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Let's just say both Clinton participating in anything sponsored by the Peterson Foundation that wants to privatize Social Security and that has been doing their best running around the country trying to scare everyone that the United States is going broke because they don't want to see taxes raised, and him cozying up to Paul Ryan backstage at their debate doesn't exactly leave me feeling warm and fuzzy inside to put it mildly.

Rachel Maddow wasn't too thrilled with watching this either in the clip above.

Bill Clinton to Paul Ryan on Medicare Election: ‘Give me a Call’ :

The day after the stunning upset in the special congressional election in upstate New York, Rep. Paul Ryan is a man under fire.

But ABC News was behind the scenes with the Wisconsin Congressman and GOP Budget Committee Chairman when he got some words of encouragement none other than former President Bill Clinton.

"So anyway, I told them before you got here, I said I’m glad we won this race in New York," Clinton told Ryan, when the two met backstage at a forum on the national debt held by the Pete Peterson Foundation. But he added, “I hope Democrats don't use this as an excuse to do nothing.”

Ryan told Clinton he fears that now nothing will get done in Washington.

“My guess is it’s going to sink into paralysis is what’s going to happen. And you know the math. It’s just, I mean, we knew we were putting ourselves out there. You gotta start this. You gotta get out there. You gotta get this thing moving,” Ryan said.

Clinton told Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should “give me a call.” Ryan said he would. Read on...

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David Walker -- CEO and chief propagandist for the anti-Social Security outfit Peter G. Peterson Foundation -- gave a speech at the US Chamber of Commerce on Friday and said this about Social Security and Medicare.

Walker: There’s been a lot in the press recently about sovereign debt challenges and you know one of the things the United States is not very good at, although we’re good at a lot of things; we’re not very good at learning from history and comparing ourselves to others. Because we assume since we’re the only super power on earth, which is temporary, that we must meddle, meaning be top three, in virtually everything, but the truth is when you look at the hard cold facts we’re below average in a number of things.

And this is a fuller and fairer view of the relative debt to G.D.P. burden of the United States as compared to some of the other countries that you’ve heard on the T.V. and the radio and seen in the paper and on line recently. The truth is that when you want to compare debt to G.D.P. with the European countries, you have to look at Federal, state and local debt because in European countries most of the financing is done at the national level.

And therefore if you look at our total Federal, state and local, keyword, public debt and you add it up and you compare it to the G.D.P. of the United States you’ll see that according to the recent I.M.F. report, May 2010, the United States is already worse than Spain, U.K., Ireland, Portugal and we’re within ten years of being where Greece is.

But another footnote, this does not count the several trillion dollars that we owe Social Security and Medicare, that are not deemed to be a liability of the United States government. Even though the United States government tells you and I on our Social Security statements and in reports issued each year that those are assets and that you can count on them. And so on one hand they want to tell us we can count on them, and I believe we can because they’re backed by the full faith of the United States government, guaranteed principal and interest, but on the other hand they don’t want to call them a liability.

And if we did, which we should, then add thirty percent to G.D.P. to this number. We have to be more truthful with regard to where we are. We need to avoid creative accounting practices and we need to cease and desist on the self-dealing that goes on with regard to government activity, especially in the so-called trust funds, which you can’t trust and are not funded.

I'm still trying to square what Walker said here. On one hand he says that the Social Security fund is "backed by the full faith of the United States government" and in the next breath he says that Social Security is "not funded".

Which is it Mr. Walker? Does the fund have the backing of the Federal government or not? Is it okay that the fund was raided and do you think that promise to the American tax payers should be honored or not? Or do you think it's alright to tell Americans that the U.S. government made a promise to them that they're not willing to keep because we had other priorities like invading and occupying countries that were not a threat to us and giving tax cuts to the rich at the same time?

Dean Baker has more has more on the type of hackery we got from Walker here.

Attack Wall Street, Not Social Security:

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Former US Comptroller and Pete Peterson Austerity Pimp David Walker joined Andrea Mitchell's set on MSNBC to warn all of the peons that we'd better get ready to be paying more in taxes because heaven forbid we can't dare to ask the rich to do any more to reduce the deficit.

He also had some new snake oil to sell all of us with his description of privatizing Social Security; we need to make it "more savings oriented." I wonder if he's been talking to Frank Luntz? That just sounds so much nicer than saying let's turn it over to Wall Street, doesn't it? Maybe he's figured out that calling it "a cancer" like his fellow deficit hawk Erskine Bowles wasn't such a good idea. What Susie wrote in that post deserves repeating in response to David Walker here.

As I keep saying, Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program which funds itself. All Social Security needs to stay 100% funded through the next 50 years is to remove the cap on earnings placed there under Ronald Reagan as a perk for the well-to-do, and raise the rate by one percent.

To say that Social Security is part of a "cancer" as Erskine Bowles does, is the same as saying that the United States cannot meet its own bond obligations -- which is decidedly not true. But the Very Serious People, contrary to the facts spelled out by economists like James Galbraith and Paul Krugman, have decided that the best way to deal with their own gnawing sense of economic uneasiness is to grind the boot heel into the backs of the lower classes -- just to show us who's boss!

Here's more of the same nonsense from Walker. These people are determined to raid that trust fund and pretend that the United States can't meet out debt obligations if we don't.

Mitchell: Look the fiscal commission doesn’t even have anything mandatory. It’s all advisory and all the muscle from that commission was taken out because of the disagreements on the hill. Doesn’t that forecast that you’re not going to have the kind of results from this commission that is going to make a real difference in terms of the deficit or the tax climate?

Walker: Well Andrea we’re hopeful that it can make some recommendations based on the super-majority requirement. I believe it’s very possible to re-impose tough statutory budget controls next year that don’t have trillions of dollars worth of exemptions. I believe that it’s possible to reform Social Security to make it solvent, sustainable and more savings oriented.

Realistically, the two tough things that we’re going to have to do, which is comprehensive tax reform and really taking a hard look at health care costs that are out of control. Those are probably not going to be ripe until around 2013, but we need to start getting some points on the board, start doing some things sooner rather than later before our foreign lenders lose confidence in our ability to do so.

Mitchell: Mr. Walker in your recommendation that we extend the tax cuts for the middle class for all the top earners, the 2 or 3% of the top earners, would you do it even if they’re not paid for?

Walker: I think it’s highly preferable if we pay for them quite frankly but it’s important to keep in mind this. If anything is done in that regard, it should be temporary. We should not deceive the American people by letting them believe that their taxes are not going go up once the economy has recovered.

President Obama made a commitment that he wasn’t going to raise taxes on people making over $200,000 or more. That was an unrealistic commitment. Our problem is primarily a spending problem and the resolution to our fiscal challenge is primarily spending, but we’re going to need more revenues and it’s going to have to be more broadly shared than just those that are wealthy.