Tonight's guests include:
Peter Orszag, former director of the Obama Administration's Office of Management and Budget, currently Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup and columnist for Bloomberg View
Kenji Yoshino, Chief Justice Earl Warren professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law
Chris Hayes, host of “Up with Chris Hayes” weekends on MSNBC and author of “Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy”
We wish you would join us tonight at 9pm ET.
Here's executive producer Bill Wolff with a preview of tonight's show:
Leave a Comment:
I like saying POTUS and FLOTUS, but I can't help it, SCOTUS to me sounds like a terrible skin disease.
For some time now, I've been referring to SCROTUS:
(Supreme Court Right-wingnuts Of The US)
The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.
- Arnold H. Glasow
;-)
Scrotum? I don't know where that's located in the body.
Also, too, allow me to congratulate Delaware on this 225th anniversary of its becoming the First State (by being the first, on this day in 1787, to ratify our Constitution).
The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.
- Arnold H. Glasow
;-)
On the discussion between Ezra Klein and Chris Hayes about how we can manage (as a country) the costs of aging: We could deal with this the way we dealt with poverty. First, shut down the program, and then simply don't talk about the consequences. Or if you want to get serious about projected Social Security costs, it's worth remembering that a chunk of the US population today is post-middle class/poor -- that "Invisible America," as it was once called. We often hear about growing life expectancy in the US, but this applies only to the portion of the population that is middle class or rich. Since welfare "reform," infant mortality rates among the poor have been rising while the life expectancy of America's poor has been on a downhill slide (I read somewhere that it is now around 63). This (fewer living to benefit from Social Security) need to be factored into projected costs.
The Stereogram from TRMS today was actually an elephant with its head clipped off the camera frame, not a sailboat as Ezra Klein had called it.
Ezra invited us to look at the hidden sailboat on the show tonight. The hidden object in the stereogram was an elephant, not a sailboat.
Why does Ezra's reporting matter-of-factly scare the Hell out of Seniors? Why is this Wall Streeter Orszag talking about impoverishing 65-67 year olds by raising the Medicare eligibility age? What are these people facing medical conditions to do? Is this a scam to keep people from retiring at 65 years of age that have jobs?
Why is Obama turning on his voters and selling them out to corporate CEOs? Why is Obama taking Wall Street money for his Inauguration while negotiating the phony created fiscal cliff. Why does Obama insist on higher tax rates for the top 2%, in December 2012; cutting entitlements, but then on Bloomberg TV propose reducing top 2% er income tax rates in the fall of 2013 to below 35%? Why is he even bargaining with my entitlement insurance programs I paid premiums on for over 40 years? If salt has lost its savor, it is good for nothing and is thrown out and trodden under. Progressive Caucus, stop cuts to entitlements and means testing any benefits. Replace this Ezra character with another run of Ed Schultz show!
I completely agree with your post. And agree with your last sentence, as well. Ezra Klein appears to be a rich kid who got his WaPo job through family connections.
If the Democrats go down the road of raising the Medicare eligibility age, they will suffer the same fate in 2014 that they did in 2010. Their base will be angry and dispirited, and will stay home in droves. Republicans will sweep to impressive victories that will make Obama's life even more difficult until he leaves office.
Voters were very clear in this election that they DO NOT WANT SOCIAL SECURITY OR MEDICARE TOUCHED. It would be hard to see how they could have been clearer, rejecting the privatization of SS and the "voucherization" of Medicare. The Republicans raised the issue of raising eligibility ages, and they were rejected out of hand.
Ezra Klein may be right that some, even many, people will "not be damaged" by raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67--but it doesn't matter. Many others, who are counting on Medicare at 65, will be hurt. Some will die because of this. That's not a wild, off the cuff remark. It's the obvious truth.
We should be going the other way with the eligibility age as a first step toward single payer health care. lf we want to cut the costs of medical care as a percentage of GDP, and reduce the deficit, cutting that age to 55 or 60 with a slight increase in the Medicare tax would be an excellent start.
Republicans know that raising the eligibility age is the first step toward eliminating this popular program. That's why they want to do it so badly. If Obama and the Democrats allow this to happen, it will be both a social and a political disaster.
If Democrats are going to be taken seriously as the party that wants to "protect Medicare and Social Security," then they need to prove it in situations like this.
Cuts?? Backsliding?? Capitulation to the wacko right?? No way. Not now. Not ever.
I was really disappointed that Ezra Klein let Citibank hack Peter Orzag babble on about "progressive entitlement reform" and then suggest "fiscal austerity" should be palatable to progressives if changes are made to Social Security that are "phased in gradually over time". Social Security and Medicare are not entitlement programs, they are national retirement and insurance programs.
Klein needs to develop the cojones to effectively challenge such drivel, rather than just going along with it, if he hopes to land his own show on MSNBC.
Bill looks a little camera shy today, everything is working for him, even the color of his sweater, stay away from bright colors. He needs his hair roughed up a bit. I keep falling asleep before Rachel comes on. I can watch the Walrus and then, Bam! Bam! out go the lights.
Agree strongly with Ben and skylark! Why bring such a tool as Orszag into this discussion, given his obvious and well-paid slant against all things not 1%??
Bad booking move, and the exact opposite of adding welcome information and clarification to the issue. I love that people who earn >$millions per year, with multi-million-dollar golden parachutes in their future, comment so blithely on the righteousness of raising the Medicare eligibility age without explicitly weighing the total costs, especially costs to those exhausted near-retirees hanging on to house and life by their fingernails. This is crazy! Raising the entry age into Medicare is actuarily unsound by any measure, yields precious little in the budget-cutting rodeo, and is exactly the reverse of moving toward universal coverage and single-payer. By all means, let's give the Other Side political cover by sacrificing a few million more endangered species: let's not feed the starving, let's kill off those unable to find work, let's free megacorporations from the need to produce non-lethal products, and by all means let's not educate the young. Oh, and seniors? Of what use are they?
Good heavens, Ezra: what were you thinking?
They don't care one bit about the American worker, if youth needs jobs then you keep the retiring age right where it is, because you have a whole new generation of people who will take their place and contribute to Social Security and the other health opportunities for them.. It's no retirement, if you have to lick all your wounds first and then try to enjoy it, it's impossible, because then there are all the Doctors visits, it's a mess. Then they use you as a pin cushion and test out all their new pills on us. Bullcrap! Let the rich be the guinea pigs, we're on to that little scam.
If we ever needed a reason to move quickly to single payer health care, and away from our current expensive piecemeal approach, we saw it in several segments of last night's show.
Until we establish the opportunity to obtain health care as a fundamental right, we will continue to marginalize and jeopardize the lives of tens of millions of people in this country. They will continue to be pawns in a dangerous game that threatens the efficacy--if not the existence--of Medicare.
Democratic concessions on the Medicare eligibility age will come back to haunt them in many ways. For one, Republicans will be able to bludgeon them over the head with it for several elections to come. Dems won't be able to claim that they're the party that will "protect Social Security and Medicare" after they've allowed these kinds of cuts to one of those programs.
In many ways, that is a big Republican goal here. They want to take the issue away from Democrats in future elections. They'll use it--much more successfully than they used the "$716 billion out of Medicare" argument in this election--to neutralize the Dems' advantage on this issue. And that argument, flawed as it was, worked pretty darn well to confuse seniors in Florida and other states with large senior populations. That fact alone should make Dems uneasy about going down the road of cutting these programs.
Obama and the Democrats have the upper hand here. They clearly have the support of the American people, including independents and many Republicans. This is not the issue on which to back down. And it's certainly not the time.
President Obama would tell you I only said I wanted to do deficit reduction in a fair and balanced way by asking the top 2% to pay higher tax rates.
What that means in reality is austerity for the middle class, poor and seniors.
On Monday, the Progressive Coalition plans a "Fiscal Cliff Day of Action". They expect thousands of people in hundreds of cities to stand up and make their voice heard. The objective for Monday is “telling Democrats that they need to make sure in this negotiation that there are no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. The Coalition will be calling on their members of Congress to do the right thing and protect vital services, protect the middle class.
President Obama needs to meet with the Progressive Coalition in the White House, instead of Mitt Romney and business CEOs. What a disgrace. After they worked so hard for him in the election. Meet with progressives this week and reassure them that the big three are off the table.
It's about time that the rich get the minimum wage and that's it. they're partying on all their yachts, sipping poison vinegar and we're handed the bill. Uh Uh, We need a clean sweep for the MayQueen. No more partying on our dime. No more lavish parties, it's time we all worked together for a balanced nation, it's way too lopsided when it comes to equal pay and equal rights. Let's start at the top this time and work our way down. Democrats have got to start going after the Republicans' purse strings. write up more bills to cut the pay for themselves and the rest of the Congress, and the Senate. It's not fair we have no more money, the rich have it all, Let's start from a level playing field and cut salaries of the Government and make them work part-time. We are all created the same. How about we call it the American Winter versus the Arab Spring.
The sexual tension-laden banter between Bill Wolff and the giggly camera women reminds me of the on-air relationship between Letterman and his Assistant/mistress, Stephanie Birkitt.
Just 'Heads up you two.... (-and Bill, we get it already- you love your wife and kids (wink, wink)).
Keep it professional if you want us to take you seriously.
Oooooh, sorry! Can we still be friends?