:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Friday, October 24, 2003 ::

Economic Reporting Review By Dean Baker October 20: "Liberal Think Tanks
Notion Building
Matt Bai
New York Times, October 12, 2003, Magazine p 88
http://www.freecongress.org/misc/031012notionbuilding.asp
This article examines the plans for the Center for American Progress (CAP), a new Democratic think tank. At one point the article notes that no one at CAP has an alternative to the current Social Security system which it describes as leading the United States to 'an inevitable fiscal crisis.' The Social Security trustees projections, which are widely accepted as the basis of the debate over Social Security, show that the program can pay all benefits for the next 40 years with no changes whatsoever, and that a tax increase equal to 1.86 percent of payroll would be sufficient to keep the program fully solvent for the next seventy five years. This tax increase is approximately the same size as tax increases put in place in each of the decades from the fifties to the eighties.
The article also describes CAP as being constrained in its agenda by the concerns of interest groups like teacher unions and the AARP. It contrasts such constraints with the supposedly unfettered thinking of right-wing think tanks. It is not clear that right-wing think tanks really have not been constrained by powerful interest groups. For example, true market oriented conservatives should oppose government granted monopolies like patents and copyrights. However, right-wing think tanks have often received large amounts of money from media and entertainment companies, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, all of whom are heavily dependent on these government monopolies for their survival."

:: Jim Nichols 10/24/2003 11:32:00 AM [+] ::
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