the gun-sights of both Speaker Boehner and President Obama in their budget negotiations. There is no reason that our political leaders should be discussing cuts to the country’s most successful social program.
We will come to the reasons soon enough. Dean Baker segues to a discussion about the transient nature of our current recession-induced deficits and admits that even the Evil Bush Tax Cuts didn't permanently scuttle out fiscal ship:
The budget deficit was just 1.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2007. Before the collapse of the housing bubble the deficit was projected to remain low for the next decade and the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio was actually falling. This would have been the case even if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to continue.
I am not finding the conclusion about the Bush tax cuts in the CBO link he provides but I welcome assistance in support of my own fantasies.
In any case, Dean Baker enters into Social Security Denialism here:
Record low interest rates on government bonds demonstrate that the current deficits are not a real problem. But even if they were, it is difficult to see how cutting Social Security could to be part of the solution. Under the law Social Security is not supposed to be part of the budget. It is an entirely separate program financed on its own.
This is not just a rhetorical point. We can talk about Social Security facing a financing shortfall in the future precisely because it is solely financed by its own revenue stream.
That is not just a rhetorical point and it is not just a factual point either. Due in part to the stimulative cut in the payroll tax (which I supported), Social Security ran deficits in 2010 and 2011. Looking forward, even with the payroll tax restored Social Security is projected to run a primary deficit (benefits paid exceeding taxes collected) for the foreseeable future. Let's hear from the Social Security trustees:
Social Security’s expenditures exceeded non-interest income in 2010 and 2011, the first such occurrences since 1983, and the Trustees estimate that these expenditures will remain greater than non-interest income throughout the 75-year projection period. The deficit of non-interest income relative to expenditures was about $49 billion in 2010 and $45 billion in 2011, and the Trustees project that it will average about $66 billion between 2012 and 2018 before rising steeply as the economy slows after the recovery is complete and the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers.
But what about the Social Security Trust Fund? What indeed? Accountants will insist that as the Trust Fund collects interest and redeems principal (accumulated in prior years when tax receipts exceeded benefits paid) the program remains in balance. Economists will note that transferring money from the Treasury is only an accounting device; to make such a transfer either the Treasury issues new debt to the public or it collects more taxes or it de-funds other programs. Let's hear from the CBO (p. 140):
Excluding interest, surpluses for Social Security become deficits of $45 billion in 2011 and $547 billion over the 2012–2021 period.
Or we can turn to Alice Rivlin, also writing in the Times:
Social Security currently adds to debt, because it pays out more benefits than it receives in taxes. While it accumulated credits when the higher ratio of workers to retirees was bringing in excess funds, Treasury has to borrow to redeem these credits.
This is simply not controversial. Even the NY Times admitted that there was less to the Trust Fund than met the eye during the Social Security scuffle of 2005:
...The truth, Mr. Holtz-Eakin [then director of the Congressional Budget Office] said, is somewhere in between. The trust fund is more than an empty promise, he said, and less than a solemn obligation backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.
A main reason for the confusion is that from the creation of Social Security, politicians have used the trust fund to mask several realities.
...Once benefits exceed annual tax revenues, the government will have to increase taxes, cut spending elsewhere or issue more bonds if it decides to pay full Social Security benefits.
But trust fund or no trust fund, bonds or no bonds, Social Security is only one program with a claim on the federal budget.
There will be highways to build and, perhaps, wars to fight. There will be expenses for education and health care and many other government activities. And there will be citizens - voters - who do not want their taxes to be raised.
Maybe because of the trust fund, the politicians will decide that Social Security has the strongest claim.
But if so, that will be a political decision, not a legal one.
And if Congress and an Administration decide not to "honor" the Trust Fund, there is no need to default on the Trust Fund obligations - they will simply legislate a new, lower level of benefits that restores the program to balance. No defaults necessary, despite wishful thinking and handwringing from the usual suspects.
As to the notion that Republicans invented this crisis, well, those of us with a bit of a memory will recall that Bill Clinton was warning of the eventual doom of Social Security and exhorting the nation to Save Social Security First rather than submit to the siren song of Republican tax cuts. The Big Dog, 1999:
So, with our budget surplus growing, our economy expanding, our confidence rising, now is the moment for this generation to meet our historic responsibility to the 21st century.
Our fiscal discipline gives us an unsurpassed opportunity to address a remarkable new challenge, the aging of America. With the number of elderly Americans set to double by 2030, the baby boom will become a senior boom.
So first and above all, we must save Social Security for the 21st century.
Early in this century, being old meant being poor. When President [Franklin D.] Roosevelt created Social Security, thousands wrote to thank him for eliminating what one woman called "the stark terror of penniless, helpless old age." Even today, without Social Security, half our nation's elderly would be forced into poverty.
Today, Social Security is strong, but by 2013, payroll taxes will no longer be sufficient to cover monthly payments. By 2032, the trust fund will be exhausted and Social Security will be unable to pay the full benefits older Americans have been promised.
The best way to keep Social Security a rock solid guarantee is not to make drastic cuts in benefits; not to raise payroll tax rates; not to drain resources from Social Security in the name of saving it. Instead, I propose that we make the historic decision to invest the surplus to save Social Security.
In other words, supplement Social Security out of general revenue. It was a plausible suggestion, and it is exactly what we are doing now in an economic sense if not a Trust Fund accounting sense.
But there is a lot of denial out there.
How many trillions of dollars has the government borrowed from Social Security?
It is a Trust Fund that can't be trusted. It has been robbed and raided since the 1970's to construct castles in the air and falsify any attempt to honestly account for the national budget.
These Leftists are drinking Moloko in ever increasing amounts.
Posted by: matt | January 03, 2013 at 01:02 PM
I thought Al Gore said the money was in a Lock Box?
Posted by: daddy | January 03, 2013 at 01:10 PM
Soc Sec Denial? I suppose the vast muddle who cling to the misconception that it's THEIR money held 'in Trust' by the 'government, I guess they suffer from denial. The DC politicians and 'advocates'? and Carlos Slim's trained monkeys at the NYT? they aren't in denial -- they know that Soc Sec has always been 'paygo', which is just lying politician speak for PONZI. It's over-- the promises were always lies once there was a baby boom 1946-1960 and a baby bust 1969-1984. coupled with life expectancy increasing to 80+. The lies have been exposed, it's over, this one is easy NO DEFAULT NEEDED, the Feds will just cut the benes dramatically-- means test10-20% out completely and reduce payments to the rest. easy.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 01:25 PM
From TomM January 3, 2005 post-- exactly 8 years ago:
"These 'IOUs' are Treasury bonds, one of the world's safest investments," said Robert "Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "The Treasury, the White House and Congress cannot choose not to pay interest on the bonds or not to redeem them -- unless they're willing to have the U.S. government default for the first time in history."
As I said, I am sure he understands the issues; presumably, he believes that framing it as a default on Treasuries may be helpful in advancing his agenda."
I find the now 8 year old Greenstein and Maguire take on the impossibility of 'defaulting on Treasury Bonds" to be nostalgic and quaint.
In the next few weeks the current POTUS will threaten to do JUST THAT-- rather than cut ONE PENNY of $3.6TRILLION in spending. Next time someone tells you 'never happen'....
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 01:37 PM
Speaking of the Treasury-- Geithner OUT THIS MONTH- I guess TURBO TIMMIE has no stomach to sign phony baloney T-Bonds next month. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-03/geithner-said-to-plan-departure-before-debt-ceiling-deal.html
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 01:47 PM
In the non-DC, non-Alice in Wonderland World, the SS Trust Fund is a fraudulent device. Let's say you are a trustee of a retirement trust in the real world. Beneficiaries think they are contributing money to the retirement trust. What really happens is the trustee buys non-marketable assets so that the trustee's crack addled alkie relative can spend on his or her addictions. The non-marketable assets are unsecured bonds from the relative, who receives the trust beneficiaries' money in return for the bonds. Such a trustee would be going to the hoosegow in the real world.
Posted by: Thomas Collins | January 03, 2013 at 01:48 PM
TC@1:48-- Correct-- if we started the TC-NK Investment Fund, and conducted it as the federal government runs SocSec-- US Attorney Preet B would have himself a quick conviction for fraud.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 01:53 PM
The problem is that the revenue stream to pay back those bonds is in doubt. Service the debt has become the single largest expenditure as I recall, with social programs right behind that. So in reality, when one adds the two together it overwhelms the entire revenue stream as we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. Next it will be 50 cents and on and on should the whole thing not collapse from the fraud involved.
Throw in Medicare BK one year closer now, and I think Obama will be living on base surrounded by a praetorian guard by the end of his term.
Posted by: matt | January 03, 2013 at 01:53 PM
It's a heist film, like one of the Ocean series, or perhaps the Third Die Hard film, full of plenty of misdirection, but the goods are stolen, and the crew gets its cut,
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 02:02 PM
KRUGMAN FOR TREASURY SEC!!! seriously-- give the US Economy the full Krugman-- it will collapse that much faster- and the faster the debt collapse, the better.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 02:04 PM
I thought Al Gore said the money was in a Lock Box?
That's where the swag from the al-Jizz deal is going; possibly the same one where ManBearPig senior put the Armand Hammer payola.
Posted by: Captain Hate | January 03, 2013 at 02:07 PM
I'm listening to Boehner's speech. He is saying people need to come there to work, not for fame. He's talking to the new people. It seems to me he should be saying this stuff to the people who are already there.
Posted by: Jane: Mock the Media | January 03, 2013 at 02:08 PM
I think he got the 'TV's Patrick Duffy' leg caught in the bear trap, because the sale went through after the 31st, the world is actually slightly stranger then South Park.
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 02:11 PM
I am so tired of the dems and the dimwits not understanding the cash flow of SS that I despair of ever seeing this country come to grips with its debt problem until it is too late.
Assuming it is not already.
It is time to put all of our affairs on the table, yes including this scam and all other "entitlements", and then decide what we as a country are willing to do so long as the sum total is within our means.
Posted by: Old Lurker | January 03, 2013 at 02:12 PM
Danny Ocean's got nothing on this Dean Baker character, his scams were pitifully small, now the CBO didn't factor a downturn into their calculations, shocker,
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 02:24 PM
SorryOL- it is waaayyyy too late; there was a CHANCE to make medicare/SS solvent in 1995, but BillyC demagogued Gingrich and the Contract House Repubs to death-- and that chance ended forever, right there. That 1995 'shut down' was also the event where the Dems and Legacy media officially became one permanent team. It's way past saving now, because now we are at a point of T-Bond debt default, in one form or another. The faster it happens the better IMO.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 02:24 PM
matt-
About 2.5 trillion or so.
Old Lurker-
Not anytime soon I'm afraid. Taxes still are high enough for the administration and the article which is the subject of this post says "oh don't look at Social Security its fine". SS just happens to be the second largest line item in the budget.
When we had a Republican adinistration and a Republican congress we couldn't defund PBS or repeal the light bulb ban, with the clown show now in charge, what are the odds that anything serious to get the fiscal house in order will be proposed.
Posted by: RichatUF | January 03, 2013 at 02:26 PM
I know, NK, I know. I say let's call it welfare and treat it like we used to treat welfare. Erase the "Notes" and put the $49B on budget along with all the other payments we make to whomever we make them or promise them.
Posted by: Old Lurker | January 03, 2013 at 02:29 PM
RichatUF@2:26-- I agree with that-- thus I say the faster the default the better because the damage will be less worse. NO DEBT CEILING INCREASE-- period. The Fed has to be told to get by on $2.8 T/yr in revenue. If these 535 crooks in Congress can't do it?... default of T-Bond interest, on SS payments and Medicare/Medicaid payments until we elect a crew than can get it done.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 02:30 PM
Rich, don't go making fun of my lifetime supply of 75 & 100W incandescent bulbs.
Posted by: Old Lurker | January 03, 2013 at 02:31 PM
Hell, G.W. Bush signed the light bulb bill into law.
And I've got a lifetime supply of 100's, 60's and 40's.
Posted by: Danube of Thought iPad | January 03, 2013 at 02:39 PM
Hummm...maybe I can place an order with DoT and Old Lurker.
and I left out a not in my above post...
Posted by: RichatUF | January 03, 2013 at 02:43 PM
Social Security is not what is taking my rights away. The EPA, Homeland Security, FDA etc are destroying my rights. At least with Social security I will get something back. I get nothing from these government agencies.
Rather than social security we need to do something about government salaries, size and benefits. We need to cut these agencies all together. When we have a small efficient government then come back and talk to me about social security.
The denial is about all the things that we need to cut or eliminate. It is the obsession with benefits people paid into and in my opinion this mindset cost the GOP the election in November.
Posted by: Pete | January 03, 2013 at 02:52 PM
Even Teammate Politico admits that it's the spending, and that the Repubs will not increase taxes again. Politico however wrongly assumes 'Bam will fight the Leftwing Dems and push through entitlement reforms in exchange for more debt authority. I think Politico's wrong-- Bam IS the LeftWing-- he will default on certain interest payments to keep spending as much as possible IMO -- or issue bogus T-Bonds. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/obamas-debt-problem-85708.html?hp=f1
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 02:54 PM
If money is free and they can solve all our problems just by printing more of it or borrowing more of it or doing whatever it is they propose other than spending less money (or just maybe slowing the rate of growth of spending slightly) then why the hell do they need to keep raising taxes?
Posted by: boatbuilder | January 03, 2013 at 02:58 PM
Sorry Pete-- you're entitled to you value judgements, but the harsh reality is that the coming default is being triggered by Tax revenues being depressed by the Dems anti-business regs and the Fed's ZIRP policies, and entitlement spending. You are right of course that the spending orgy the Dems went on in 2009 should be cut entirely, and all federal departments cut by 10% immediately. I agree. OK-- that still leaves us $600-800B/year in the hole due to Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, long -term unemployment, and the BIG one Soc Sec (retirement and disability). Those have to change -- that's not a value judgment-- that's arithmatic.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 03:01 PM
And Politico won't gin up the next push for taxes, as they did flacking for the ARRA, and Obamacare and dodd/frank due tell.
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 03:04 PM
Liberals know full well what financial peril we're in because of SS, other entitlements, and other "unfunded liabilities". Just watch this video from CBS's 60 Minutes, which aired way back in July 2007, in which David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the US, tried to warn everybody even back then:
Wake Up Call
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuCgxDbOgqM
Posted by: fdcol63 | January 03, 2013 at 03:07 PM
Or use CBS's own link, which shows the air date, and muddle through the ad at the beginning:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2534935n
Posted by: fdcol63 | January 03, 2013 at 03:09 PM
fdcol63-- in truth, you can go back to the late 1980s with Pete Peterson and warren Rudman's entitlement warnings, or Ross Perot in 1992. None of this is a secret-- it's a conspiracy of silence by the crooks in DC.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 03:10 PM
I have publicly advocated that we go back to FY 2008, an slash all Government employe's benefits by 20% for starters..
What are the Government employes going to do, quit working? That would not be a change for many of them..are they going to quite? most of them could not find any other employment..if they could have, they would not be Government employees..
Posted by: Agent J | January 03, 2013 at 03:12 PM
AgentJ-- that's a plan. One thing though-- if you go back to the FY2008 ACTUAL spending levels, then you'd have to cut SS payments to beneficiaries by about 10% from current levels, and medicare payments to Drs. and hospitals about 20+%. But with the payroll taxes restored and the small $450K revenue bump-- we'd be getting close to balance. Repeal Obamacare and open up shale oil and nat gas-- and yeah we'd be quite close to balance. Hey-- that was pretty much the RR plan-- IT LOST 51-48%.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 03:19 PM
Remember the 'War on Math' Math lost, to unicorn dust,
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 03:21 PM
NK, you're right. They have all known for many, many years that we're on an unsustainable path, but they refuse to do the difficult task of making the tough choices and reforms necessary to prevent the economic collapse.
I fear that Obama's spending and his re-election mean certain doom, because he's accelerating the damage and I believe it's his objective.
Posted by: fdcol63 | January 03, 2013 at 03:25 PM
Narc@321-- very true.
fdcol63-- 'the economic collapse' It's very important that we define terms-- the DEBT and reulation like Obamacare and Cap/Trade are the cause of economic collapse. DEFAULT is the mechanism to unwind the debt and rollback Obamacare and Regs. So I say-- EMBRACE the default. As ugly and costly -- and painful to the 47%-- as it will be-- the default is better than collapse. Collapse is worse for everyone, especially the 47%.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 03:30 PM
That's his intention fd says the lady with more blueprints than the average architect.
But I took some time to mull at the beach and picked up on some aspects that I knew but had not recognized as fitting. That Chicago Annenberg Challenge clearly is the gift that may have bolstered his political career but it is truly a liability when you pull back the rhetoric on what the profs say they intend.
Posted by: rse | January 03, 2013 at 03:35 PM
Sorry Matt,
(Thanks for the invite) but I'm out of here to the Airport in about 45 minutes. What I like about LA:
The Mexican TV Channels: The girls are all amazingly hot, marvelous skin, great "attributes", and innocent as all git out.
And the McDonald's across the street has 2 (two) lanes you can drive up in to announce your order into the speakers. Man, I am from the sticks.
And from what I just read at Insty:
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is signaling that at least one thing will change about his leadership during the 113th Congress: he’s telling Republicans he is done with private, one-on-one negotiations with President Obama.
Seems like his incandescent, EPA approved, mercury vapor lightbulb just flickered on.
Posted by: daddy | January 03, 2013 at 03:40 PM
'with the poise of an athlete,' daddy, yes that's where Mrs. Pena Nieto, Angelica Romero,
comes from,
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 03:44 PM
A question, rse, you said Maxine Greene was Ayer's mentor, but this other person who taught at the Art Institute, where the two terrorist/junkie/hunter types went to school, collaborated on two books with Ayers,
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 03:51 PM
NK, when I say "economic collapse", I mean just that: a situation reminiscent of Weimar Germany, where hyper-inflation has caused total anarchy, all normal municipal services like garbage collection and emergency services are no longer being performed because everyone, including police, firemen, EMT's, etc etc are busy simply trying to protect themselves and their families, and trying to obtain basic food and shelter, we've basically devolved into a barter system or trade in precious metals if you've got it, etc etc.
It's out of this anarchy that the fascists, Communists, or whatever authoritarian despot wannabees will emerge, as saviors to restore some semblence of order and "peace" ... but the price will be our freedom and liberty, as it always is.
Posted by: fdcol63 | January 03, 2013 at 03:54 PM
that does appear to be the objective;
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/GlazovDalrymple.php
All these zombie films, seem to have that real life subtext.
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 03:59 PM
Default could be hyperinflation; OR restructuring treasury debt; OR defaulting on Medicare/medicaid/SocSec obligations. As with Weimar-- to me hyperinflation poses the greatest risk of social disorder. So I would opt for one of the other defaults. But simply ignoring the debt (as we have for the past 5 years) guarantees the type of social disorder weimar and Argentina experienced.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 04:02 PM
No, the hyperinflation was relatively temporary,
that ended by 1924, with Stresseman and the Dawes Plan, It was deflation and massive unemployment, accelerated by the cutting off of overseas capital, due to Smoot Hawley, that brought about the collapse of Weimar, and ultimately the rise of Hitler.
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 04:07 PM
narciso, you're right, again. Thanks for the reminder.
Posted by: fdcol63 | January 03, 2013 at 04:10 PM
Smoot-Hawley collapsed world trade, which also ushered in Tojo in Japan following the collapse of oil deliveries.
Posted by: Melinda Romanoff | January 03, 2013 at 04:11 PM
You're welcome, fd, it is important to get the cause and effect right, otherwise it looks like this;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/dave-barrys-year-in-review-2012/2012/12/18/8aaa4dd2-3f37-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_print.html
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 04:13 PM
narciso-which other person?
I am sure on Greene but he has lots of collaborators. Noddings is one.
If you give me name I usually know. And it is always always about Dewey.
Posted by: rse | January 03, 2013 at 04:13 PM
Narc-- weimar indeed survived the default of debt (reparation) payments. It even survived the hyperinflation. The depression coupled with ongoing reparation debt radicalized German politics. When the depression hit, the reparation debt was the disease that radicalized germany worse than the Western democracies. We have placed ourselves at peril from the debt we created-- STOP adding to the peril. No more debt-- additional debt will cause more pain than defaulting on entitlement obligations now.
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 04:18 PM
I know, too many cooks, this one;
Current University of Illinois at Chicago associate art professor Therese Quinn taught at SAIC at the time Gliedman attended the school. Quinn also served as undergraduate division chair.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/01/greenwich-village-bomb-making-suspects-have-upper-class-left-wing-ties/#ixzz2Gww5KB3x
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 04:18 PM
I am thread hopping and posting this link because it is such a horror!
Ding Dong the Witch is NOT Dead
heh.
Posted by: centralcal | January 03, 2013 at 04:21 PM
She IS ugly, but she wears very UGLY and very EXPENSIVE clothes..
Posted by: Clarice | January 03, 2013 at 04:22 PM
Sorry, this last part is more significant
She also worked with Ayers as an editor on “Teaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader” (1998) and “Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights” (2002).
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/01/greenwich-village-bomb-making-suspects-have-upper-class-left-wing-ties/#ixzz2GwxNBb7R
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 04:24 PM
Centralcal's picture brings to mind the question of the poet....
"Is this the face that launched 1,000 ships..."
The context, of course, is somewhat different.
Posted by: Appalled | January 03, 2013 at 04:26 PM
After the Arab Spring, has turned into a NorthEaster, after Park 50 was revealed to be merely a Mosque, after Hillary broke bread with a supporter of CAIR who is now the Libyan foreign minister, they come to this conclusion;
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/muslim-shariah-republican-herman-cain-grover-norquist-allen-west
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 04:32 PM
I think it will be a long wait indeed;
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/01/waiting-for-david-gregory-and-nbc-news-to-meet-the-press-and-the-law/#comments
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 04:35 PM
I'm not even sure that's a "she".
Posted by: fdcol63 | January 03, 2013 at 04:36 PM
... and she was allowed to breed...
Posted by: NK | January 03, 2013 at 04:44 PM
I agree with most in this story, except for the last part, they had been ramping up for the better part of a year;
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/03/a-twist-in-the-benghazi-saga.html
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 04:45 PM
narc-look who wrote intro for that Social Justice Reader--Maxine.
The thing with the Arts Institute again goes back to Dewey and his preference for the aesthetic over the rational mind. A bunch of rooms at the Art Institute and I believe a whole wing was donated by his daughter. Howard Gardner, Ken Robinson, and Elliott Eisner are just 3 who rose to ed top and big bucks pushing art as the entry point as a backdoor to the emotional, nonrational mind.
Remember CASEL is at U Illinois Chicago as is Global Perspectives that is completely gutting the nature of higher ed. Social Justice requires taking out the rational mind.
I think this sort of thing will become more common. Kids are taught to hate the status quo without any understanding of what made it worked and all of ed is priming to imagine a different future. There are no safeties on the mindset being fostered unless parents put them there and that requires awareness and time.
Posted by: rse | January 03, 2013 at 04:48 PM
Hence, they are trying to institutionalize 'the two minute hate' which in some cases has been going on for years now,
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 04:51 PM
--Ding Dong the Witch is NOT Dead--
Keith Richard would not look significantly different in that outfit, although marginally better, even if slightly less masculine.
Posted by: Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki | January 03, 2013 at 04:52 PM
Where is JMHanes?
Posted by: AliceH | January 03, 2013 at 04:56 PM
I hasten to add... my query has no -repeat- no connection to the current subject of discussion!
Posted by: AliceH | January 03, 2013 at 04:57 PM
http://uic.academia.edu/ThereseQuinn
She and Ayers publish a great deal together.
I find her Fulbright to Finland in 2009 interesting as I consider that a great scam misunderstanding the nature of PISA coupled with misunderstanding Finland.
Posted by: rse | January 03, 2013 at 04:57 PM
Rosa DeLauro must have aspirations of becoming a rock star. That outfit reminds me of "Kiss" and she won't even need the pancake make-up. She done got hit with the ugly stick.
Why are democrat women politicians so bad -looking? Hil Pelosi and Rosa plus DWS come to mind...
Posted by: maryrose | January 03, 2013 at 04:58 PM
--... and she was allowed to breed...--
Yes, but would the result be human?
Same species or not? You be the judge;
Posted by: Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki | January 03, 2013 at 05:00 PM
http://arthistory.aa.uic.edu/files/CV/Quinn.pdf
Started off at Sacramento City College. Love that self designed masters after the Fine Arts bachelors from Art Institute.
This is a woman who radiates knowledge and erudition. Not.
Posted by: rse | January 03, 2013 at 05:08 PM
Notwithstanding the math, politicians have been screaming that the social security sky is falling for upwards of 30 years. The same holds for those who scream that the deficit (of which social security is but a component) is going to ruin us all.
Given this, is it any wonder that the public isn't clamoring for huge cuts in spending? That Republicans such as Christie and King scream because they're not getting their share of the pie fast enough?
History is pretty clear that Americans do not react in advance to head off problems, we very much wait until something happens before we pay attention. WWII, 9/11, housing crash, why should the fight over social security be any different?
Posted by: Stevesturm | January 03, 2013 at 05:30 PM
My first thought was Keith Richards in drag. Looks like the south end of a mule walking north.
Posted by: Danube of Thought iPad | January 03, 2013 at 05:37 PM
On our way out to dinner but wanted to thank NK and JimmyK for their understanding in my SNAFU last night. Having Christmas on a Tuesday can really screw up the calendar and I thought we had mad arrangements for the 3rd but I had said "Wednesday the 3rd". So, I had to be called to the caucus instead being there already:)
Short but nice meet up to get to know everyone even if brief. But a pre-arranged dinner called. Back to Southampton tomorrow afternoon.
Walking up 54th to the hotel we had passed a "outdoorsman" wrapped snugly in a black blanket and black parka with hoody sitting on the sidewalk surrounded by magazines and books as well as discarded coffee containers (Starbuck, natch). Today he was there again, same spot, reading a Christopher Reichs thriller. As we walked by Frederick turned to Mrs. Jib and said "you told me reading would get me anywhere":)
The truth of the innocents.
Posted by: Jim Eagle | January 03, 2013 at 05:42 PM
definitely Mrs. Spock.She's pretty close to Vulcan ears already.
Posted by: matt | January 03, 2013 at 05:51 PM
http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2013/01/law-center-warns-congress-not-to-certify-votes.html?m=1
Posted by: Threadkiller (Get off your couch and leave the GOP!) | January 03, 2013 at 05:52 PM
WSJ: Restaurants Happy To Dodge A Fiscal Cliff Bullet
Etc.Posted by: Extraneus | January 03, 2013 at 05:53 PM
Being white, college educated with a job in Chicago or living in Hyde Park is as goods as a Kevlar vest and having a legal CCW with a Glock. Murder divided by race.
NY Times graphic
Posted by: Jim Eagle | January 03, 2013 at 05:57 PM
According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.
Posted by: Extraneus | January 03, 2013 at 05:58 PM
I think she's more of a reverse Lysistrata---somebody who would make the Spartans and Athenians scramble like crazy to get back to war.
Posted by: daddy | January 03, 2013 at 06:01 PM
Has to be Keef.
Posted by: MarkO | January 03, 2013 at 06:15 PM
I've been missing JMH, too, Alice.
Posted by: Clarice | January 03, 2013 at 06:20 PM
centralcal, that photo is going to give me nightmares for a week.
Alice-
If you have her email address you can probably get a hold of her. She's taking a sabbatical from the comments section.
Posted by: RichatUF | January 03, 2013 at 06:21 PM
DeLauro may be ugly but she's rich, rich, rich and that horrendous outfit she's wearing probably cost more than the substantial down payment we made on our first house.
Posted by: Clarice | January 03, 2013 at 06:22 PM
EPA takes another hit--this one in Virginia:
"RICHMOND (January 3, 2012) - Late this afternoon, a federal judge accepted arguments made by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has exceeded its authority by attempting to regulate water itself as a pollutant by imposing restrictions on the flow of stormwater into Fairfax County's Accotink Creek. The effect of this ruling could save Virginia taxpayers more than $300 million in unnecessary costs.
EPA had previously issued an edict that would cut the flow of water into the creek by nearly half, in an effort to address the sediment flow on the bottom of the creek. In regulating the flow rate of stormwater into the creek, the agency was trying to regulate water itself as a pollutant, rather than the sediment. The attorney general challenged the EPA's action as exceeding the agency's legal authority to regulate pollutants under the Clean Water Act (CWA). These restrictions also would have diverted public funds that could be spent more effectively on stream restoration for Accotink Creek and other waterways in the region.
Judge Liam O'Grady agreed with co-plaintiffs VDOT (represented by the attorney general) and Fairfax County, saying in his ruling that federal law simply does not grant EPA the authority it claims. The Clean Water Act gives the EPA the authority to establish TMDLs - Total Maximum Daily Loads - regulating maximum acceptable levels of pollutants that may be discharged on a daily basis into a particular waterway. The problem for the EPA is that water is not a pollutant under the CWA. "The Court sees no ambiguity in the wording of [the federal Clean Water Act]. EPA is charged with establishing TMDLs for the appropriate pollutants; that does not give them the authority to regulate nonpollutants," O'Grady said."
Posted by: Clarice | January 03, 2013 at 06:25 PM
In other words, supplement Social Security out of general revenue. It was a plausible suggestion, and it is exactly what we are doing now in an economic sense if not a Trust Fund accounting sense.
That's a slippery slope. Payroll taxes are the only thing that keeps the 47% with skin and the game, and I prefer to keep the "based on a true story" fiction that there's a connection between what you pay in and what you get back. Even better that "what you get back" realistically on real growth, at least for those under 55.
[Excellent point. TM]
Posted by: jimmyk | January 03, 2013 at 06:26 PM
Off to meet jimmyk for a Martini in a couple of hours.
Posted by: Danube of Thought iPad | January 03, 2013 at 06:27 PM
What should the congress expect will happen to them if they fail to heed the warning of the North American Law Center?
Posted by: Danube of Thought iPad | January 03, 2013 at 06:30 PM
No doubt. Sure the designer is running a pretty good scam on her. The most ridicilous outfits at premium prices but always stroking her ego as to how great she looks.
But what do I know, she's rich and in congress, and I'm in a secret undisclosed location ...
Posted by: RichatUF | January 03, 2013 at 06:35 PM
"History is pretty clear that Americans do not react in advance to head off problems, we very much wait until something happens before we pay attention.
It's the story of my people.
Posted by: Frau Morgen, Morgen nur nicht heute | January 03, 2013 at 06:52 PM
JMH has also been on my mind.
Posted by: Frau Morgen, Morgen nur nicht heute | January 03, 2013 at 06:53 PM
The dopes at Democratic Underground are starting to catch on--they noticed their employers are deducting more payroll taxes..HEH
Posted by: Clarice | January 03, 2013 at 07:02 PM
Wasn't her husband involved in a shady real estate deal with Rahm Emanuel?
Posted by: Rocco | January 03, 2013 at 07:22 PM
That's sort of the least of it, Rocco;
http://mcnorman.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/why-should-it-matter-that-stanley-greenberg-gave-free-rent-to-rahm-emanuel/
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 07:29 PM
Oh yeah, BP...what a bunch of hypocrites. Like Gore selling his network to Qatar owned al Jazeera, one of the biggest oil producing countries in the world. So much for global warming!
Posted by: Rocco | January 03, 2013 at 08:04 PM
"denialism"!
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/heidi-heitkamp-doesnt-want-bigger-deficits-so-shell-vote-to-raise-the-debt-ceiling/
You can't make this stuff up.
Posted by: pagar | January 03, 2013 at 08:04 PM
Well at some point, BP had become 'Beyond Petroleum,' as Mark Steyn has reminded us, that's why they were deep into the AGW/Climate scam, and they had corresponding directors with Goldman, but as with Podesta, they were compromised by big oil connections,
Posted by: narciso | January 03, 2013 at 08:08 PM
Imagine you knew somebody who spent more than he earned every month. He put it all on credit cards, and he paid the minimum balances, but every month he went further and further into debt.
He also had a savings account, and every month he dutifully "saved" money by depositing it into his account.
Now his credit cards are maxed out. He has $50,000 of credit card debt, and is going to bankruptcy court.
He is outraged, OUTRAGED, that the first thing that the court orders is that the $20,000 in his "savings" account be used to partially pay off his creditors.
But I PAID INTO that account! I EARNED that money!!! That's DIFFERENT MONEY! You can't take that it's MINE!!!!
Every single solitary year since social security was started, the US government has spent more that year than all of the taxes -- including so-called "social security taxes" -- that the government has collected. None of those "social security taxes" had anything to do with the social security benefits of the people paying the taxes. Every penny -- and lots more borrowed pennies -- went to fund the level of government spending that the people's duly elected representatives voted to have. The government spending has already long ago taken place (ok, a huge amount has been since 2009 not so long ago!) But it's gone, it's spent. Just like the guy borrowing money to put into his "savings" account, it's not his money, because he already spent it!
ALL of it.Posted by: cathyf | January 04, 2013 at 12:48 AM