Brendan Nyhan

Treasury Secretary John Snow has published an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) in which he uses the exact same strategy I flagged earlier — implying that Social Security will stop paying out any benefits in 2042 when it exhausts the trust fund:

The current system will pay out more in benefits than it brings in revenue beginning in 2018 and shortfalls will grow larger with each year. By 2042, when workers in their 20s today begin to retire, the system will be bankrupt, meaning that it cannot fulfill the scheduled benefits.

Calling the system “bankrupt” and saying “it cannot fulfill the scheduled benefits” clearly implies that no benefits will be paid out. Snow never clarifies that Social Security will be able to continue paying out more than 70 percent of promised benefits. This is a nasty sleight-of-hand.

Yesterday, a Washington Post story reported that House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) called President Bush’s Social Security plan “a dead horse,” spurring a great deal of controversy and media coverage.

But he wasn’t done there. According to the Post, “Thomas said lawmakers should debate whether Social Security benefits should differ for men and women, because women live longer. ‘We never have debated gender-adjusting Social Security,’ he said. A House leadership official said that not even Republicans on Thomas’s committee would vote for that idea.”

Talk about a dead horse.

But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has touted his new communications shop, was quick to demagogue Thomas’ comment,
saying in a statement, “And if a 50 percent benefit cut is not enough, now we learn Republicans are aiming to push even deeper cuts for America’s women. Any suggestion that women do not deserve the same benefits as men is just plain wrong.”

In Reid’s world, a stray comment by an eccentric House Republican is proof of a GOP master plan to screw women. Come on.

We’ve decided to stop updating Spinsanity. You can read the announcement here.

If you’re a new reader, hope you’ll stay and check out the site. There are lots of posts below and more in the archives. The RSS feed is here. And of course, to be absolutely clear, the views expressed on this site are mine alone and do not reflect those of Spinsanity or anyone else — for better or for worse. Enjoy!

WashingtonPost.com’s Dan Froomkin notes that President Bush used a long opening statement to chew up a huge chunk of an interview with the Wall Street Journal. And I noticed Bush did the same thing to both the Washington Post and the Washington Times as well. To be sure, it’s good that Bush is doing a lot of interviews lately, but the press needs to push back on Bush’s filibusters (which he already uses during press conferences) rather than continually ceding ground. Don’t let these rare opportunities to question the President go to waste.

Here’s the opening of Robert Samuelson’s new Washington Post column:

Everyone is going to play numbers games to judge George W. Bush’s next economic policies. At the top of the list will be Bush’s pledge to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009. Although this promise seems simple, it isn’t.

Let’s see. Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, says the pledge was made a year ago, when the projected deficit for 2004 was $521 billion, or 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. Thus, the administration’s targets for 2009 are $260 billion, or 2.2 percent of GDP. But wait; the actual deficit for 2004 was $413 billion (3.6 percent of GDP). Should Bush be aiming for half of that?

Shouldn’t a major economic columnist be able to remember the basic history of the Bush administration’s economic plans over the last two years? The first “plan” to cut the deficit in half was released in July 2003. At the time, the projected deficit for fiscal 2003 was $455 billion. Kolton is referring to a second version that was released in January 2004. Why let the administration move the goalposts without comment?

One of the key rhetorical moves in the current push for creating private accounts in Social Security is to suggest that the system will literally run out of money and stop paying benefits entirely in 2042. This is completely false.

First, a couple of examples. Here’s President Bush speaking during a White House interview with the Orlando Sentinel:

“We’re really addressing a younger generation of Americans, many of whom believe they will never see a dime in Social Security,” Bush said. Without changes, “they’re going to be right.”

And here’s Bush speaking with USA Today:

“Well, if we don’t act now, the solution for Social Security, when it becomes — starts losing money in 2018, and out of money in 2040, will be much more severe. The sooner we work and solve the problem, the easier it is to solve the problem.”

“And this — the Social Security system goes into the red in 2018. That means more money going out than coming in, and it gets worse and worse and worse. And so that if you’re 20-years-old today, by the time you retire, the system will be broke.”

CBS News even encouraged this perception in a December 15 report flagged by the liberal Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Reporter John Roberts said, “In 2042, Social Security will become insolvent, and today’s young workers risk losing their benefits.” According to FAIR, “[a]n on-screen graphic explained that the workers-to-retirees ratio has been declining since the 1930s, with the final entry for the year 2042 reading: ‘Insolvent = 0 benefits?’”

Thankfully, Rex Nutting of CBS Marketwatch destroyed this canard in a recent story:

Bush: “As a matter of fact, by the time today’s workers who are in their mid-20s begin to retire, the system will be bankrupt. So if you’re 20 years old, in your mid-20s, and you’re beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now.”

The facts: The Social Security system cannot go “bankrupt,” for it has no creditors. By law, the trustees will continue to pay reduced benefits even if the trust fund is exhausted. Payroll taxes will continue to come in and benefits will continue to be paid. According to the trustees’ intermediate economic forecast (neither doom nor boom), the trust fund will be able to pay about 73 percent of scheduled benefits in 2042 and about 68 percent of scheduled benefits in 2078. Future presidents and Congresses could also choose to fully fund scheduled retirement benefits from general tax revenue.

And Time also debunked Bush’s bankruptcy rhetoric in a new story:

The President last week surrounded himself with citizens ranging from children to an 80-year-old and warned that the Social Security system will be “flat bust, bankrupt” by the time workers in their 20s retire. As early as 2018, Bush said, “you’re either going to have to raise the taxes of people or reduce the benefits.” At another appearance intended to promote federal standards for testing high school students, Bush went off script to warn a group of teenagers, “The system will be bankrupt by the year 2040.”

That sounds pretty scary–except that it’s not true. What will actually happen in 2018, according to the Social Security trustees who oversee the program, is that the money paid out in benefits will begin to exceed the amount collected in taxes. And since Social Security will run a surplus until then (and has been running one for some time), it has billions available that it can tap to fill the gap. Even under conservative estimates, the system as it stands will have enough money to pay all its promised benefits until 2042 and most of its obligations for decades after.

And credit where credit is due – as Bob Somerby points out, the one journalist to challenge the Bush administration on this was Chris Wallace of “Fox News Sunday” during an interview with Dan Bartlett, counselor to the President, on Sunday:

WALLACE (1/16/05): Let’s turn if we can to another big issue, maybe the top of your legislative agenda on the domestic front: Social Security. The president keeps saying that there is a crisis, that if there is no change the system will go broke by 2042. Let’s look.

BUSH (videotape): I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now.

WALLACE: As a simple fact, isn’t that wrong?

BARTLETT: Absolutely not! And the bottom line is—the fact of the matter is that when you take the Social Security system as it is, this is a mathematical issue, not an ideological issue. In 1950, there were about 16 workers—

WALLACE: Let me just interrupt, because I know the fact that there were 14 workers for every person when it was first— The fact is that in 2042, if you did absolutely nothing to the system, it wouldn’t be “broke.” It wouldn’t be “bankrupt.” In fact, there would be a problem, but you would be able to still pay about three-quarters of everybody’s guaranteed benefits.

BARTLETT: But what you’re talking about—in 2018 we go into the red. In 2042, you start actually bankrupting the system, which you’re having to get funds elsewhere. You’re right, the payroll taxes at that moment could pay about 70 percent of the benefits.

WALLACE: But that isn’t “bankrupt.”

BARTLETT: Well, it’s absolutely bankrupt, because you’re absolutely in the red, and you’re having to take dollars from elsewhere. And that problem only continues to get worse.

The question is: will the press start to call the president on this one consistently, or follow the example of the Orlando Sentinel and USA Today and let him keep getting away with it?

Postscript – Debunking of two more bogus claims:
-Talking point: Blacks get less from Social Security because they die sooner – see the Minneapolis Star-Tribune
-Talking point: The life expectancy of the elderly has changed dramatically since Social Security was created, worsening Social Security’s financial problems — see Nutting

Correction 1/20: Dan Bartlett is now counselor to the president, not communications director. My apologies.

Most commentary I’ve seen on the Armstrong Williams controversy has been Crossfire-level at best – either it was an innocent mistake made by a PR firm, or a nefarious scheme to subvert democracy. But the best way to look at the story is as an example of how far the Bush administration will go in its use of the techniques of public relations, even if it means violating the norms of politics. This was the key point of All the President’s Spin — to understand the Bush administration, you have to understand its use of PR.

A classic example is the Karen Ryan incident, which we analyze in the conclusion of the book. It has all the same ingredients as Williams: a subcontracted PR agency does something that is considered normal in the world of business, but not in politics. When caught, the administration denies doing anything wrong, and says what was done is standard practice. (To review, Karen Ryan was the flack who posed as a reporter in a government-produced news segment designed to look like a real news story. It was then aired on a number of local newscasts without attribution. The Clinton administration previously engaged in this practice as well.)

As we wrote in ATPS, here’s how Health and Human Services spokespeople replied to questions about the Ryan incident:

“The use of video news releases is a common, routine practice in government and the private sector,” Kevin W. Keane said, adding, “Anyone who has questions about this practice needs to do some research on modern public information tools.” Another HHS spokesman, Bill Pierce, later claimed, “There’s no way this can be deceptive,” saying, “If [local newscasts] run the whole package, that’s their choice.”

And here’s Education Secretary Rod Paige’s response to the Williams controversy as reported in Editor and Publisher – note in particular the third paragraph, which directly mirrors Keane and Pierce above:

In a statement e-mailed to E&P and other publications, Paige said: “I am sorry that there are perceptions and allegations of ethical lapses.” But he defended the expenditure, saying it “went exclusively toward the production and airtime of advertisements in which I described the law and encouraged viewers and listeners to call the Department’s toll-free information line. The funds covered those costs alone and nothing more. All of this has been reviewed and is legal.”

But USA Today reported today that the Department of Education contract with Williams also called for him to “comment regularly on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts.”

Paige also said in his statement: “Hiring outside experts to help communicate a complex issue is standard practice in all sectors of our society: local, state and the federal government; the private sector; and the non-profit sector. The work for which the Graham Williams Group was paid through Ketchum was part of a larger minority outreach effort by the Department because economically disadvantaged and minority students and families are most affected by the educational achievement gap that the law seeks to eradicate.”

(Paige appears to contradict himself here, saying first that the money went only for advertisements and then later stating that Williams had been hired “to help communicate a complex issue.”)

In the end, the message is the same: the Bush administration wants to win, and it will use all the tools of corporate PR to do so.

Update 1/19: I missed this when I was sick, but the Office of Drug Control Policy was recently caught issuing a Karen Ryan-style video news release.

With everything else that is going on, it is easy to forget one of the worst developments from the 2004 election – the victory of Cynthia McKinney, conspiracy theorist extraordinaire.

Writing in the Weekly Standard, Matthew Continetti replays the incident that helped drive her from the House in 2002:

[I]n a March 25, 2002, interview on KPFA Pacifica radio, she suddenly fell off.

“We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11,” McKinney said that day. “What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? What do they have to hide?” McKinney thought she knew the answer. “What is undeniable,” she explained, “is that corporations close to the administration have directly benefited from the increased defense spending arising from the aftermath of September 11th.”

Continetti also details how McKinney has come to endorse the conspiracy theories of Michael Ruppert, “a former LAPD detective who is best known for his theories on CIA drug trafficking” but now is promoting the crackpot view that (in Continetti’s words) “the Bush administration, Enron, Israeli intelligence, the Pakistani ISI, the Saudis, and Osama bin Laden were behind the terrorist attacks.”

To paraphrase the annoying anti-Bush bumper sticker, it’s time to re-defeat McKinney.

One of the few accomplishments of my 10-day December flu (besides watching almost everything on my Tivo) was finishing Bill Clinton’s gargantuan My Life, which had been kicking around the house half-read for so long that I decided to put it out of its misery. Unfortunately, the misery was all mine. That book is virtually unreadable after he leaves Arkansas, which makes me wonder: how many people could possibly have finished it? They’ve sold a million copies or so; could 25,000 people have read it cover-to-cover? 50,000? I’d guess the rest of the books have been safely stowed away or displayed on Democratic bookshelves.

So I was amused to read when I came back from vacation that Knopf is splitting the book into two paperbacks to sell in grocery stores, airports, and other non-bookstore environments. The Times story on the decision has a hilariously droll description of the disjunction between the two parts of the book:

A two-volume edition will accommodate a feature of the book that was widely remarked upon by literary critics and others last year. Roughly the first half of the book, which deals with Mr. Clinton’s childhood, college years and political life in Arkansas, was judged by many to be the far more interesting portion, while, to many, the presidential material sometimes read like an annotated desk diary.

Anyway, it’ll be an interesting test of word of mouth versus impulse buying. Anyone who’s heard about the book will buy the first half, but average people who don’t care about Arkansas politics and want to read about his presidency may get slammed. (This could be a boon to in-flight magazines — imagine taking that thing to read on a long plane trip.) Bill Clinton wasn’t the worst president of the 20th century, but the second half of My Life might be the worst book of the 21st.

Just when it seemed like I was back in business, I suddenly disappeared again. Sorry about that. My final parting gift from Costa Rica was a bug that ended up putting me in the hospital for four days. But I’m back on the road to recovery and will again be revving this blog up in the days to come. Stay tuned.