05-03-06,9:09am
Yesterday’s media coverage of the latest Social Security trustees’ report wasn’t quite that hysterical. But you can be sure we’re going to hear loud and repeated calls that Social Security is in a huge “CRISIS” from the Bush administration and other groups with a big stake in privatizing the cornerstone of America’s retirement security.
Most media outlets trumpeted how the report’s figures show Social Security will pay full benefits through 2040, a year less than last year’s report predicted. After that, without any changes whatsoever, it will be able to pay out 74 percent of scheduled benefits. Social Security trustees, three of whom are Bush cabinet members, annually update the status of Social Security.
The loud cries of crisis and extremist talk show banter about grandma and grandpa living in a refrigerator box unless we privatize Social Security and let Wall Street take care of the nation’s seniors are likely to grow following the report. But the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities took the kind of deep breath we all should:
The new trustees’ report is consistent with previous reports. It shows that Social Security faces a significant but manageable challenge. While acting sooner rather than later will help reduce the size of the eventual adjustments, the trustees’ report indicates that Social Security does not face a deep structural crisis requiring drastic changes.
The panic mongers always point to the huge impact of the Social Security shortfall (estimated at $4.6 trillion over the next 75 years) on the deficit. Center Executive Director Robert Greenstein points out there is an even larger threat—President Bush’s tax cuts:
The Trustees’ report places the size of the Social Security shortfall at $4.6 trillion over the next 75 years, a little more than one-third the cost of the tax cuts over the same period. The cost of the tax cuts just for the top 1 percent of Americans—people with annual incomes today of more than $400,000—itself is about equal to the cost of closing the Social Security shortfall.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reminds us that when Bush took up residency in the White House, he inherited a $5.6 trillion budget surplus—and immediately squandered it:
Rather than using the Clinton surpluses to strengthen Social Security or Medicare, the President and the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress chose to go into debt by recklessly giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy.
She also says the report’s findings that Social Security can pay full benefits through 2040 and 74 percent after that:
…flatly contradicts Republican efforts to manufacture a ‘crisis’ in Social Security to justify a privatization plan that is unaffordable, unnecessary, and unwise.
Of course, a manufactured “Social Security crisis” was the battle cry of Bush’s failed attempt to privatize Social Security. His so-called solution would have eliminated guaranteed benefits, reduced benefit levels and boosted the retirement age.
The AFL-CIO, the Alliance for Retired Americans and other groups long have pointed out how Social Security is the cornerstone of retirement security and should be strengthened—but not through risky privatization schemes.
On the lighter side, over at Daily Kos, Gumby, who also notes the mainstream media’s “sky is falling,” coverage of Social Security, posts a poll: “Is the President trying to destroy Social Security again?”
Gotta admit, it’s a little snarky, but take a look.
