Raw Deal: How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal

Social Security is facing the most serious, well-financed, and determined threat to its existence since its inception in 1935. For Americans to make sense of the barrage of conflicting messages on the subject, it's necessary to understand who is behind the campaign to "reform" Social Security, what the campaign aims to achieve, and how it misrepresents its goals. Best-selling author Joe Conason exposes why and how this is happening. "The Raw Deal explores the Right's privatization goals, Bush's hard-fought privatization campaign (built on a stacked "study"), the corporate interests behind the plan, the media campaign to undermine confidence in Social Security, and how the swindle can be stopped. Conason's no-apologies, no-nonsense approach clears up the myriad misperceptions surrounding this important, confusing issue and gets to the truth about the big Social Security bluff.

Joe Conason is national correspondent for The New York Observer, where he writes a weekly column distributed by Creators Syndicate. He is also a columnist for Salon.com, and the Director of the Nation Institute Investigative Fund. His books Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, and The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, with Gene Lyons, were both national bestsellers; his latest book, It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush, was released in February 2007. His writing and reporting have appeared in many publications, including Harpers, The Guardian, The Nation, and The New Republic. He also appears frequently on television and radio. He lives with his wife in New York City.