From Thursday’s New York Times:

The first hint that President Bush might be detached from the nation’s economic woes was in February, when he conceded that he had not heard about predictions of $4-a-gallon gasoline… For a man who came into office as the nation’s first M.B.A. president, Mr. Bush has sometimes seemed invisible during the housing and credit crunch. As the economy eclipses Iraq as the top issue on voters’ minds, even some Republican allies of the president say Mr. Bush is being eclipsed and is in danger of looking out of touch.

Read the full story, “In Economic Drama, Bush Is Largely Offstage”.

The Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on the program’s financial status. According to Treasury Department Secretary Henry Paulson, its findings confirm “that the Social Security program is financially unstable and requires reform.”

Really?

While doomsayers are already claiming the sky is falling, a close look at the numbers tells a different story.

According to an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the trustees’ report actually

“reaffirms that Social Security does not face a near-term crisis and can continue to pay full benefits for more than three decades.”

According to the CBPP, there are far more troubling threats when it comes to the country’s financial well-being:

Anyone concerned about Social Security’s long-term shortfall ought to be equally (if not more) concerned about the long-term fiscal impact of extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Making the tax cuts permanent will cost more than three times as much, over the next 75 years, as the 75-year shortfall in Social Security.

In other words, Bush’s tax cuts for the rich are much more damaging for the economy than any alleged Social Security crisis. As the AFL-CIO blog points out, this is a thinly-veiled scheme to once again push for privatizing the most successful program in America’s history:

Bush and his cohorts in 2005 failed miserably to convince the American public that Social Security privatization was the holy grail of retirement security. But still, they persist in trying to sell this snake oil.

Indeed they do. Witness Sen. John McCain’s plan to divert American’s retirement money into risky private accounts, almost a carbon copy of Bush’s failed initiative.

Paulson, Bush, McCain & company might have a short-term memory when it comes to playing with people’s retirement security. Working families don’t.

Pres. Bush rubs former HUD Secretary Jackson’s head. It didn’t bring either of them much luck.

What better way to commemorate April Fools’ Day then by recapping some very foolish statements from the Bush administration. We would be remiss if we didn’t mention a memorable claim from now former Housing Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson, who resigned yesterday amid a swirl of accusations. In 2004 Jackson said that poverty “is a state of mind.” Tell that to the approximately 40 millions of Americans living in poverty.

There are so many foolish remarks by the Bush Administration to choose from. The Economic Policy Institute highlights four of the most foolish ones about economic issues by public policymakers over the past six years. They are:

President Bush: The Economy’s Strong. I’m Outta Here
At a news conference on August 9, 2007, President Bush acknowledged, “I’m not an economist” and then declared: “The fundamentals of our economy are strong … Job creation is strong. Real after-tax wages are on the rise. Inflation is low.”

Then he went on vacation in Kennebunkport, Maine, and Crawford, Texas.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson: Housing Market Bottomed Out Last Year
In a speech at the Committee of 100, a business group in New York, on April 20, 2007, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson “delivered an upbeat assessment of the economy, saying growth was healthy and the housing market was nearing a turnaround,” according to a report by MarketWatch. “I don’t see [subprime mortgage market troubles] imposing a serious problem. I think it’s going to be largely contained,” he added.

Former Treasury Secretary John Snow: Not to Worry, No Housing Bubble
In an interactive “Ask the White House Forum” on October 27, 2005, then-Treasury Secretary John Snow was asked, “ Is there a real estate bubble in the economy right now?” Snow’s response: “While we should always be on guard for ‘bubbles’ or areas where economic activity doesn’t correspond with underlying economic fundamentals – as was the case with stock market bubble of the late 1990s – I don’t think this is the case with America’s housing market.”

Former Budget Director Mitchell Daniels: Iraq War to Cost $50-$60 Billion
In an interview with Elizabeth Bumiller of The New York Times on December 30, 2002, Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., who was then director of the Office of Management and Budget, predicted that the cost of a war with Iraq would be $50-$60 billion. Daniels now serves as Governor of Indiana. More likely, the war will eventually cost an estimated $3 trillion, according to Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.

Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign have recently stepped up their rhetoric on the mortgage foreclosure crisis, and senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee wrote a piece in Sunday’s Washington Post pledging that Obama would take immediate steps to regulate subprime loans.

The problem, says AFSCME President Gerald McEntee on the Huffington Post, is that Goolsbee was an outspoken defender of subprime loans just one year ago. In addition, contributors from the subprime lending industry have provided more than a million dollars to Obama’s campaign.

Senator Obama should answer this simple question: Is he planning on following the public advice of Professor Goolsbee on the subprime crisis, or is he working behind the scenes to keep his fat cat contributors happy?

Read the full post.

While in the Middle East last week, Sen. John McCain incorrectly asserted that Iran is training al-Qaeda terrorists and sending them into Iraq. The statement, which McCain has repeated several times, revealed that the senator is apparently unaware that Iran is a Shiite country that views al-Qaeda, a prominently Sunni group, as an enemy.

McCain apologists in the media played down the remark, with FOX News managing editor Brit Hume reassuring viewers that it was just a misstatement, nothing more than “a senior moment.” AFSCME President Gerald McEntee disagrees, and in his latest entry on the Huffington Post says it is McCain’s ignorance – not his age – that is at issue.

It is disturbing that John McCain appears not to know that al Qaeda is a Sunni organization, and he doesn’t understand the key role sectarian divisions play in the violence unleashed since our invasion of Iraq. No wonder he supports keeping our troops there for 100 years.

Read the full post.

John McCain spent last week touring Europe and the Middle East. He met with the President of France who should have been very thankful for the thousands of jobs that McCain has sent his way.

McCain stepped in to make it easier for EADS/Airbus to get the contract for the Air Force refueling tankers over Boeing. As covered by the Associated Press, TIME Magazine and others, three of his campaign advisers lobbied for EADS and his campaign received $28,000 from EADS execs, lobbyists, and employees after starting to speak out on EADS’ behalf.

According to AFL-CIO’s blog, if Boeing had won the contract, it would have supported 44,000 good jobs in more than 40 states, many of which would have been union jobs.

This week our nation marked a grim milestone: the 4,000th American fatality in Iraq. The following is a statement from AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee:

“Five years into this disastrous war, we are still squandering billions of dollars and destroying the lives of young men and women and their families who answered the call to serve our country. Our service members have done their job and it is time to bring them home. We need to stop throwing troops and resources into the quagmire of Iraq. Our priorities at home - securing quality health care for all Americans, rebuilding aging bridges, levees and roads, improving our schools, and revitalizing our struggling economy - are ignored while our country is bogged down in an unwinnable war. It is time to end the madness and set a new direction for our country.”

More commentary is available on the Huffington Post.

For 70 years, Social Security has worked for America, providing guaranteed benefits in retirement, and to workers and their families in the event that they become disabled or die before retirement. Sen. John McCain, as noted in the blog Crooks and Liars, is promoting a dangerous and irresponsible scheme to privatize Social Security.

McCain told the Wall Street Journal recently that he still supports President Bush’s discredited 2005 push to divert Americans’ hard earned Social Security into risky private accounts, which failed because of widespread opposition, including from AFSCME. His plan would hurt all of America’s working families, and would lead to huge cuts in guaranteed benefits that workers have earned and are counting on. Matthew Yglesias at The Atlantic gets it right when he says that McCain’s proposal is “a lethal combination of bad ideas and total lack of comprehension.”

While he may be a maverick, Senator McCain’s plan would radically transform Social Security from guarantee of retirement security for millions into a gamble.

On the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War, we need to ask the question: How much more are Americans willing to pay for President Bush’s war in Iraq?

Video from Americans United For Change.

This from the Washington Post:

“There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is no such thing as a free war. The Iraq adventure has seriously weakened the U.S. economy, whose woes now go far beyond loose mortgage lending. You can’t spend $3 trillion — yes, $3 trillion — on a failed war abroad and not feel the pain at home.”

And as public service workers, we see all too well the pain here at home. Crumbling infrastructure, funding cuts to the critical social services, schools lacking in basic supplies.

“More from Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz and their Post Op-Ed: “As we head toward November, opinion polls say that voters’ main worry is now the economy, not the war. But there’s no way to disentangle the two. The United States will be paying the price of Iraq for decades to come…and the cost will grow the longer we remain.”

Indeed.