The campaign to slash Social Security benefits is based on deliberate deception

[Better Believe It]

Don't fall for the campaign to slash Social Security benefits: It's based on deliberate deception!
By MARK WEISBROT
December 2, 2010
Mark Weisbrot is an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: the Phony Crisis.

According to a recent CNN poll, 60 percent of Americans under 60 and 70 percent of those under 50 believed that Social Security will not be able to pay them a benefit when they retire.

Of course if you are going to take something away from people, the first step is to convince them that it wasn't really there in the first place. What makes the whole deception even more fascinating is that everyone is using the same assumptions about the future and the same numbers.

The common source for everyone writing and talking about Social Security is the annual Social Security Trustees Report. This shows that the program can pay all promised benefits for the next 27 years, without any changes at all. If nothing is done over the next 27 years, only about 75 percent of scheduled benefits would be payable in 2037; but that would still be more than what retirees receive today, after adjusting for inflation.

So, according to the assumptions and facts that everyone who writes or talks about Social Security is using, there is no basis for the belief that the majority of Americans under 60 hold. Since this deception is not about Afghanistan or some country on the other side of the world, but about a program that nearly a quarter of American adults receive a check from each month, it is all the more amazing. The enemies of Social Security have pulled off one of the greatest public relations scams in U.S. history.

Read the full article at:

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/02/3227470/dont-fall-for-the-campaign-to.html

[Mimosa]

1. "If you're going to take something from people, the first step is to convince them it wasn't there'

It's MAGIC! Isn't it?

[theoldman]

2. My mind is made up, don't try to confuse me with the facts.

When I tell Republicans the truth about SS they get that blank look on their face. How could I possibly be right when all of their friends have told them that SS is already broke.

[rgbecker]

4. The Media is in on this one also....

Even Diane Rehm is saying, just today..."Well the real problem is Social Security and Medicare."

The cat food commission is ready to cut benefits and raise retirement age, so of course everyone figures the program has problems and they won't see any benefits. Ask Bernie Madoff, "How do you close down a Ponzi scheme."

[glitch]

3. I am glad this is actually getting printed in a mainstream newspaper.

Usually I have to read Weisbrot on the net. THanks for posting K & R.