Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Paul Krugman: Social Security Madness

Has the Washington Post gone mad asks Dean Baker, reading the Post’s latest editorial on Social Security. The answer is no: it has been mad all along.

Dean points out, correctly, that the Post’s argument here is: “In the future, Social Security might have to cut benefits. To prevent these possible future benefit cuts, we must cut future benefits.”

But this isn’t new – the same argument was rolled out in 2005.

Dean Baker: Has the Washington Post Gone Mad?

Confused readers may wonder based on its lead editorial complaining that supporters of Social Security: “pursue a maddening  strategy of minimizing the existence of any problem and accusing those who seek solutions of trying to destroy Social Security.”

The piece begins by telling readers that: “THIS YEAR, for the first time since 1983, Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it receives from payroll taxes — $41 billion. This development is not an emergency, but it is a warning sign (emphasis in original).” It certainly is a warning sign. The falloff in Social Security tax revenue is a warning that the economy is seriously depressed due to the collapse of the housing bubble. Double digit unemployment leads to all sorts of problems, including the strains that it places on pension funds like Social Security.

In a sane newspaper the next sentence would be pointing out the urgent need to get back to full employment. Instead the Post tells readers:

“Too soon, this year’s anomaly will become the norm. By 2037, all the Social Security reserves will have been drained and the income flowing into the program will only be enough to pay 75 percent of scheduled benefits. If that sounds tolerable, consider that two-thirds of seniors rely on Social Security as their main source of income. The average annual benefit is $14,000. Those who care most about avoiding such painful cuts ought to be working on ways to bolster the program’s finances — and soon, when the necessary changes will be less drastic than if action is postponed.”

Timothy Egan: The Mirthless Senate

The United States Senate, which still flatters itself with the misnomer “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” counts a former Major League Baseball player,  an organic wheat farmer, far too many lawyers and a member who  describes herself as a mom in tennis shoes among its select 100.

Last year, when this club added someone with a most unlikely working background – Al Franken, the professional comedian who is the junior senator from Minnesota – I thought the upper chamber would finally get something it most lacked:  a sharp sense of humor.

Like many who followed Franken’s career since his early  days as a writer and performer on “Saturday Night Live,” I anticipated  a flash of funny from him after he waded  into the pool of poll-tested, pundit-vetted, lobbyist-cowering politicians.

Shuja Nawaz: Hope amid Pakistan’s tragedy

The rains that have for the past two weeks caused the worst flooding in northwest Pakistan in eight decades have shifted attention from the country’s battle against insurgency and militancy and the fragility of its relationship with the United States. As the monsoon rains move south, numerous roads, bridges and dams have been damaged. Crops have been destroyed. It is likely that next year’s crops will not be planted. Yet amid all this destruction are reasons for optimism.

Rapid U.S. action to support Pakistan’s relief efforts may help improve America’s image among a population that generally resents the United States. Washington’s $55 million aid pledge makes it the largest donor among the international community. U.S. Chinooks — seen as angels of mercy after the 2005 earthquake — are helping Pakistanis over flood-ravaged mountains and plains, and represent both U.S. ability to help Pakistanis and the Pakistani military’s willingness to work with its U.S. counterparts. This collaboration will go a long way toward building relationships among rank-and-file service members. The head of Pakistan’s air force is visiting the United States this week to see joint air exercises in Nevada. Such encounters will educate people and help both countries dispel false notions about each other.

Ted Galen Carpenter and Malou Innocent: Hamid Karzai and America’s Vietnam mistake

In dealing with the erratic and unreliable Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, Washington is replicating the pattern of exaltation and subsequent blame-shifting it took five decades ago toward South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem.

Amid growing debate about whether the United States should stay in Afghanistan, one issue of agreement is that Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, is both the central figure in the war and its weakest link.

Recent embarrassing controversies between Karzai and Washington – including a move this month by the Afghan leader to hinder U.S.-backed anti-corruption investigations in Kabul – reveal a troubling pattern in U.S. foreign policy. U.S. leaders have a tendency to hail flawed foreign leaders as the saviors of their countries, only to publicly disparage them later for not meeting America’s lofty expectations.

In dealing with the erratic and unreliable Karzai, Washington is replicating the pattern of exaltation and subsequent blame-shifting it followed five decades ago with South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem. That episode produced famously disastrous results.

Joshua Green: The raid on food stamps

ON TUESDAY, President Obama signed a $26 billion bill to help state and local governments cover Medicaid payments and avoid having to lay off teachers and other public employees. In what passes for high drama in Washington, the House of Representatives was called back from its summer recess to vote on the package, and the successful outcome was hailed as a major Democratic victory. “We can’t stand by and do nothing while pink slips are given to the men and women who educate our children or keep our communities safe,” Obama said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

No, it doesn’t. But only by the occluded standards of contemporary Washington could this aid package be considered a victory. What began three months ago as a $50 billion emergency spending bill limped to the president’s desk at half that size and was largely paid for – “offset” in the clinical terminology of the budget – by cutting $12 billion from the food stamp program. In other words, a measure designed to help one group struggling in the recession came at the expense of another that is even worse off – and growing rapidly.