POLITICO's blog, The Arena, recently asked: In a Wednesday afternoon speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C., New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called for raising the retirement age on Social Security. His willingness to tackle politically delicate entitlement programs follows his approach in New Jersey of taking on teachers’ unions and other groups.

Can Christie portray himself as a teller of difficult truths and become a credible White House candidate in 2012 or 2016? Or will his YouTube-friendly shtick soon wear thin and render him largely irrelevant in Democratic-leaning New Jersey?

The fact that Gov. Christie is willing to do whatever Wall Street and the elite media tell him does not suggest that he has strong leadership qualities. If he had strong leadership qualities, he might take a moment to look at the Social Security trustees report himself, or at least talk to someone who had.

He would discover that the program can pay 100 percent of all scheduled benefits through the year 2037 and nearly 80 percent of scheduled benefits after this date for the indefinite future. After 2037 retirees would always get a larger benefit than current retirees even if Congress never does anything.

Dean Baker
The Guardian Unlimited, February 15, 2011

As we have pointed out previously, the English language media has all but ignored the news that – as reported by Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste – four CEP members may never have signed the document affirming the Council’s decision regarding the secon

Although much of the recent press coverage of Haiti has focused on the election, there remain serious humanitarian concerns that have yet to be adequately addressed. A cholera epidemic continues to spread across Haiti, now accounting for some 4,000 deaths

Do people who write on the budget have any understanding of the topic? The answer seems to be "no," since we have an obsession with the size of the budget deficit when the economy has 9.0 percent unemployment.

If budget reporters understood their topic, then they would be asking politicians like President Obama and the Republican congressional leaders why they are not doing more to create jobs. The reason that we have 9.0 percent unemployment is that private sector demand plummeted in the wake of the collapse of the housing bubble. In the short-term, the only way this demand can be replaced is by increased demand from the government.

This is why reporters should be pressing politicians as to why they are not supporting larger deficits in order to get people back to work. Tens of millions of workers are suffering from unemployment or under-employment not because they lack the skills or desire to work, but because people like Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke failed disastrously in their roles as managers of the economy. This amount of needless suffering should be unacceptable in the United States.

Dean Baker
Truthout, February 14, 2011

February 2011, Dean Baker