Simpson and Bowles and austerity's other sales people aren't really economic thinkers. They're paid to pitch a product. They didn't invent austerity any more than Alex Rodriguez invented Pepsi. But what they're peddling isn't a soft drink. It's a lot worse for you than that.

The adoption of this amendment by the Senate continues this trend, and moves forward an agenda that can significantly improve outcomes for young people and their families even in the constrained budget reality that our leaders at all levels face today.

Our Social Security system is vital to the economic security of our elderly, people with disabilities, children of deceased workers, and others. Whatever we do, we should disregard Wall-street funded reports urging us, under false pretenses of accuracy, to cut Social Security benefits.

I can only think of this metaphor, which I believe is apt: There's a ticking time bomb in your living room, you know the bomb will certainly explode in 10 to 15 years, and you choose only to reassure your family, "There is no 'immediate' danger." That is pretty much the situation we face today.

In addition to his current duties as professional-liberal-even-Joe-Sixpack-can-love on MSNBC, Ballard Spahr court jester, Rendell is currently co-chairing the steering committee of something called The CEO Campaign To Fix The Debt.

The "sequester" -- mindless, across-the-board spending cuts designed purposefully to be abhorrent to both political parties -- now seems likely to go into effect on March 1. The sequester cuts added to spending cuts and tax increases already scheduled will slow growth and cost jobs. Government austerity has already contributed to the worst recovery in post-World War II history. Why would the U.S. repeat this folly, despite warnings from the IMF and Federal Reserve officials? Every calamity has many authors -- Obama's premature turn to deficit reduction in 2009, the Tea Party zealots, a hapless and clueless Republican congressional leadership and more. One major contribution comes from the money and monomania of Pete Peterson, a Wall Street billionaire who has committed about half a billion bucks rousing hysteria about deficits and debt.

In the coming weeks, legislators in Washington will take up two looming matters: the debate over the sequester and a debate over the budget. Everythin...

Okay, it's clear they don't get it. After several elections, the Great Recession and lots of moaning and groaning about the stalemate in Washington, o...

According to an email I just received, a major player in the deficit-hack industry would like Americans of all ages to contact their Congressional rep...

Over at Daily Intel, Jonathan Chait dings Erskine Bowles, correctly, for succumbing to the same Beltway dyskinesia that you often see in famous column...

The latest bumper-sticker slogan that "Social Security is unsustainable" doesn't stand up under scrutiny.

If you had asked me this morning, "Hey, what is the most grotesquely 'Washington' thing that will happen this week," I definitely would have said, "Th...

WASHINGTON -- New York mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Wednesday that he has joined Campaign to Fix the Debt, a controversial debt-reduction group f...

I've seen you on television chatting up your debt reduction proposal. And while you come across as a likable guy, your claim to be working on behalf of the next generation of young Americans is bogus. Here's why.

I'm still amused when I read or hear people talk about how both parties are separated by ideology with Democrats wanting big government while Republicans are for smaller government.

The Center for American Progress has a smart, simple, progressive, and politically plausible new fiscal plan out and it's worth a close look. It's actually pretty Clintonesque.

WASHINGTON -- A conservative scholar at the Heritage Foundation, Edmund F. Haislmaier, attacked a nonprofit employee Tuesday morning in a hotel where ...

WASHINGTON -- Members of the influential Campaign to Fix The Debt struck a posture of post-partisan political neutrality this past week, as they swarm...

The Simpson-Bowles personal profit tour reveals that for them, for their creation -- the speciously labeled Campaign to Fix the Debt -- and for the CEOs, right-wing groups and Republicans rallying round them, the effort has nothing to do with deficits or fixing anything.