If the Media Is So "Liberal" Why Does It Keep Repeating the Right Wing Doomsday Lies About Social Security?

Question

The Facts:
The Social Security Administration predicts the program will be able to fully pay all promised benefits through 2042, when most baby boomers will be dead--even using pessimistic assumptions about future economic growth. Annual productivity growth is forecast by SSA at only 1.6 percent through 2078; in the years 1913-1990 (including the Great Depression), it grew by about 2.3 percent, a rate that would more than wipe out any future shortfall (2004 Social Security Trustees' Report; The World Economy, OECD, 2001).

But for most of the media, no such context is allowed. The sole economic expert who appeared on ABC was David John of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, who likened the situation to a "horror movie." The Washington Post's Dana Milbank chided a Social Security commissioner for "whistling past the graveyard of entitlement insolvency" because he had the temerity to say, "There's no reason to have any immediate panic."

At the top of ABC's October 15 World News with Charles Gibson, the anchor declared this a "day of reckoning," later calling it "one of this country's greatest challenges." Correspondent David Wright called the first baby boomer filing for benefits "the raindrop that's about to become a tsunami," and warned that "paying for the baby boom's retirement may leave the next generation high and dry." The Post's Milbank (10/16/07) went further, claiming that baby boomers "will begin to bankrupt the nation."

The crisis claims in each report were more or less the same. According to ABC's Wright, "In 10 years time, Social Security will be paying out more in benefits than it takes in in taxes. And about the time the last of the baby boomers retires, the system will go bankrupt." As Milbank put it, "As the boomers retire, Social Security will go into the red in 2017 and become insolvent 24 years later, according to the system's trustees."

This rhetoric is profoundly misleading. Social Security has built up a massive surplus in order to pay for the long-anticipated retirement of the baby boomers.

Former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan--whose word the media usually takes as a kind of gospel--told Tim Russert on Meet the Press (9/23/07) that there was no urgent Social Security crisis at all. "Social Security is not a big crisis," Greenspan explained. "We're approximately 2 percentage points of payroll short over the very long run. It's a significant closing of the gap, but it's doable, and doable in any number of ways."

Renowned Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (New York Times, 12/7/04) has similarly debunked the notion that Social Security is heading into a crisis. The long-term financing of Social Security is "a problem of modest size....It's not at all hard to come up with fiscal packages that would secure the retirement program, with no major changes, for generations to come."

LeAnne-
The Cato Institute has been campaigning to Privatize Social Security for decades and along with the Conservative American Enterprise Institute and the Conservative Heritage Foundation has maintained a campaign of misinformation.
They usually won't mention the CAP on all income over $90,000 that doesn't get taxed under FISA.
Decades of conservative marketing have convinced Americans that government programs always create bloated bureaucracies, while the private sector is always lean and efficient. But when it comes to retirement security, the opposite is true. More than 99 percent of Social Security's revenues go toward benefits, and less than 1 percent for overhead. In Chile's system, management fees are around 20 times as high. And that's a typical number for privatized systems.

Answer 1

US media is not liberal at all nor they ever were. On the contrary US media is being owned and run by evil Republican Neocons which keep destroying our country.

Answer 2

The Social Security debate can be answered with some simple facts:
First, the FICA tax rate to support the program -
1940 - 1%
1960 - 3%
1990 - 7.65%

Second, the ratio of contributing workers to recipiants:
1950 16.5:1
1960 5.1:1
2005 3.3:1
2020 2.6:1 (est.)

Seems to me pretty obvious that the program will not be sustainable in the near future unless steps are taken now to provide for either greater FICA taxes or reduced payments.
These statistics are from the Social Security Administration and they don't paint a very rosey picture for either future workers or future retirees unless the program is revamped. This is why there is so much debate on Capital Hill concerning different approaches to solve this concern - from increased taxes to reduced benefits to privatization.
"There is no reason to have any immediate panic" is an accurate statement - simply because anyone making that statement probably either dosen't need to depend on Social Security for retirement or won't be around when it crashes and burns.
Serious solutions are not pleasant - and because Social Security is such a sacred cow to the general public, it's not a subject that politicians really want to tackle. Most would rather leave it to their successors. You know, the "leave it for the 2nd shift" mentality.

Answer 3

"With the number of elderly Americans set to double by 2030, the baby boom will become a "senior boom." So first and above all, we must save Social Security for the 21st century. (Applause.)"

"Today, Social Security is strong. But by 2013, payroll taxes will no longer be sufficient to cover monthly payments. And by 2032, the trust fund will be exhausted, and Social Security will be unable to pay out the full benefits older Americans have been promised."

Bill Clinton's State of the Union Address
January 1999
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/01/19/sotu.transcript/

He then goes on to recommend that some part of social security taxes be invested in private mutual funds.



Is Bill Clinton a Right Wing Doomsday Liar?

Answer 4

Sorry to say, but those are NOT right wing lies! They are facts. Plain and simple. You might take a poll to see how many people over the age of 35 are counting on social security checks for their retirement. Now do the math with the number of people paying into the system our taxes would have to be enormous for the system to cover that burden.

And people want more government programs. We are a democracy not a socialist government. Two thirds of our citizens do not plan appropriately for retirement. It is a scary subject all around and one of the main reasons that medicare is also in such disarray!

Answer 5

Social security will never go broke. THINK. Retires dying everyday, living longer yes, but still dying everyday. as of the latter 80's US military now pay into social security, US government has billions in unclaimed social security funds just lyinhg in some special account (illegals have been paying into social security for decades...it was only recently that congress voted they can collect benefits...in the interim, as above, literally billions lie unused...that is to say if the government hasn't 'borrowed ' from that fund also. Some people never collected, never will collect. It's all such bs. All Bush wants is for his cuddy buddies in stocks, etc. to gain a piece of the action. Sure. So you collect on your return for a few years, and then you die. who reaps the benefits?
big bus as usual.
so no thanks,. give me good old tried and true, solvent, social security - screw anything else.

Answer 6

Because they are not lying. Social security as it now stands will be insolvent in a very short time. This was reconized by leading Democrats until Bush was elected. then they started singing "don;t worry, be happy". And what is good news about being able to pay till 2042? what happens after that?

Answer 7

I always wondered why the so-called "liberal media" tore Clinton apart during the Lewinsky scandal and supported the War in Iraq 100%.

Answer 8

Because the bottom line is the more fear they deliver, the more people can be conned into believing the government can solve their problems. A more involved government, a government who "cares" can more easily take your money to support the programs to protect you. That puts more money into the democrat agenda, because that is what the democrat agenda does. So it doesn't matter to the mainstream media where the fear is derived from as long as it furthers their agenda, the dem agenda, which is to take your money and keep you down. And since when does anyone believe the lies of the mainstream media anyway?

Answer 9

Because they know that everyone knows the Liberals would NOT hesitate to raise any and all taxes.
Repeating that mantra is actually more proof they are Liberal. When the Socialists take over the country (hopefully not in my lifetime) all income will come from the government, so of course, the people of this wealthy country will be as poor as church mice. That is what Socialism does, it make everyone one equally poor.

Answer 10

it keeps repeating because it is in the interests of the wall street crowd to have you to have private investments in your retirement, the fact is if you care to check history that Bush senior dipped into Social Security to take care of the savings and loan mess that the relatives were involved in, social security is just now trying to bounce back from that.

Answer 11

The same reason that the media talks more about the stock market and corporate news than they do about some of the social problems plaguing this country--they are not liberal.