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Planet Money has obtained a secret government report outlining what once looked like a potential crisis: The possibility that the U.S. government might pay off its entire debt. It sounds ridiculous today. But not so long ago, the prospect of a debt-free U.S. was seen as a real possibility with the potential to upset the global financial system. We recently obtained the report through a Freedom of Information Act Request. You can read the whole thing here. (It's a PDF.) The report is called "Life After Debt". It was written in the year 2000, when the U.S. was running a budget surplus, taking in more than it was spending every year. Economists were projecting that the entire national debt could be paid off by 2012.

Social Security didn't create the deficit, but America's seniors are being presented with a fake Social Security crisis to try to trick them into accepting reduced benefits. Social Security will be able to pay 100% of its benefits through 2037 without any changes whatsoever. So, why the panic today? If seniors accept cuts to Social Security benefits today, a surplus cash flow will build in the Social Security trust fund. According to the Congressional Research Service, "Social Security's cash surpluses are borrowed by the U.S. Treasury and can be used for tax cuts, spending or repaying debt." Social Security benefit cuts are increasing taxes paid to Social Security or extending retirement age will give more money for tax cuts spending or repaying the debt. Except for one thing: Social Security money belongs to those who have paid into the fund, it's not the government's money to use it; it shouldn't be the government's money to play with. Senior citizens should not have to accept a reduced standard of living to finance tax cuts for the rich. We must take a stand for senior citizens and protect Social Security and protect future generations from this raid on Social Security's funds.

We are at a pivotal moment in American history, and many Americans watching the deficit talks in Washington are confused, perplexed, angry and frustrated. This country, which has paid its debts from Day 1, must pay its debts. Anyone who says it is not a big deal for this country to default clearly does not understand what he or she is talking about. This is a nation whose faith and credit has been the gold standard of countries throughout the world. Some people simply say we're not going to pay our debt, that there's nothing to really worry about. Those are people who are wishing our economy harm for political reasons, and those are people whose attitudes will have terrible consequences for virtually every working family in this country in terms of higher interest rates, in terms of significant job loss, in terms of making a very unstable global economy even more unstable. Our right-wing friends in the House of Representatives have given us an option. What they have said is end Medicare as we know it and force elderly people, many of whom don't have the money, to pay substantially more for their health care. So when you're 70 under their plan and you get sick and you don't have a whole lot of income, we don't know what happens to you. They forget to tell us that if their plan was passed you're going to have to pay a heck of a lot more for the prescription drugs you're getting today. They we're going to throw millions of kids off health insurance. If your mom or dad is in a nursing home and that nursing home bill is paid significantly by Medicaid and Medicaid isn't paying anymore, they forgot to tell us what happens to your mom or dad in that nursing home. What happens? And what happens today if you are unemployed and you're not able to get unemployment extension? What happens if you are a middle-class family desperately trying to send their kids to college and you make savage cuts to Pell grants and you can't go to college? What does it mean for the nation if we

Fraudulent Defense Contractors Paid $1 Trillion

Anyone who characterizes the deal between the President, Democratic, and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics nor politics.

MITT AND ANN ROMNEY STARTED OUT WITH THEIR FIRST TWO BOYS IN A TWO ROOM APARTMENT AND MITT PAID FOR HIS OWN SCHOOL. UNLIKE BARAK OBAMA WHO HAS HAD ALOT GIVIN TO HIM.

The Senates own rules state that if they do not pass a budget by April 15th of each year they are not to be paid until they do. They havent passed a budget for over three years and are still drawing a paycheck.

MORE ERIC HOLDER DIRTY WORK

WARNING: Graphic and disturbing photos between 38:40 and 40:45. U.S. Army Ranger John Needham, who was awarded two purple hearts and three medals for heroism, wrote to military authorities in 2007 reporting war crimes that he witnessed being committed by his own command and fellow soldiers in Al Doura, Iraq. His charges were supported by atrocity photos which, in the public interest, are now released in this video. John paid a terrible price for his opposition to these acts. His story is tragic.  CBS reported obtaining an Army document from the Criminal Investigation Command suggestive of an investigation into these war crimes allegations. The Army's conclusion was that the "offense of War Crimes did not occur." However, CBS also stated that the report was "redacted and incomplete; 111 pages were withheld."  This video is placed with the context of Vice President, Dick Cheney, insistence that this nation's efforts "must go to the dark side;" which included ignoring the Geneva Conventions.  John's story is told, here, by his father, Michael Needham. It is produced in the spirit of the public interest and towards promoting justice and the rule of law.

OCCUPY WAS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY GEORGE SOROS AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRAITION THROUGH SOCIALIST KALLE LASN OF ADBUSTERS. OCCUPY WAS FORMED TO OPPOSE THE TEA PARTY

No serious person denies that Reagan's 1981 tax cuts and military increases threw the country into a pattern of borrowing and borrowing that we have not escaped. When Reagan took office the national debt was $995 billion. When Reagan left office it was $2.87 trillion and climbing fast. No serious person denies that Bush's 2001 tax cuts and continued military increases dramatically worsened the problem. Bush's last budget year ended with a record single-year deficit of $1.4 trillion. As the country discusses what to do about the borrowing the elephant in the room is that everyone understands that restoring top tax rates to pre-Reagan levels and cutting the military budget in half would solve the problem completely. But we can't do that. We can't even discuss it. And we all know why. And we all know why. It is because the Reagan Revolution transformed the country from a democracy to a plutocracy -- a country run by and for the wealthy. Such sensible and simple ideas are considered off-limits. To even bring up the idea of restoring tax rates to pre-Reagan levels and cutting military spending invites terrible consequences. The speaker risks becoming the target of the money's noise machine: Limbaugh, Hannity, Drudge, Fox. Smears. Humiliation. Banishment. Or the noise machine cranks up a campaign of misinformation, convincing people --especially DC people -- that what they see in front of their eyes just isn't so. Repeat it enough and it becomes solid knowledge. We all know this is the way it is. So don't tell me that "we don't have the money" to keep 300,000 teachers from being laid off, or to help the long-term, mostly older unemployed workers get something to live on and keep their health care. The money is right there in front of us, but the Congress is bought and paid for. What do we do? We have to demand representatives who represent us, not make excuses for representing the wealthy. The unfortunate, poor and disadvantaged must count every bit as much as the

With the legislative calendar starting to dwindle, lawmakers are paying more and more attention to the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of the year. Republicans across the board are advocating for the extension of all the cuts, and have explicitly said that extending the cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans (which would cost $678 billion) does not have to be paid for.

This is essentially the story of the latest attack on social security. Everyone who looks at the projections agrees; the scary budget stories being hyped in the media and by the Wall Street crew are driven almost entirely by projections of exploding health care costs. But instead of proposing ways to fix the health care system, these deficit hawks want to attack social security. They tell us that fixing health care is hard. By contrast they think that cutting money from social security will be relatively easy. The facts on this are straightforward and known by everyone involved in the budget debate. The US health care system is broken. We pay more than twice as much per person as the average for other wealthy countries. And it is projected to get worse. In three or four decades we are projected to pay three or four times as much per person for health care as people in countries like Germany and Canada. Since more than half of our health care is paid through public sector programs like Medicare and Medicaid, this explosion in health care costs will bankrupt the government if it actually occurs. Of course it will also devastate the private sector. On the other hand, it is easy to show that if we contain health care costs then our budget problems are relatively minor. In fact, the current projections of enormous budget deficits two or three decades out would flip over to projections of enormous budget surpluses if our health care costs were comparable to those of any other wealthy country.

The rich and their paid false prophets are doing a bang-up job deceiving the poor and middle class. They have convinced many that an evil socialism is alive in the land and it is taking their fair share. But the deception cannot last - facts say otherwise.

Unhappitime is the time that government forces us to spend on its business, often free of charge. Its employees get paid (with Our Money) to create a multitude of complex programs that we are supposed to embrace in our spare time for no pay.antidote is not more democracy. It is not more of the same. It is a change in the system. It is happitime.

"After all, Germany is now run by a generation with no personal memories of the war. Germany's historical debate is now focused on the fate of Germans who suffered from wartime bombing and postwar deportation, not with the fate of Germany's victims-in Greece or anywhere else. Sooner or later, the Germans will collectively decide that enough sacrifices have been made and that the debt to Europe has been paid. Thanks to the ungrateful Greeks with their island villas and large pensions, that day may arrive more quickly that we thought it would."

(Part 2 of 2 - see first part below) What impact do the incredible salaries of superstars have on the rest of us? What has changed, technologically and socially, to precipitate these inequities? This article also offers a brief look at the relationship between income inequality and economic growth, comparing the US throughout its history and the US vis a vis several European countries.

Nearly half of all day laborers in New Jersey have not been paid for their work at least once in the last year, according to a report released today by Seton Hall Law School that outlines widespread worker abuse around the state. Researchers interviewed more than 100 day laborers around the state and found the workers are routinely underpaid for their work and denied overtime. More than a quarter also reported being physically assaulted by their bosses.

One aspect of "American exceptionalism" was always economic. US workers, so the story went, enjoyed a rising level of real wages that afforded their families a rising standard of living. Ever harder work paid off in rising consumption. The rich got richer faster than the middle and poor, but almost no one got poorer. Nearly all citizens felt "middle class". A profitable US capitalism kept running ahead of labor supply. So, it kept raising wages to attract waves of immigration and to retain employees, across the 19th century until the 1970s.