Dominic Pino writes for National Review Online about a major media outlet’s dubious take on Social Security.
The New York Times is celebrating Social Security’s 90th birthday with an article by Mark Miller that purports to dispel six “myths” about the program. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) read it over and found that five of them are actually true.
The CRFB blog post goes through them one by one:
- “Social Security is ‘running out of money.’” It definitely is! The trust fund is projected to run out of money in 2033. …
- “Aging boomers are the problem.” The NYT says the aging population “was always anticipated.” CRFB rightly retorts, “The fact that lawmakers have known about this problem for over 40 years and done nothing to solve it does not make its existence a myth.”
- “Social Security helps drive the deficit.” The NYT says this is a myth because the program is self-funded, even though it just acknowledged earlier on that in several years it will need to draw from general revenues to keep benefits going. CRFB notes that Social Security costs have exceeded revenues by $1.4 trillion since 2010, and the shortfall this year is $250 billion. That adds to the deficit.
- “The trust fund is nothing but a pile of I.O.U.s.” The bonds in the trust fund are not backed by any assets. …
- “We need to cut benefits now to pay them later.” I suppose it could be called a myth to say “need,” but that’s really an opinion question. … The only one of the six myths that is actually a myth was the final one: “Waste, fraud, and abuse abound.” There truly isn’t very much fraud in Social Security in the form of improper payments. One could say that the basic structure of the program itself is a fraud, but that’s the law.The biggest myth about Social Security that is believed by both parties and needs to be busted is this: Politicians can continue to ignore Social Security reform and everything will turn out fine.
