Roger Hickey

On Tuesday, May 15, one of America's wealthiest men, Peter G. Peterson, will use his foundation's money to lecture the rest of us about why the Federal Deficit is the most serious problem facing our country. Since poll after poll demonstrates that strong majorities of Americans care far...

On Tuesday House Republicans, led by Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan, will unveil a suicide pact, in the form of a new budget that ignores the clear views of the majority of Americans, and which, if they embrace it almost unanimously, as they did last year's similar Ryan Budget, will...

The reason members of the Super Committee didn't reach an agreement is that Republican members insisted on damaging cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicare -- and they wouldn't budge from their refusal to roll back tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans.

If the so-called "Super Committee"...

The Wall Street Journal and other media are reporting definitively on the Obama deficit plan to be announced on Monday. The big news: the President will not propose raising the Medicare eligibility age. So the millions of older workers and unemployed people now desperately trying to hold on...

The Washington Post and New York Times report that President Obama will offer Republican negotiators major cuts to Social Security and Medicare when they meet today.

Supporters of these essential programs are outraged -- and rightly so. We've been told that Social Security,...

The front page of today's Wall Street Journal features an article ("Key Seniors Association Pivots on Benefit Cut") saying the organization "is dropping its longstanding opposition to cutting Social Security benefits." The piece is based on a conversation with AARP policy director John Rother. This is a big...

Last week's special election in New York's 26th Congressional district was a political earthquake, demonstrating that the American majority, even in the most Republican of districts, will reject a candidate who embraces cuts to Medicare benefits or major changes to that most popular program. And, since almost every Republican in...

Out in the America, unemployment is back up to 9 percent, but inside the Washington beltway bubble the consensus, driven by conservatives seems to be for austerity. An unholy alliance of pundits, politicians and even reporters -- who differ only in degree -- is insisting on the need to slash...

House Budget chairman Paul Ryan's budget resolution has been rightly condemned by anyone who cares about economic recovery, Medicare, Medicaid, public investment, programs for the poor and disadvantaged, tax justice, and just plain honesty in budgeting. The Huffington Post has been full of good analysis -- see

The terrible shootings in Arizona should make us all get beyond the sound-bite wars. Will the media let us?

As soon as the story leaked that President Obama was about to appoint former aides to President Clinton, Bill Daley and Gene Sperling, to key positions (Chief...

Within days of Christmas and the good cheer of the holiday season, two of the Washington Post's conservative columnists offered almost identical advice to President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Dare to Cut Social Security, said Michael Gerson, former adviser to George W. Bush. (Washington Post, December 28)...

Republican hostage-takers got President Obama to go along with their tax cuts for the wealthy by threatening to raise taxes on the middle class and blocking even modest stimulus funds for our struggling economy.

Now the Republicans have identified their next hostage: They're going to threaten to destroy the...

Picture everyone sitting around the table this Thanksgiving and the cranky old uncle lobs a political hot potato at you designed to push the conversation to a shouting match. He may be an inflammatory liberal or a conservative grouch, he may even try to have a Tea Party on top...

Today the Presidential Deficit Commission's co-chairs released a radically right-wing budget proposal. They acted without any prior announcement, just three weeks before the entire Commission was scheduled to deliver its collective report. Consider it as a sneak attack on the middle class, a pre-dawn raid on the American dream.

Many...

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have now called for Senator Alan Simpson, co-chair of the White House deficit commission, to step down -- after he insulted the head of the Older Women's League, Ashley Carson, by implying that her dedication to protecting retirees was not "honest work" --...

On Saturday, the group known as America Speaks (funded by Wall Street mogul Peter G. Peterson and two other foundations) brought together several thousand people in meetings in 18 cities. They gave participants misleading background information about the federal deficit and economic options to achieve fiscal "balance" and...

Anne Kim and Jonathan Cowan of Third Way took to the Politico Arena op-ed page (and website) on Thursday with the hoary slander that progressives care only about "expanding the entitlement state" and have no interest in economic growth or expanding wealth. Apparently blind to the worst economic...

On Wednesday Wall Street multi-billionaire Peter G. Peterson, who has pledged to spend a billion dollars to panic Americans about deficits in order to get them to slash Social Security and Medicare, is conducting a "Fiscal Summit" in Washington featuring many of the very people who created the...

This weekend CNN is giving four hours of free airtime to the leading propagandist fanning the flames of deficit hysteria, Pete Peterson. And the other "experts' all echo Peterson's conservative deficit fixations. Bloggers and online activists are joining today to promote this action. And if CNN does go...

On Thursday President Obama signed an executive order creating a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

This deficit commission is based on an idea promoted by two Senators, Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), which would have required the Congress to vote on their budget-cutting recommendations in...