September 18 2009 show notes

SueN's picture
Sep. 21, 2009 3:10 pm
By SueN
  • Thom was in DC. He'll be in Dallas tonight.
  • Guests:
  • Topics:
    • "Brunch with Bernie".
    • 'Anything Goes; Friday.
    • "The Great Health Care Debate". Thom debated Michael Medved on the topic of heath care, September 11.
  • Bumper Music:
  • Today's newsletter has details of today's guests and links to the major stories and alerts that Thom covered in the show, plus lots more. If you haven't signed up for the free newsletter yet, please do. If you missed today's newsletter, it is in the archive.
  • Article: Incomes of young in 8-year nose dive, by Dennis Cauchon.
    "The incomes of the young and middle-aged — especially men — have fallen off a cliff since 2000, leaving many age groups poorer than they were even in the 1970s, a USA TODAY analysis of new Census data found. People 54 or younger are losing ground financially at an unprecedented rate in this recession, widening a gap between young and old that had been expanding for years.

    While the young have lost ground, older people have grown more prosperous over the years and the decades. Older women have done best of all.

    The dividing line between those getting richer or poorer: the year 1955. If you were born before that, you're part of a generation enjoying a four-decade run of historic income growth. Every generation after that is now sinking economically.

    Household income for people in their peak earning years — between ages 45 and 54 — plunged $7,700 to $64,349 from 2000 through 2008, after adjusting for inflation. People in their 20s and 30s suffered similar drops. Older people enjoyed all the gains.

    The line between the haves and have-nots runs through the middle of the Baby Boom, the population explosion 1946-64.

    "The second half of the Baby Boom may be in the worst shape of all," says demographer Cheryl Russell of New Strategist Publications, a research firm. "They're loaded with expenses for housing, cars and kids, but they will never generate the income that their parents enjoyed."

    "
  • Article: Rep. King thanks Sen. Grassley as ‘single most important factor’ in obstructing health reform by Lee Fang.
    "Mr. Speaker, at this point, I want to thank my senior Senator, Chuck Grassley from Iowa for engaging in the negotiations [...] the dialog on the health care issue on the Senate side that may well have been the single most important key factor that allowed for the debate in health care to be extended through the month of August and past Labor Day and get us to this point in September where we are. If it hadn't been for Senator Chuck Grassley negotiation these health care issues in that gang of 6 in the United States Senate, it's possible, and maybe even likely, that they would have found a way to ram a bill through this chamber and over and put it through the Senate and the House and on President Obama's desk before the August break. If that had happened, the tea party people would have had a different reason to come to town if they came at all."
  • Article: Study Finds Lack of Insurance Can Be Lethal by Elizabeth Cooney.
    "As medical care has improved for people with health insurance, the consequences of being uninsured have worsened, according to a new study that says the lack of coverage translates into nearly 45,000 deaths each year among working-age Americans."

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