The third installment of The Century Foundation’s #TCFBest saw another strong set of contenders. Some highlights:
- Spencer Ackerman’s (@attackerman) Wired article on the Newest U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy: Trolling looked at the State Department’s Viral Peace program, which undermines extremists by filling jihadist Internet sites with “logic, humor, satire, [and] religious arguments…to undermine and demoralize” extremists.
- Timothy Noah (@TimothyNoah1) looked at Republican attempts to revive “welfare queen” rhetoric by redefining “welfare” to include every means-tested program on the books at The New Republic.
- Writing in the Washington Post, Roosevelt Institute fellow Mike Konczal (@rortybomb) explores the possibility of a new political alliance that fuses left and right in opposition to those who use monopoly power “to extract excessive tolls, fees, and other recurrent payments from the rest of society.”
But this week’s #TCFBest winner goes to Josh Freedman’s Reuters piece on expanding Social Security coverage. In a new paper from the New America Foundation, Freedman, Michael Lind, Steven Hill, and Robert Hiltonsmith propose “increasing the public portion of the American retirement system.” Specifically, they suggest:
a two-part, or “double-decker,” plan to expand Social Security. In addition to maintaining the current Social Security program, we would add a universal flat benefit for all older Americans. This benefit could be set at a level to meet the goal of replacing 60 percent of income for a middle-income earner in combination with the existing Social Security program.
Century Foundation policy associate Ben Landy took a deeper look at this proposal, urging Democrats to push back on proposed Social Security cuts. Landy’s Graph of the Day points out that Social Security is the largest source of income for 80% of retirees.
We highly recommend reading Freedman’s the entire article.
A big thanks to @DerekTNG and @swmstn2, who both nominated this week’s winner. We want to give an equally big thank you to those of you whose nominees didn’t win this week; once again, we got to read a lot of things that we probably wouldn’t otherwise have seen.
The floor is now open for nominations for next week’s #TCFBest. As always, you can submit your nominations in the comments below, via the Twitter hashtag #TCFBest, on our Facebook page, or by email to [email protected].
Tags: #tcfbest, social security
Winner of #TCFBest: Social Security Expansion
The third installment of The Century Foundation’s #TCFBest saw another strong set of contenders. Some highlights:
But this week’s #TCFBest winner goes to Josh Freedman’s Reuters piece on expanding Social Security coverage. In a new paper from the New America Foundation, Freedman, Michael Lind, Steven Hill, and Robert Hiltonsmith propose “increasing the public portion of the American retirement system.” Specifically, they suggest:
a two-part, or “double-decker,” plan to expand Social Security. In addition to maintaining the current Social Security program, we would add a universal flat benefit for all older Americans. This benefit could be set at a level to meet the goal of replacing 60 percent of income for a middle-income earner in combination with the existing Social Security program.
Century Foundation policy associate Ben Landy took a deeper look at this proposal, urging Democrats to push back on proposed Social Security cuts. Landy’s Graph of the Day points out that Social Security is the largest source of income for 80% of retirees.
We highly recommend reading Freedman’s the entire article.
A big thanks to @DerekTNG and @swmstn2, who both nominated this week’s winner. We want to give an equally big thank you to those of you whose nominees didn’t win this week; once again, we got to read a lot of things that we probably wouldn’t otherwise have seen.
The floor is now open for nominations for next week’s #TCFBest. As always, you can submit your nominations in the comments below, via the Twitter hashtag #TCFBest, on our Facebook page, or by email to [email protected].
Tags: #tcfbest, social security