What Third Way Reveals About the Beltway

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/177501/what-third-way-reveals-about-beltway



***SNIP


Funny thing is, Fournier, Forbes, and Allen didn’t seem to notice when Third Way wrote essentially the same op-ed for the Washington Post back in June. Or for Politico in May. Or, again, for Politico in February. Or when the group banged on the same entitlement-cutting drum in op-eds at Reuters, Huffington Post, and—nailing the superfecta—twice more for Politico last year. In fact, staffers from Third Way have been given nine separate op-ed platforms in various DC-centric publications during the past 16 months. If you’re really bored, you can find them all here. But don’t bother reading them all, because after you’ve read one, you’ve pretty much exhausted the depth of their analysis.

Of course, writing lots of opinion pieces is key tactic that think tanks use to impact the Washington policy debate and a consistency in messaging is an effective method to drive one’s point home. But Third Way’s incessant repetition of the same scare-mongering anecdotes is telling. And its catechism of the same handful of ponderous statistics has a vacuous, almost cult- like air about it.

For example, compare a paragraph from this week’s Journal op-ed…

“In the 1960s, the federal government spent $3 on such investments for every $1 on entitlements. Today, the ratio is flipped. In 10 years, we will spend $5 on the three major entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) for every $1 on public investments.”

…with Cowan and Kessler’s op-ed in Politico back in May:

“In the mid-1960s, the federal government spent three dollars on investments — in education, research, and infrastructure — for every one dollar on entitlements. In 2023, it will spend one dollar on investments for every five dollars on entitlements. That means less money for teaching kids, curing diseases, and building roads.”

Peruse other Third Way op-eds and policy memos and you’ll soon see its obsession with this data point about entitlement and infrastructure ratios is endemic. What’s more, it’s deceptive.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[chervilant]

2. It's deceptive, and

it's deliberate propaganda. We will continue to hear these 'shock doctrine' driven proclamations while nothing is written about the derivatives catastrophe, or the ultimate costs of Fukushima and global climate change.

[merrily]

22. Also while the American people, as a whole, continue to do nothing much about anything.

[chervilant]

36. Quell Surprise!

Indeed, yes, we're being taught that protests and demonstrations mean pepper spray and police brutality. But, the rage is bubbling just under the surface -- I expect to see significant push back before I depart this planet.

[Scuba]

3. The Third Way needs to go away.

[merrily]

23. Never will. Needs to be chased away, but how?

[dotymed]

38. President Bernie Sanders...n/t

[octoberlib]

4. Kick!

[annabanana]

5. oh yeah kick. . . . . . . n/t

[myrna minx]

6. I am enjoying the push back against the toxic messaging and "common wisdom"

of the beltway self congratulatory elite.

[valerief]

7. Communism is infiltrating young minds! Oops, wrong propaganda and wrong era.

Same types of messengers, though. Whores for the 1% who never have enough.

[merrily]

25. Always the right era to divert attention to socialism and communism.

The "Communist menace" and "Red menace" talk has simmered down since the break up of the Soviet union. Also since very wealthy Russians surfaced.

However, the almost identical ideological twin of communism, socialism, is still very much a target.

[marmar]

8. K/R

[jsr]

9. You can trust Third Way to do the RIGHT thing.

[Snarkoleptic]

10. And the common thread is...you guessed it!

?1386110745

[jsr]

12. I'm shocked.

[Divernan]

14. And woman with no affiliation listed is MARRIED to financial services CEO

WEDDINGS: VOWS; Georgette Bennett and Leonard Polonsky
BY ENID NEMY
Published: June 17, 2001

LAST year, during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, Joshua-Marc Tanenbaum and Ann Kern were seated in the hot tub of the Aspen home of Dr. Leonard S. Polonsky, when he and his good friend Dr. Georgette F. Bennett slid into the tub with a laugh.

Dr. Bennett, Joshua-Marc's mother, is the president of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding in New York, which is named for her late husband, Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum. ''Leonard has just made a half-baked proposal to me, and now we all need to discuss what I should do about it,'' she announced.

She and Dr. Polonsky, the chairman of Hansard Financial Trust, a financial services concern based in the British Isles, and a widower, were introduced in late 1999 by a mutual friend

.

[Snarkoleptic]

15. The predator class runs in it's own circles and need not interact with the small people.

"She and Dr. Polonsky, the chairman of Hansard Financial Trust, a financial services concern based in the British Isles, and a widower, were introduced in late 1999 by a mutual friend"

[solarhydrocan]

16. $

[AZ Progressive]

21. Pretty much the ruling class there

[chervilant]

37. Would be good to know

how many of those 'investment bankers' are dabbling in derivatives.

[G_j]

11. K&R

[hfojvt]

13. it also reveals that they think we are all rich

“The median lifetime Medicare taxes paid by new retirees in 2030 will be $180,000; while the median paid benefit will be a staggering $664,000. Vastly more elderly, combined with steadily larger retiree benefits, and relatively fewer taxpayers to fund them create an untenable budget situation unless addressed.”

I find the $180,000 figure to be staggering. Since Medicare taxes are only .0245, or .049 including the employer. That would mean MEDIAN lifetime earnings were $3.67 million. Over a 40 year career (one that started then in 1990) that would mean half the workforce has an average lifetime salary of $91,836

Considering that median salary right now, more than halfway through a career that started in 1990 is about $35,000 their $180,000 number just does not add up without some hyper-inlfation or something to push median lifetime earnings way up to $90,000 a year.

[merrily]

26. That is not what they think. That is merely what they want us to think.

[duffyduff]

17. They're gangsters or tools of gangsters. DC is broken. n/t

[yurbud]

18. much like the right wing parotting of Heritage Foundation or Grover Norquist talking points

they know that those outlets are speaking for their masters, and they better follow the script--and the Third Way script is too often the right wing one dressed up in platitudes and banalities instead of the right's fear and loathing.

You can choose ketchup or barbecue sauce, but their selling meatloaf no matter what they call it.

[Egalitarian Thug]

19. K&R As usual.

[Blue Owl]

20. Loosen the belt, here comes the Turd Way

n/t

[MisterP]

24. they're "beyond politics"--neither Reaganaut (though they are) and antisocialist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Position
they're NATSIES

[merrily]

28. Reagan has become a very convenient meme that handily obscures the facts.

Dismantling of the New Deal began during the administration of FDR.

Deregulation began under Nixon. Carter and a Democratic Congress made a huge contribution, as did, yes, Reagan, with Bill Clinton serving up repeal of Glass Steagall.

Clinton gave us NAFTA; Obama has been trying his best to give us TPP.

It's been an equal opportunity screwing of the 99% since the days of the East India Company.

[MisterP]

30. oh yes--JFK and the Green Berets, LBJ and Santo Domingo and saying that Vietnam will attack

us here if we don't attack them there, Carter turning in Somoza and the Shah's favor just as it was too late--it's systemic

[merrily]

31. Yes, but you posted first about Reagan.

The propaganda has been very successful in obscuring the reality.

[MisterP]

32. amusingly, the Republicans had discarded him quite completely by 1989--a GOPer laughingstock

I think the turning point was around 1994, with Gingrich and Ollie North: ever since then he's the benchmark against whom even Jesus is found wanting

a lot of the social and economic metrics did definitely go down after 1981--I guess that's when They won over Us?

[merrily]

33. Who do you mean by "they?"

If you mean when did Republicans win over us? The issue is worthy of a book.

If you mean the 1%, I'd say when the first white man set foot on what is now US soil--and even that is only if we are confining the discuss to what is now the US. If we are discussing the world, it probably goes back before the start of recorded history.

[libdude]

27. The Third Way

appears to be no more that another vehicle to keep the wealthy and privileged in control of the means to become wealthier and more privileged. As posted in this thread, most of the Board are investment bankers, that has worked out well for the working class.

[merrily]

29. Bingo. Names keep changing. Policy has been constant.

I'm guessing the Sons of LIberty weren't even the poorest people in the colonies.

[blkmusclmachine]

34. Turd Way "bi-partisanship."

[antigop]

35. what is their relationship to the Third Way Foundation?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/02/1228573/-Progressive-THIRD-WAY-FOUNDATION-Funded-by-the-WALTONS

According to dailykos, the Waltons fund the foundation.

Be sure to see interactive chart...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woe1/9427021362/