SOCIAL SECURITY

Since the 1960s, the United States has spent $16 trillion on the welfare state. This unfathomable price tag is more than our entire national debt, which just recently reached $15 trillion. With social welfare expenditure at about 35 percent of GDP, the obvious question is: Are the benefits outweighing the astronomical costs we pay?

House Republicans will roll out their version of the payroll tax cut extension and likely pass it Tuesday the lower chamber. The bill promises to depart wildly from past offerings by both parties in the Senate and brings up the difficult task of bridging a sizable gap between the two.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers skirmished on Friday over plans to extend a payroll-tax cut seen as crucial to a fragile U.S. economic recovery, but aides predicted a last-minute deal.

The White House unveiled a countdown clock this week, tick-tocking away the days, hours, minutes and seconds to a December 31 deadline for extending and expanding the payroll tax cut. It's a doomsday-style reminder that taxes will jump for an estimated 160 million Americans on January 1 if Congress doesn't act.

The long shadow of Occupy Wall Street fell across the New York Legislature Tuesday, when its leaders and Gov. Andrew Cuomo agreed to changes to New York State's income tax, which will cut rates for many in the middle class, while adding a new bracket for those making over $2 million a year. And we, the middle class, owe that rag-tag group of small-d democrats our gratitude.

Occupy Wall Street is the sharp tip of the spear, the Seal Team 6, that has driven the first hole in the unbroken line of Grover Norquist's famed anti-tax, pro-elite movement--and its so-called pledge. OWS has already done its work, already changed the public debate.

To most Republicans in Congress, it is a given that any deficit-reduction deal would have to include cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. According to a newly released survey, however, Republican voters in four key early-voting states disagree.

At the CNBC Republican presidential candidates' debate on Wednesday, Rick Perry could only remember two of the three federal agencies he would eliminate as president. It was a potentially game-changing gaffe, but it is missing from the official CNBC transcript of the debate.

Six members of the budget deficit super committee have formed a mini-group in an effort to iron-out a deal that just barely meets or slightly surpasses the committee's $1.2 trillion deficit reduction goal.

Republicans in Congress are calling for $2.2 trillion in deficit-reduction, including significant cuts to healthcare programs for the elderly and poor along with tax changes that they argue would boost the economy, congressional aides said on Thursday.

Between 1979 and 2007, the richest 1 percent of Americans saw inflation-adjusted, after-tax income surge 275 percent, while low and middle-income Americans saw their income grow by only a fraction.

For the first time since 2009, Social Security benefits will get a cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, that could be as much as a 3.5 percent increase.

The American Association of Retired Person (AARP) is not politically subtle regarding its latest t.v. advertising campaign -- it says, in so many words -- Congressman or Congresswoman: if you cut benefits from Social Security or Medicare -- you'll be voted out of public office.

Newt Gingrich's Contract With America gets an update from the 1994 agreement that launched a Republican takeover of Congress.

Can Congress increase the income tax on the wealthy? It can if the latest Bloomberg Poll is any indicator -- global investors overwhelming support President Barack Obama's proposed tax increase on adults with adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more annually.

Deficit hawks urging the government to trim pensions for federal workers could start with the $600 million that has flowed to dead workers over the last five years.

Famed rocker Ted Nugent is a close friend of Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry, but said he will not take a close role in the Texas governor’s campaign since he might be viewed with distaste by much of the electorate.

It used to be the third rail of politics: untouchable. A politician could hardly suggest reforming Social Security without triggering a tremendous popular backlash. But now, the idea of eliminating Social Security altogether has entered mainstream discourse.

President Barack Obama has thrown down the gauntlet regarding the deficit reduction process -- the only question is, does he have the support of the American people to enact his budget vision, or is substantive action unlikely prior to the 2012 election, due to divided government?

Rick Perry has been called “extreme” for his characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.” However, he may end up being “extremely correct,” politically, if his creative description energizes his conservative base even more.

The patients' names, account numbers, diagnosis codes, admission and discharge dates, and billing charges were posted on Student of Fortune, a commercial homework help Web site. The information was contained in a detailed spreadsheet, which the site posted on Sept. 9, 2010, to show customers how to create a bar chart from raw data.