I'm getting pretty tired of this. For starters, I didn't exactly ask to be born in the late 50s. But I was. Given a choice, I'd just as soon not be one of the biggest generations born in the US. I'd rather stay in my corner and be creative. Like it or not, though, I am a Baby Boomer. And lately, that means I'm viewed as a piggy citizen who wants more than my fair share at the expense of...gasp! My children. And my future grandchildren, of course.

This is the Village Wisdom, of course. Instead of dealing with reality, it's far easier to set up a generational battle between us and our children over who might be more entitled to a future without a ballooning deficit by suggesting Boomers take the hit now in order to make it nicer for everyone else.

There has been much brave talk recently, from Republicans and Democrats alike, about reducing budget deficits and controlling government spending. The trouble is that hardly anyone admits that accomplishing these goals must include making significant cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits for baby boomers.

Bullsh*t. Love the "hardly anyone admits" sentence there, stated as if it were fact that no one in their right mind disputes. This is how they do things. They state things as fact which are not fact, in order to make us think it's fact.

There is no need to make significant cuts in Social Security or Medicare. The trouble is that hardly anyone admits that accomplishing these goals must include reasonable tax increases to retire the deficit in a reasonable amount of time. Because, and listen closely...

Social Security isn't ballooning the deficit. Medicare doesn't have to balloon the deficit.

Repeat that. Over and over.

The tax cut deal just made cut employees' Social Security contributions by 2% and those contributions will be made up via the general fund. This is why there's such an outcry on the right about the deficit (even though they also argue that tax cuts don't have to be paid for...) and on the left about the danger this poses to Social Security. On this one, the left is correct, but it's a problem which could be remedied with one small change to existing law.

Equalize the taxable wage base. It hasn't been done for 20 years. The cap is too low. Leave employees' contributions at 4% and raise the limit to cover the difference. That's all. In 2010 and 2011, the taxable wage base was $106,800. Any earnings over that level do not count for purposes of Social Security contributions (though they do count toward Medicare contributions).

This 2009 report (PDF) tells the tale quite simply.

CRS estimated the potential impact of eliminating the taxable wage base on future benefits and taxes. If the base were removed in 2013, CRS estimates that by 2035, 21% of beneficiaries would have paid some additional payroll taxes over the course of their lifetimes. However, the average change in taxes and benefits would be small. Looking only at individuals who would pay any additional taxes over the course of their lifetimes, at the median, total lifetime tax payments would rise by 3% and benefits would increase by 2% relative to current law. In general, those in the highest income groups would have the largest changes in both tax payments and in benefits relative to current law.

Raising or eliminating the cap on wages that are subject to taxes could reduce the long-range deficit in the Social Security Trust Funds. For example, if the maximum taxable earnings amount had been raised in 2005 from $90,000 to $150,000—roughly the level needed to cover 90% of all earnings—it would have eliminated roughly 40% of the long-range shortfall in Social Security. If all earnings were subject to the payroll tax, but the base was retained for benefit calculations, the Social Security Trust Funds would remain solvent for the next 75 years. However, having different bases for contributions and benefits would weaken the traditional link between the taxes workers pay into the system and the benefits they receive.

This report doesn't address the possibility of keeping workers' contributions at 4% AND expanding the wage base, but I'm betting some combination of the two would serve the purpose of maintaining solvency while spreading out the contributions in a way that is more progressive.

But no. The Very Important Commentators have other Very Important Thoughts on The Subject.

If we don't [cut boomers' benefits], we will be condemned to some combination of inferior policies. We can raise taxes sharply over the next 15 or 20 years, roughly 50 percent from recent levels, to cover expanding old-age subsidies and existing government programs. Or we can accept permanently huge budget deficits.

Again I say, bullsh*t.

Medicare is indisputably expensive. How can it not be when it covers everyone insurers wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole? Elderly and disabled people are not going to be cheap, and it's not going to get any cheaper when we've got returning disabled veterans needing care from the Veterans' Administration either. The correct answer for Medicare is one that most progressives have embraced for years: Allow others to buy into it.

Here's the theoretical buy-in plan I always thought would work best. It phases in buy-in opportunities and opens a door for those who cannot afford insurance now and will be eligible for federal subsidies later.

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Perhaps if we purged the tax code of the numerous incentives to move jobs overseas (the latest was in the recent tax cut deal), it would be more likely to translate into jobs within shorter commuting distance than India:

Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn't anyone hiring?

Actually, many American companies are – just maybe not in your town. They're hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat.

More than half of the 15,000 people that Caterpillar Inc. has hired this year were outside the U.S. UPS is also hiring at a faster clip overseas. For both companies, sales in international markets are growing at least twice as fast as domestically.

The trend helps explain why unemployment remains high in the United States, edging up to 9.8 percent last month, even though companies are performing well: All but 4 percent of the top 500 U.S. corporations reported profits this year, and the stock market is close to its highest point since the 2008 financial meltdown.

But the jobs are going elsewhere. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, says American companies have created 1.4 million jobs overseas this year, compared with less than 1 million in the U.S. The additional 1.4 million jobs would have lowered the U.S. unemployment rate to 8.9 percent, says Robert Scott, the institute's senior international economist.

"There's a huge difference between what is good for American companies versus what is good for the American economy," says Scott.

Ironically, December 28, 1999 also fell on a Tuesday - but the similarities stop there. In 1999 everyone was thinking about the fabled Y2K catastrophes just around the corner. Seattle decided celebrating the new millennium wasn't such a hot idea around the Space Needle, brought on largely by fear of a terrorist attack of some kind. And they probably had good reason - only a few days earlier Algerian born Ahmed Rassem tried to pass himself off as Benni Antoine Norris and drive across the border at Vancouver in a car loaded with Nitroglycerine and, it was discovered, a number of plastic bombs. His final destination was supposed to be LAX, but it didn't stop Seattle from breaking out in sweats. So New Years Eve was a no-go at the Space Needle.

Other news was the great recall of Pokemon toys from Burger King. An Indian Airlines jet hi-jacked and sitting on the tarmac in Kanhadar Afghanistan waiting for a $200 million ransom payment. Online drug sales getting out of hand. Shuttle Discovery spends first Christmas in space while trying to repair the Hubble telescope. Domestic box office receipts topped $7.5 Billion, the most in over 40 years, with the latest Star Wars entry taking in nearly $430 million.

Here is the news of the day via the CBS World News Roundup for Tuesday December 28, 1999.

Matt Eckel at Foreign Policy Watch points to this NYT article discussing the Obama administration's next arms control topic - "non-strategic" or tactical nuclear weapons. From the NYT:

Today, the United States retains about 500 tactical weapons, according to the figures released this year, and experts say about 180 of them are still stationed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Russia has between 3,000 and 5,000 of them, depending on the estimate, and American officials have said Moscow moved more of them closer to NATO allies as recently as last spring in response to the deployment of American missile defense installations closer to its territory.

In the 21st century, there is no plausible military, political or deterrent justification for the Russian government to deploy several thousand such weapons,” said Frank Miller, a former national security aide to President George W. Bush and now now at the Scowcroft Group in Washington.

Baker Spring of the Heritage Foundation believes that any deal to withdraw tactical nukes from Europe would ultimately benefit Russia in the Great Game that is war. And of course, neither belief here is entirely true. Given that Russia has a rather weak conventional military force, it relies on tactical nuclear weapons as a defensive measure to discourage any ideas of invasion or border challenges.  As Matt notes, it's all in the context of general military operations and strategy.

Without getting into the specifics of where tactical nuclear weapons are deployed, or the minutae of their operation, I'd simply point out that, for all the well-intentioned efforts to depict nuclear war as its own ballgame with its own rules, war is war. People are killed just as dead by conventional weapons as by nuclear ones. Thus, the balance of conventional forces needs to be considered when assessing the wisdom of a given nuclear deal. In other words, NATO presumably relies less on tactical nukes than the Russians because NATO's conventional forces are more capable than those of Russia. Even if a deal with Russia allowed Russian tactical nukes to be more readily deployable than American ones, that would not ipso facto give Russia an overall strategic advantage. It may be that, even with Russian tactical nukes more easily deployed, NATO forces would still prevail in a ground war. And in the meantime, there would be far fewer tactical nukes overall, reducing the (far more plausible) likelihood of theft or unauthorized use.

We don't need US tactical nukes in Europe, nor do we really need US military forces in terms of Army brigades and Air Force fighter/bomber wings in Europe. Both are there for "security assurance" reasons, so European nations can continue to underfund their defense programs and not worry about the Russian bear coming across the border. It's so indicative of a twen-cen mindset. And what will become an ironic satire of the New START talks, all the Republicans who were moaning about how tac nukes weren't addressed in the treaty will be sure to argue vehemently that we cannot afford to take any out of Europe in the near future.

I've been astounded by the treatment of Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks story by the media ever since it broke. Howard Kurtz called Assange disingenuous for not outing his sources, which is insane.

Howard Kurtz allegedly understands journalism, so it's outrageous for Kurtz to take offense when Assange refuses to out his sources, as I explained in a post called: Why are the media so eager to bury WikiLeaks?

KURTZ: Rick Stengel, let's turn now to your interview with Julian Assange. I found some of his answers to be absolutely disingenuous. For example, you ask whether secrets are ever necessary, and he says, well, his secrets are necessary, protecting his sources, but "our responsibility is to bring matters to the public."

What's important is the information contained in the WikiLeaks cables, not Assange himself -- and when we're dealing with whistleblowers, of course their identities have to be protected.

Journalism 101 states that you never out your sources, no matter where you get your information. The Beltway Villagers even defended the odious Judith Miller when she went to prison rather than divulge that Scooter Libby was her source in the outing of a Valerie Plame, as I've mentioned before. That was information that led this country into an unjustified war based on lies told by Miller and her leakers.

After watching Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC show such disdain for Assange, I asked a question that really hasn't been asked all that much.

Are folks in the media afraid they might be implicated in Wikileaks cables?

I expected the State Department to speak out against WikiLeaks, but why have the media been so hostile to WikiLeaks and so passive about the people trying to silence his operation without a shred of evidence of him being guilty of a crime?

I wonder if they are afraid that either they or their friends might show up in some of these leaked cables in an unfavorable light. Yesterday on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell was discussing Assange's bail in the UK and seemed afraid that he might have access to the dreaded "Internet" and destroy the world.

I understand that access to D.C. is very precious to the Beltway Village, so outside of fear of what might be found out about their friends and that they'll earn extra credit for bashing Assange by the powers that be, I still don't get their attacks on the whole WikiLeaks story. And as we've seen, cable TV news has turned away from being a deliverer of news and instead focuses on orchestrating battles of opinions with punditshills and ex-GOP Bushies, but the networks for the most part have to turn away from their own stable of journalistic talkers to bring in a differing opinion on the WikiLeaks story, because the Villagers on TV are routinely characterizing Julian Assange as a terrorist.

Glenn Greenwald posts today about his CNN interview last night over WikiLeaks and he highlighted four points in his post, The merger of journalists and government officials:

4) If one thinks about it, there's something quite surreal about sitting there listening to a CNN anchor and her fellow CNN employee angrily proclaim that Julian Assange is a "terrorist" and a "criminal" when the CNN employee doing that is . . . . George W. Bush's Homeland Security and Terrorism adviser. Fran Townsend was a high-level national security official for a President who destroyed another nation with an illegal, lie-fueled military attack that killed well over 100,000 innocent people, created a worldwide torture regime, illegally spied on his own citizens without warrants, disappeared people to CIA "black sites," and erected a due-process-free gulag where scores of knowingly innocent people were put in cages for years. Julian Assange never did any of those things, or anything like them. But it's Assange who is the "terrorist" and the "criminal."

Do you think Jessica Yellin would ever dare speak as scornfully and derisively about George Bush or his top officials as she does about Assange? Of course not. Instead, CNN quickly hires Bush's Homeland Security Adviser who then becomes Yellin's colleague and partner in demonizing Assange as a "terrorist." Or consider the theme that framed last night's segment: Assange is profiting off classified information by writing a book! Beyond the examples I gave, Bob Woodward has become a very rich man by writing book after book filled with classified information about America's wars which his sources were not authorized to give him. Would Yellin ever in a million years dare lash out at Bob Woodward the way she did Assange? To ask the question is to answer it (see here as CNN's legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin is completely befuddled in the middle of his anti-WikiLeaks rant when asked by a guest, Clay Shirky, to differentiate what Woodward continuously does from what Assange is doing)...read on

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(Ed. note: We invited Nicole Sandler to blog here to announce her new site, designed to help 99ers find support and work.)

Last week, while guest hosting The Randi Rhodes Show and discussing the unexpected but wonderful progress made in the lame duck session of Congress, we began talking about the group of Americans who've been left out in the cold: the 99ers. I wanted to something to help them, so I spent Christmas weekend building Helpthe99ers.com.

The 99ers.

That's the name given to the millions of people who lost their jobs during the Bush almost-a-depression-recession, and have now exhausted all of their unemployment benefits. President Obama "negotiated" a big deal just weeks ago that, I supposed, paved the way for the lame duck Congress to repeal DADT, give health care to the 9-11 first responders, pass a food safety bill and ratify the new START treaty. He agreed to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans in return for the big Republican concession -- a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits, something that they should have (and likely would have) agreed to anyway.

But what most people don't realize is that the 13-month extension doesn't extend the benefits for the unemployed... it just allows the current unemployment benefits programs to continue operating, giving people benefits for up to a maximum of 99 weeks, for another 13 months.

But if you're a "99er" -- if you've exhausted your benefits, you're likely feeling quite forgotten right now. From the Obama-GOP tax cut "compromise" to the very productive not-so-lame duck session of Congress, there was nothing for the 99ers.

So, last week on the Randi Rhodes Show, we were talking about the plight of the 99ers, and people began calling in with their stories. I knew I needed to do something, though I'm not in much better shape than they are!

I'm also unemployed. Or, I guess, underemployed. My last regular paycheck stopped coming on January 21, 2010 when Air America radio filed Chapter 7 and closed its doors.

I immediately moved my show online, where it continues to this day Monday through Thursday mornings from 10-noon ET at www.radioornot.com. It doesn't come with a paycheck, but I don't collect unemployment, as I'm now technically self-employed.

In addition to doing some voiceover work, voicetracking, web work, and other odd jobs, I'm honored to guest host the Randi Rhodes Show when she's out or on vacation, as is the case for these last two weeks of the year.

So, I was trying to figure out what I could do, and I came up with the idea of www.HelpThe99ers.com, where people in need can post their stories, and those fortunate enough to be in a position to help can contact them directly.

The main part of the site is The Help Board. In addition to a general discussion area and a jobs area (where people can post their skills, employers can post openings, and entrepreneurs can share ideas), there's a section for 99ers to tell their stories, organized by states.

My idea and wish is that people who can help will read the stories and reach out to those who touch them the most. The site is set up so that people can contact one another directly.

But it will only work if people use it. So, if you're in need, post your story. If you can help someone, please do. And please help spread the word.

Continuing our year end countdowns, today it's 1960. Once again it features a panel of CBS News correspondents moderated by Edward R. Murrow. The big topic was, aside from The Cold War and the youngest President ever elected, Africa and the emerging independence movement sweeping that continent. The old Colonial powers were falling by the wayside and the big fear was how many of these newly declared nations would land in the sphere of the Soviet Union. It's interesting that so much attention was paid to Africa as the result of the Cold War, and how very little attention is paid now, except where situations like Ivory Coast are concerned which, if you spent more than five minutes looking outside of U.S. mainstream media, would know this has been brewing for a couple of years. But this is 2010, and in 1960 it was the marathon race for converts.

The Cold War did permeate the discussion, with Southeast Asia again as a point of concern, along with Berlin and France's ongoing crisis in Algeria.

So here is the broadcast from December 28, 1960 with optimism and pessimism running a tie race.

We all saw what a vicious hypocrite John McCain really is last week when he voted against the DREAM Act -- a bill he not only sponsored, but campaigned before Latinos on.

Now he's justifying his mendacious flip-flop by complaining that Latinos turned their backs on him:

McCain also voted no Saturday on the Dream Act, which would have granted citizenship to thousands of foreign-born college students. He initially sponsored the legislation. Gullett said McCain constantly faced voters on the campaign trail last year asking about border security and that affected his stance. His communications director, Brooke Buchanan, explained that on immigration, McCain believes the border needs to be secured above all else, citing the increasing border violence over the last four years. "His opinion has evolved with time," she said. "Don't we expect our leaders to base their opinions and policies, don't we expect them to change with the time? And that's what Sen. McCain has been doing. It's truly in the best interest of our country."

Woods said "it hurts" McCain to vote against legislation like the Dream Act after years of working on reform but said the senator felt betrayed when Latinos overwhelmingly supported Obama in 2008. "When you carry that fight at great sacrifice year after year and then you are abandoned during the biggest fight of your life, it has to have some sort of effect on you," he said.

But as Kos observes, McCain actually threw Latinos under the bus in January 2008, during the Republican presidential debates:

MS. HOOK: Senator McCain, let me just take the issue to you, because you obviously have been very involved in it. During this campaign, you, like your rivals, have been putting the first priority, heaviest emphasis, on border security. But your original immigration proposal back in 2006 was much broader and included a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are already here.

What I'm wondering is, and you seem to be downplaying that part, at this point, if your original proposal came to a vote in the Senate floor, would you vote for it?

SEN. MCCAIN: It won't. It won't. That's why we went through the debate.

MS. HOOK: I know, but what if it did?

SEN. MCCAIN: No, I would not, because we know what the situation is today. The people want the border secured first. And so to say that that would come to the floor of the Senate, it won't. We went through various amendments which prevented that ever, that proposal.

He also backed the bus back up and ran over Latinos again in May, on Bill O'Reilly's show:

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It's a golden era in government! No more wasteful spending or cronyism! It's a brave new day, where integrity rules every single thing the new Tea Party politicians do: By the way, this same daughter, Lauren LePage, went to school in Florida, where she paid in-state tuition --because LePage’s wife violated tax laws by claiming residency in both Maine and Florida. (She was eventually ordered to pay back taxes).

In other words, business as usual. Teabaggers, you were suckered:

With the strong backing of the tea party movement, Maine Gov.-elect Paul LePage (R) rode a wave of discontent overbull semen taxes to a surprising victory last month, telling President Obama to “go to to hell” and warning a reporter that he would punch him in the face. On the campaign trail, LePage raged against a what he considered a corrupt state government and “pledged to surround himself with ‘the best and the brightest’ and to avoid political cronyism.”

But on Thursday, LePage announced that he had hired his own 22-year-old daughter for a position in the “upper echelon of his administration,” with a salary of $41,000, the Bangor Daily News reports:

Lauren LePage, 22, will serve as assistant to the governor’s chief of staff, John McGough — a position that administration officials describe as entry-level and is commensurate with her experience, work history and education.

LePage, a recent college graduate, will be a salaried political appointee earning approximately $41,000 a year, according to Dan Demeritt, incoming director of communications in the LePage administration. [...]

Maine governors have wide discretion in creating staff positions within their offices, filling those positions and setting salaries. Because such appointments are political positions — known as “special assistants to the governor” — there are no rules barring Maine’s chief executive from hiring family members.

According to the current administration, the average entry level salary is $30,000.” Indeed, the minimum starting salary for a certified teachers in Maine is only $30,000, and that requires extra study. Meanwhile, the entry-level salary for a Maine StatePolice officer is just $36,000 after graduation from the police academy.

And as Maine progressive blog Dirigo Blue points out, LePage’s daughter will also bemoving into the governor’s mansion with her father. With taxpayers footing the bill for her rent, utilities, food, and other expenses, “Not only will Lauren be earning $41,000 in direct income, but she’ll be making another $12,000 or more indirectly.”

Maine Democrats Executive Director Mary Erin Casale called the hiring a “brazen display of political nepotism,” but LePage aides said the position is “entry-level and iscommensurate with her experience, work history and education.”

As the New Year - and the new GOP House majority - approaches, Republicans are ramping up their war on government workers. Grover Norquist and his Weekly Standard allies urged Congress to let cash-strapped states go bankrupt in order to slash public employees, drain their pension funds and punish their unions. At the heart of their crusade is the bogus claim, as 2012 GOP White House hopeful Tim Pawlenty put it two weeks ago, that "since January 2008 the private sector has lost nearly 8 million jobs while local, state and federal governments added 590,000." Alas, as with so much conservative mythmaking, the statement isn't merely a lie. As the data show, the public sector has actually shed hundreds of thousands of jobs over the past two years.

While Ohio Republican Steve LaTourette was among the first to deploy the mythical 590,000 figure this summer, it was Governor Pawlenty who brought it to prominence two weeks ago in his vitriolic Wall Street Journal op-ed, "Government Unions vs. Taxpayers."

"They work for government, which, thanks to President Obama, has become the only booming "industry" left in our economy. Since January 2008 the private sector has lost nearly eight million jobs while local, state and federal governments added 590,000."

Sadly for the man who calls himself "T-Paw," the figure isn't even close.

As Politifact noted about T-Paw's "Pants on Fire" lie, "Pawlenty's statement doesn't account for the tremendous -- and now vanished -- bump from hiring Census workers." And as it turns out, Pawlenty simply reproduced the 590,000 figure from a June 24, 2010 blog post at Andrew Breitbart's Big Government web site. Once the temporary hiring of Census workers from January 2009 through May 2010 came to an end, Politifact concluded, "total federal hiring comes to only 34,000." Or as Paul Krugman put it:

See, if you measure right at the top of that peak at the right, pretend not to notice that it's all Census workers, and never update the number, you get your myth inserted into the discourse, and it becomes part of what everyone knows ...

But the Republicans' sleight of hand over the Census is just the beginning. Even as they wrongly rail against "over-benefited and overpaid" government workers, hundreds of thousands of state and local government employees have already lost their jobs.

By July 2010, over 200,000 state and municipal workers were laid off. By October, as David Leonhardt reported in the New York Times:

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