EOI View | 2004 and prior

Deficits not caused by entitlements

06.30.2004 | Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Social Security finances are sound and it's a valuable program we easily can afford as our population ages. Rushing to slash benefits in a program that is successfully keeping 90 percent of seniors and more than 5 million children out of poverty is unnecessary and will cause lots of harm. | Read

Wal-Mart nation: the race to the Bottom

02.18.2004| Seattle Times | We live in a nation in which the real-dollar income of an average family has declined for years, while corporate profits and executive pay have skyrocketed. The gap between rich and poor has widened at an alarming rate in the past 20 years. In 44 states, the gap has increased not only between rich and poor, but between rich and middle-class families. None of the six exceptions is a Northwest state. Oregon has one of the worst gaps, Washington is about average. | Read

Balancing work and family

08.15.2003 | Seattle Post-Intelligencer | This month all Americans can celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Family & Medical Leave Act going into effect. In the past decade, more than 40 million U.S. workers have been able to take time off from work to be with their new baby, to care for a seriously ill family member or to recover from their own serious illness without fear of losing their jobs. U.S. families are healthier and stronger because of the FMLA and businesses have found that making the workplace more family-friendly has made workers more dedicated and productive, while reducing costly turnover. | Read

At 67, Social Security alive and well

08.20.2002 | Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Social Security turned 67 last Wednesday. Far from being ready for retirement, this vital program is working more effectively now than ever, and it will keep on working for future generations of Americans. The reports of the Social Security trustees confirm the trust fund will continue to grow for the next 15 years, then be spent down as baby boomers retire, precisely as was planned. Every realistic projection shows that in 40 years Social Security will pay higher retirement benefits to today's young workers than their grandparents are receiving now. | Read

Privatizing Social Security put on hold―for good reason

01.01.2002 | EOI | Social Security reform now appears on the back burner. The commission has reluctantly admitted that privatization requires large benefit cuts and tax increases. To make such moves politically palatable, the commission takes a one-sided and alarmist view of Social Security's current benefits and future finances, and recommends waiting a year before tackling restructuring | Read

Dismantle the Commission, Not Social Security

05.08.2001 | EOI | George W. Bush promised us a commission on Social Security, and now he’s given us one. But this is one campaign promise he should have broken. Social Security is highly successful and solidly financed. Carving Social Security into individual private accounts as Bush and his carefully screened commission want would be disastrous for working families and for our nation as a whole. | Read

Bush's Push for Tax Cut Slows Attack on Social Security

03.01.2001 | Notably absent from the 2001 annual report of the Social Security trustees is the doom-and-gloom language required to “save” Social Security. The data remains remarkably the same from this year to last. After years of hearing about the need to plug the leaks in Social Security, why are we seeing a softening of the hard line? It’s simple: to make way for Bush’s tax cuts. | Read

Lessons from the Earthquake for President Bush

03.01.2001 | George W. Bush addressed the nation and the next morning the ground shook, longer and harder than most of us living on Puget Sound had ever experienced. Now, I don’t mean to imply any kind of divine judgment. But the earthquake does remind us of certain truths that Bush tried to obscure with his rhetoric, and those truths point towards very different values than the ones Bush expressed. | Read

Labor Day is a good time to celebrate statewide success of welfare reform

08.01.2000 | Tacoma News Tribune | As Americans, we share bedrock values of work and family. And the new welfare enables us to honor those values, by creating pathways to jobs and wage ladders, while ensuring some amount of family security. The Community Jobs program is one of the shining new examples of welfare reform. | Read