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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged Simpson-Bowles

1. May 29, 2012 02:35 PM

   A Grand Bargain on entitlements?

   The press is sending signals about Simpson-Bowles. How about explaining it?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   To the average person, Nancy Pelosi’s May 20 interview with George Stephanopoulos probably seemed like standard procedure for a Sunday morning talk show—another politician slipping and sliding around the questions. It was more than that. Stephanopoulos noted that Pelosi had said—a few weeks earlier—that she would vote for the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan, l which among other things proposes severe...

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2. April 18, 2012 11:55 AM

   How the Media Has Shaped the Social Security Debate

   The press plays a dubious role

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Shortly after the 2010 midterm elections, Washington Post budget correspondent Lori Montgomery reported that, while a debate raged around major budgetary changes and the wisdom of cutting Social Security, a “surprisingly broad consensus is forming around the actions required to stabilize borrowing and ease fears of a European-style debt crisis in the United States.” A consensus among whom, we...

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3. September 28, 2012 11:14 AM

   Pinning down Obama on Social Security

   Where exactly does he stand?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Liberals took comfort in the president’s speech to the AARP Friday when he promised to defend Social Security. But his talk left a whole lot of wiggle room for reporters to read between the lines and try—try is the operative word here—to find out what his real intentions are for Social Security. As my colleague Brendan Nyhan writes, in the...

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4. May 31, 2012 10:57 AM

   Talking back to Alan Simpson

   The press picks up on his latest salvo. More, please?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, as followers of the entitlements debate know, is, shall we say, tart-tongued and gutsy. Or, from the perspective of people he disagrees with, ugly and insulting. Even though President Obama appointed Simpson as one of the co-chairs of his fiscal commission—tasked with creating a blueprint for cutting the deficit and dealing with those pesky entitlements—Simpson’s...

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