The media have been rightly focusing their attention on the long waiting lists for veterans seeking medical care, and even worse, the Department of Veteran's Affairs cover-up. Unlike President Obama's birth certificate and the attack on the consulate at Benghazi, delaying or denying care to veterans is really a scandal.

On Sept. 6, the Census Bureau released its updated measure of the national supplementary poverty rate, revealing the poverty rate remains at 16 percent.

That's the question Brian Beutler over at Talking Points Memo raises this morning while reporting on the possibility of a bipartisan consensus on scaling back Social Security benefits materializing in Congress. Recognizing that such a proposal is usually "the third rail of American politics," Beutler lays out the not-impossible scenario of deficit-weary members of Congress sacrificing the relatively solvent entitlement program of Social Security before the alter of fiscal austerity.

Last week, Bush convened a number of experts in Washington, D.C. for an Economic Summit to discuss budget and tax reform, social security, and the possibility of extending last term's tax cuts. A transcript of Bush's summit comments can be found here.

As an article in today's Washington Post points out, Bush may see significant opposition to some of his plans from Congress, academics, and economic experts and analysts. Many people have been recently vocal about some of the administration's proposed policy reforms. For example Alan S. Blinder, former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve and a Princeton economist, recently stated the following concerning Bush's social security policy: "Under these changes, Social Security would be neither social nor provide security. This would be a piece of a program to expose people to more and more risk…. There are millions of Americans who have no desire and no ability to gamble on the financial markets, and they shouldn't be pushed to."

The next few months should include a good deal of debate concerning issues such as tax and social security reform. To read more about the Economic Summit, click here.