The Fight to Protect Social Security

The bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which was created by President Barack Obama earlier this year, is using exaggerated rhetoric to heighten deficit fears at a time when many economists say more government spending is needed to spur hiring and avert a second dip in the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The commission – co-chaired by former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and President Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles – is talking about cuts to Social Security, Medicare and middle-class benefits like the home mortgage deduction rather than focusing on three key causes of the deficit: massive war and weapons spending, giant tax cuts for the wealthy, and the faltering economy.

By contrast, 40 leading economists, including Nobel Prize winners, issued a statement calling for more government action in the short-term while treating the federal debt as a longer-range problem.

“We recognize the necessity of a program to cut the mid- and long-term federal deficit but the imperative requirement now, and the surest course to balance the budget over time, is to restore a full measure of economic activity,” the signers wrote.

Full Story: Consortiumnews.com.