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Oct
12
2012

Factchecking the Debate Moderator

By 18 Comments

With all the newfound interest in campaign factchecking in the corporate media (that enthusiasm shouldn't be confused with being good at it), it's worth remembering that it's not just the political candidates whose claims should be factchecked. The moderators should face some scrutiny too. Last night ABC's Martha Raddatz framed a question this way: Let's talk about Medicare and entitlements. Both Medicare and Social Security are going broke and taking a larger share of the budget in the process. Will benefits for Americans under these programs have to change for the programs to survive? Glenn Greenwald caught that one, and [...]

Filed Under: ABC, Election, Medicare, Social Security Tagged With: ,
Sep
07
2012

Don't Call It 'Raising the Retirement Age,' Because That's Not What They're Doing

By 13 Comments
Barack Obama (photo by NASA/Bill Ingalls)

As Dean Baker noted (Beat the Press, 9/7/12), corporate media mostly missed one of the major pieces of news in President Barack Obama's speech to the Democratic National Convention. Talking about the federal budget deficit, Obama said, "Now, I’m still eager to reach an agreement based on the principles of my bipartisan debt commission." Then, as he talked about what he would and wouldn't do to reduce the deficit, he included this line: "And we will keep the promise of Social Security by taking the responsible steps to strengthen it–not by turning it over to Wall Street." "Responsible steps to [...]

Filed Under: Barack Obama, Social Security Tagged With:
Sep
05
2012

Dems Didn't Start Social Security — and Other False Factchecks From Factcheck.org

By 16 Comments
Rep. James Clyburn (SEIU)

Under the headline "Democratic Disinformation From Charlotte," the website Factcheck.org (9/5/12) took aim at this "dubious or misleading claim": Rep. James Clyburn engaged in partisan myth-making when he said “Democrats created Social Security” while Republicans “cursed the darkness.” History records strong bipartisan support in both House and Senate for the measure President Roosevelt signed in 1935. Later, in explaining this judgment, Factcheck wrote: For sure, there was opposition to the legislation. Sen. Daniel Hastings, a Delaware Republican, warned that it would "end the progress of a great country," as the New York Times reported. But Hastings was in the minority, [...]

Filed Under: Election, Factchecking, Social Security, Taxes Tagged With: , , ,
Aug
21
2012

ABC: Social Security Running Out of Money?

By 12 Comments

Part of ABC's This Week show (8/19/12) was devoted to the idea that, as host Jake Tapper put it, the U.S. economy is at a potentially defining moment: The great debate: Can we restore the nation's finances, or is the U.S. headed toward bankruptcy–an issue at the forefront of the presidential debate, especially since Mitt Romney's selection of Congressman Paul Ryan. Setting aside the notion of "bankruptcy," it's worth pointing out that despite Ryan's professed interest in taming the debt, his budget plans don't actually do much of that. The "all-star panel of experts" was going to tackle this weighty [...]

Filed Under: ABC, Social Security Tagged With:
Jul
06
2012

O'Reilly as Paul Revere: The Disabled Are Coming

By 42 Comments

Bill O'Reilly complained last night (7/5/12) that there are too many disabled people in America: Twenty years ago in June 1992, there were 3,300,000 Americans receiving federal disability payments. Today, 20 years later, that number is a record 8,733,000 workers on disability. O'Reilly's not buying it for a second: Why has the disability rate increased more than 100 percent? I'll tell you why. It's a con. It's easy to put in a bogus disability claim. And according to O'Reilly, who compares himself to Paul Revere, this is a big sign that that "the country is in steep decline": More than [...]

Filed Under: Fox News, Social Security, Taxes Tagged With:
May
21
2012

Why It Matters That There's No Such Thing as Simpson-Bowles

By 2 Comments

Dan Balz, the Washington Post's chief correspondent (5/20/12), complains that President Barack Obama hasn't solved America's fiscal problems: Obama has drawn criticism for failing to offer more forceful leadership. He established the Simpson-Bowles commission but declined opportunities at key moments to push and prod for its consideration and enactment. There's an odd syntax here that reflects some slippery thinking. Grammatically, "its" in the second sentence seems like it would refer to the Simpson-Bowles commission, but that would be nonsensical. You're presumably supposed to think it means the commission's plan, but that's a trick–there was no plan passed by the commission [...]

Filed Under: Barack Obama, Budget, Social Security, Washington Post Tagged With: ,
Apr
30
2012

For WaPo, Promises to the Elderly Have 'No Economic Significance'

By 34 Comments

I gave my daughter a tip on being a media critic: "If you see a newspaper article with the words 'Social Security' in the title," I told her, "it's probably bad." Sure enough, the article we were looking at–"Fixing Social Security," by Washington Post columnist Allan Sloan (4/29/12)–was pretty terrible. Sloan's argument is that cuts in Social Security benefits are "inevitable" because of "projections that Social Security's cash expenses will exceed its cash income as far as the eye can see." Note the important qualifier: "cash income." That means excluding Social Security's investment income. Including that income, Social Security is [...]

Filed Under: Social Security, Washington Post Tagged With:
Apr
10
2012

Samuelson's Social Security Screed

By 44 Comments

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson really doesn't like Social Security and Medicare. And he'll go a long way to argue that they're wasteful, inefficient forms of welfare. (See Extra!, 10/11.) But his arguments rarely hold up. His most recent column (4/9/12) is no exception; in fact, it recycles a totally misleading factoid from a column he wrote last year. Samuelson's column has problems from top to bottom–you can read Dean Baker's dismantling of it at his Beat the Press blog: There is no trust fund, benefits cuts are necessary and inevitable, there are too many retirees supported by not very [...]

Filed Under: Media Criticism, Medicare, Social Security, Washington Post Tagged With: ,
Mar
20
2012

Our One Percent Media

By 14 Comments

From Politico (3/20/12): David Gregory, host of NBC's Meet the Press, and Bret Baier, host of Fox News's Special Report, are among the latest applicants to the Chevy Chase Club, the historic social club that has catered to Washington's wealthiest for over a century. The Club's recent "Membership Report" shows that both Gregory and Baier are up for consideration as "newly proposed candidates for membership." Gregory is being sponsored by Joseph Stettinius and William M. Walker. Baier is being sponsored Burke F. Hayes and by Brit Hume, the former anchor of Fox News' Special Report. The Chevy Chase Club would [...]

Filed Under: Fox News, NBC, Social Security Tagged With: , ,
Feb
21
2012

Money Rules Politics? Robert Samuelson Busts That 'Myth'

By 9 Comments

It's possible that someone could write a column arguing that efforts to restrict the influence of big money on our political system do more harm than good. Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson tried to pull it off on Monday (2/20/12), but the results were pretty ugly. You don't need to read the whole column. All you need to read is his "Myth One," which appears about halfway through the piece: Myth One: The rich and corporate interests rule government through campaign contributions and lobbying. This is absurd. In 2009, $2.1 trillion (60 percent) of federal spending went for "payments for [...]

Filed Under: Social Security, Washington Post Tagged With:
Jan
30
2012

David Gregory's House of Pain

By 41 Comments

At a time when millions of Americans are are experiencing massive unemployment, a painfully slow economic recovery, wage stagnation and the after-effects of the bursting of a multi-trillion dollar housing bubble, isn't it time someone demanded that they suffer a little bit? Of course not, you might say. But that's why you don't work in the media big leagues. Here's NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory yesterday (1/29/12), speaking to Obama adviser David Axlerod: But if you look at how dire the fiscal situation is in the country, we just came off a debt debacle this past summer. Alan [...]

Filed Under: Budget, Economy, NBC, Social Security Tagged With: ,
Nov
04
2011

ABC Exclusive: Greek Fatcat Retirees Stealing From American Workers!

By 27 Comments

The November 1 broadcast of ABC World News couldn't have been any clearer about what's happening in Greece: Their pampered, early-retiring workforce is stealing from Americans. Anchor Diane Sawyer explained: If you were watching your stocks today, you saw a nosedive. The Dow down nearly 300 points, so, what changed? Well, blame it on the country of Greece, long criticized for being undisciplined, and now threatening American retirements. OK, since we probably were all "watching our stocks" on Tuesday–like any other day–why is Greece doing this to us? ABC correspondent Dan Harris explains how this all works by introducing us [...]

Filed Under: ABC, Economy, Social Security Tagged With: , ,
Nov
01
2011

To WaPo, Social Security Is a Treacherous Money Sucker

By 17 Comments

On its Sunday front-page, the Washington Post published an incredibly dishonest attack on Social Security. Under the headline, "Social Security Adding Billions to U.S. Budget Woes," reporter Lori Montgomery reported that "Social Security passed a treacherous milestone"–a moment where the program, largely because of the recession, spent more in benefits than it took in. What does this mean? Montgomery tells readers: "Social Security is sucking money out of the Treasury." Montgomery complains that "fixing Social Security has largely vanished from the conversation" about the country's fiscal crisis, and politicians are "ducking the issue." She adds: "Many Democrats have largely chosen [...]

Filed Under: Social Security, Washington Post Tagged With: ,
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