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Revised 9/16/99 -- See fb-changes.html for what's new and a revision history.
Index Of All Web Pages (1)
Master Table of Contents (2)
Index page (fb-index)
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See also Citations and References in section non8.
This page provides links to other web sites dealing with the federal budget, Social Security, or Medicare. This page will undergo rapid change during June, 1999.
The Concord Coalition is an organization of fiscal conservatives (as opposed to "supply - side" conservatives) advocating balanced budgets and restraints on entitlement growth. They do a lot of testifying about this issue before Congress.
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The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a research institute that conducts analyses on government policies and programs. They cover a wide variety of issues. But I found these two related to taxes to be interesting {1} Is "Tax Freedom Day" Misleading? (5/99), and {2} Tax Burden on Middle-Income Families (5/99). These articles indicate that the amount of taxes that the typical (median) family is paying, as well as the increase in those taxes over the last few decades, is exagerrated by the media and by right-wing tax-cutting organizations.
http://www.cbpp.org/
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Michael Hodges Grandfather Economics Reports, Home Page at
http://home.att.net/~mwhodges/
Michael Hodges Grandfather Web Site is devoted to showing how federal spending and the tax burden has grown. I don't agree with his solution -- just cut taxes and hope this will force federal spending down -- and I'm no fan of Milton Friedman, but other than that, the web site is an excellent source of facts and analysis.
Email Michael Hodges at mwhodges@worldnet.att.net
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United Seniors of America, Home Page at
http://unitedseniors.org/
Interesting Position Papers by them and others can be found at http://unitedseniors.org/Papers Main.htm (that's a blank between Papers and Main).
From some of what I've seen, they don't think the trust funds are real either. Other than that, I'm not familiar with their web site or agenda, though their agenda is easily found from a prominent home page link. I just haven't taken the time, because my web site is more about explaining the problem rather than getting into solutions.
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The Century Fund (formerly The Twentieth Century Fund) at
www.tcf.org
They are a liberal organization that advocates more government spending
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National Debt - An Analysis, By Thomas H. Smith (Rev 3/1/99) at
http://nationaldebt.com/
He has a comprehensive page analyzing a January 1999 CBO forecast (Congressional Budget Office Report: "Economic and Budget Outlook: 2000 to 2009" dated January 1999), and President Clinton's January 1999 State Of The Union plan to "save" social security. He has lots of great graphs. But as far as his analysis, I have some serious questions about some of the conclusions he draws. {1} I don't understand why he thinks the "low cost" Social Security scenario is the most likely, and his reasoning why he thinks that government officials are downplaying it. I'd think if the predominant view was that the low cost scenario is most likely, it would give the government an excuse to loosen the purse strings and spend more and cut taxes. {2} He doesn't seem to understand, why, in the high cost scenario, why the under age 65 population is declining while the over age 65 population is growing. But the reason is simple -- the fertility rate is only 1.6 per woman (whereas 2.1 or so is needed for replacement); and the immigration rate is also assumed to be a low 750,000 / year. Even in the intermediate scenario, the fertility rate of 1.9 is below replacement, and the immigration rate is 900,000/year -- about what is being experienced in the last few years.
Email Thomas H. Smith at webmaster@nationaldebt.com
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The National Debt Awareness Campaign has an interesting home page -- It shows a bar chart of federal spending for FY 1997 actual, FY 1998 actual, FY 1999 budget, and FY 2000 proposed, for the following agencies or categories (they are listed in order of INCREASING expenditures): GSA, Executive Office Of The President, Legislative Branch, FEMA, National Science Foundation, Dept of Commerce, Dept of State, EPA, Dept Of Interio, Internaitional Assistance Programs, NASA, Other Independent Agencies, Dept of Energy, Dept of Justice & Judicial Branch, Housing and Urban Development, Dept of Education, Dept of Labor, Social Security Administration, Dept of Transportation, Office of Personnel Management, Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Defense, Health and Human Services, Treasury Dept (Interest on Debt), Off-Budget (Social Security Payments)
The page also has links to several similar (national debt) web sites
http://www.federalbudget.com/
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The Economic Policy Institute at
http://www.epinet.org
They are a labor-supported organization that produces studies that show that the typical American family and worker is falling behind economically. They annually publish the widely quoted book, "The State of Working America".
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United for a Fair Economy at http://www.stw.org
By fair, they mean shifting the burden of taxation from the poor to the rich. In general, they advocate more economic equality.
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Senator Rod Grams' Social Security web site at
http://www.senate.gov/~grams/ss.html
I'm no fan of Rod Grams, but I do agree with him that there is a serious future Social Security and Medicare funding problem.
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Lead or Leave -- The largest Generation X political organization in the U.S., and a leading force in the effort to put generational issues on the national political map. (They were much quoted during the 1992 presidential campaign, but I think they've pretty much melted down?)
At http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~adam/lead.html
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Other Generation X (and Y) Political Organizations -- there are several that are quite active. Try the search engines or Yahoo. Try http://www.policy.com and look for links. Feel free to email me with any finds.
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(hits since June 4, 1999)
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