There's an implicit rebuke in that word, "unprepared" -- as if saving for retirement, like washing the dog, is a chore Americans are just too lazy or too forgetful to perform. If you get fleas -- well, it's your own fault then, isn't it?
In reality, most Americans are incapable of saving for retirement. Their wages have been decimated by the diversion of wealth toward the powerful few, their pensions have been gutted by corporate cutbacks, and surveys show that they're struggling from month to month just to make ends meet.
And that zinger's just the opener. Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times deserves bonus pay for wading through the rest of McArdle's methodological muck for his rebuttal -- including the implication that Social Security benefits are "generous" (they lag behind those of other developed countries); the conflation of Social Security with "the welfare state"; and the attempts to discredit the government's legal obligation to repay the trust funds.
Hiltzik writes that "it's rare to find so much sophistry, misunderstanding and misinformation about Social Security packed into one article," and he's right. McArdle's work should be placed in a time capsule for eventual study by archaeologists of the future, who will no doubt marvel at our capacity for political and economic self-delusion.
A Thin Veneer
But McArdle is not alone. National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru wrote on the same subject this week, also in Bloomberg View. (Does ex-mayor Michael Bloomberg share the elites' desire to cut Social Security, along with their misconceptions about its fiscal status? Why, yes he does.)
Ponnuru's piece is called -- well, funny thing about that. It looks like it once had a much harsher headline. It's currently entitled "Elizabeth Warren is Wrong About Social Security." But it can also be found on the Internet as "Democrats Offer Delusional Social Security Plan." And the url for the piece reads "elizabeth-warren-is-delusional-about-social-security." (Here's a screen grab, in case it's changed later.)
The apparent morphing of its title seems intended to provide a veneer of objectivity to Ponnuru's slanted piece. Ponnuru, who once wrote a book characterizing Democrats as the "Party of Death," undoubtedly needs to trim his rhetorical sails once in a while. But it doesn't take long until the cracks in the veneer become visible.
"Neither political party has a plan to pay for the promises we've already made to people contributing to the system," Ponnuru begins. But that's not true. Both Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who put forth a similar proposal, have proposed payment mechanisms.
From that misleading opener, we're taken on a wild ride that includes misperceptions about the financing of social insurance, the mischaracterization of Social Security as an anti-poverty program, and the citation of a methodologically flawed study from the American Enterprise Institute that incorrectly ascribes all sorts of economic evils -- including "reducing work, saving, and even birth rates" -- to Social Security.
Ponnuru writes about "reduc(ing) reduce Social Security's unfunded liability -- assuming, of course, that anyone still cares about that." The left does, with a set of proposed funding mechanisms that includes a financial transaction tax, a small increase in the overall payroll tax (which for most voters would only amount to a dollar or so per week), and higher taxes on the wealthy. Since these ideas are taboo on the right -- though popular with everyone else -- Ponnuru may have concluded that it's better to pretend that this part of the populist agenda simply doesn't exist.
But then, the anti-Social Security crowd has been playing by the same rules for decades: Ignore the needs and wishes of the majority, mislead the public about the fiscal facts and your opponents' arguments, and stigmatize the elderly (a cohort which most of us will eventually join) as a morally flawed "special interest."
Post Traumatic
Which gets us to The Washington Post. That newspaper's editorial column has long been a mainstay of the political "center" -- if the "center" is defined as the consensus view of corporate-funded Republicans and corporate-funded Democrats. That "center" -- as opposed to the one occupied by the midrange of voter opinion -- has wanted to cut Social Security for some time. Expansion is anathema.
The Post's editorial board has always hewn dutifully to the anti-Social Security script: stigmatize older people, marginalize those who would support them, and repeat the economic misconceptions promulgated by the funders of the "anti-entitlement" movement.
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