To which we say: Great. If we're going to criticize the top guys when we disagree with them, we should have their back when they do something we support. Mr. Vice President, we've got your back on this one. Mr. President, we'll have yours too.
And they'll need it. There's a highly-funded, highly misinformed, highly misleading manufactured "consensus" in Washington around the idea that cuts in Social Security benefits need to be cut. They trade in a small but widely disseminated body of lies, and they're going to fight this with everything they've got.
The coffee was barely cold in that Virginia coffee shop when the Washington Post, which is Ground Zero for this dishonest cabal, went on the attack against the Vice President. The Post Editorial Board, which would have repeatedly been sued for journalistic malpractice if such a thing existed, even mendaciously repeated the often-disproven lie that Social Security is "going broke" when it attacked Mr. Biden.
Shame on them for lying.
"Is 'going broke' too strong?" the Post Editorial Board asks rhetorically. "Well, let's ask the experts -- the trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund ..." The editorial then takes a lot of language out of context before stating the trustees' conclusion that Social Security's trust fund (which doesn't include the billions in revenue the plan collects each year) will 'become exhausted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2033.'"
Let's ask that question again: Is "going broke" too strong?
"Broke": According to Merriam-Webster, it means "penniless."
"Broke": According to Cambridge Dictionaries, it means "without money."
"Broke": According to MacMillan Dictionary,
it means "to have no money." And "go broke," according to MacMillan,
means "to no longer have any money and be unable to pay what you owe."
The fund will continue to pay full benefits, with money in the bank, until 2033. It will pay most of those benefits -- 75 percent -- after that, because it will be collecting hundreds of billions of dollars each year in new revenue. Yet the Post says that it will be "penniless," will "have no money," will be "without money," or will be "unable to pay what it owes."
Liars.
Washington's lousy with insiders who are willing to peddle dreck like this. It would make sense for the White House's calculus to include letting Joe Biden take the heat for a while before the President makes his case.
Of course, as we've already said, Biden could simply be off-message. If so, the President's campaign is likely to incur real damage if his team tries to walk it back. But it seems more likely that this a prelude to comments from the President in which he'll explain how he has "evolved" on this issue.
That seems much more likely -- and much smarter. A firm stance in defense of Social Security -- and then Medicare -- could be spun off into a number of winning themes for the White House, such as:
A youth issue: All the DC insiders' plans to cut Social Security are designed to hurt young people the most. Defending Social Security for younger people is a great way to energize the demoralized and disillusioned young people who are graduated with record student debt into the worst job market in modern memory.An issue for seniors: That should need no explanation.
A 99 percent/tax fairness issue: The best way to stabilize Social Security's finances is by lifting the payroll tax cap and a financial transactions tax, and therefore asking the wealthiest among us to help undo the harm they've caused through exploding wealth inequity and Wall Street gambling.
Of course, the White House could say all the right things about Social Security -- and then make that December deal and cut it anyway. But when candidates "flat out guarantees" something, that gives citizens a lot of leverage to pressure them with after the election.
Citizen action was able to stop the President from offering Social Security cuts in his 2010 State of the Union message. It can work again, especially if the White House makes a clear stance like this a central part of its campaign. Could there be a fight in December? Sure -- but this makes it much more likely that we could win that fight.
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