The NYT ran a front-page Week in Review piece entitled "Can Anyone Unseat F.D.R.?" on Sunday. The picture that ran with it, side-by-side photos of F.D.R. and BushCo signing something official-looking, made me want to throw up. I'm not kidding, I'm getting over a stomach flu and that image nearly put me over the edge. But as bad as all that was, it didn't touch the actual article, written by John Tierney, on the vomit-scale.
The whole story is a cynical exercise that purports to be a look at the GOP's chances at destroying Social Security but just conflates laziness and hypocrisy with needing government assistance and welfare programs with Social Security. Watch:
After all, Americans love to talk about self-reliance, but they also love to vote for politicians who have been providing them with pensions, disability checks, health benefits, farm subsidies and other payments that have kept the government expanding through Republican as well as Democratic administrations, and especially during Mr. Bush's first term.
Gah! Fucking farmers.
The welfare rolls were reduced in the 1990's, but the disability rolls were swelled by workers who learned how to qualify for lifetime income supports and free medical coverage.
Maybe by being disabled, Tierney, you goof?
The Republicans can point to some steps toward self-reliance, like the rise of 401(k) and other personal retirement accounts in place of corporate pensions, and the expansion of personal health-savings accounts in the latest Medicare bill. But that Medicare bill championed by Mr. Bush also contained a prescription drug benefit that was the costliest new entitlement in decades.
Because it benefits the pharmaceutical industry. I'm starting to think that Tierney isn't interested in the whole story.
And if Americans can be weaned from the Democrats' most cherished social program, the Republicans figure, the federal government will never be the same.
"Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state," said Stephen Moore, the former president of Club for Growth, an antitax group. "If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state."
"Weaned" ... "Social program" ... "Welfare State" ... And calling the Club for Growth an "anti-tax group" is like calling Jack the Ripper a misfit.
And given the popularity of Social Security, virtually no one is suggesting going back to the laissez-faire retirement days before the New Deal.
So Social Security is popular. Popluar like pre-marital sex and heroin or popular like coronary bypass surgery and the FDIC? How about "given the popularity of Social Security due to its outrageous success at lowering the numbers of elderly living in destitution" blah blah blah? No, Tierney prefers to slide into that paragraph on the back of an image of the bloated belly of our "welfare state".
Then Tierney selectively analyses some recent polling data for us. We're just all mixed is all. Stupid, risk-averse peasants:
Americans are wary of change. Some polls have found that allowing private Social Security accounts is favored by a majority of Americans, with support especially high among young people, but the support drops when pollsters mention that private accounts could be risky. If asked to choose between a system with private accounts and a system with guaranteed benefits, people tend to prefer the guaranteed payments.
But then, people also repeatedly tell pollsters they're not sure they can count on guaranteed payments from Social Security. In the New York Times/CBS News poll conducted from Jan. 14 to Jan. 18, only a quarter of the respondents said that Social Security could be fixed with minor changes, while half said it needed fundamental changes and a quarter said it needed to be completely redone.
Here are some more results from pertinent polls. I'm going to use the recent pro-war WaPO/ABC poll and the one Tierney cites by NYT/CBS.
IF NOT RETIRED: Looking ahead to your retirement, what do you expect to be your major source of income -- Social Security, an employer-sponsored pension plan, or your own retirement savings?
Social Security 17
Pension plan 22
Savings 55
Other(vol.) 4
DK/NA 2IF RETIRED:
What is your major source of income -- Social Security, an employersponsored pension plan, or your own retirement savings?
Social Security 45
Pension plan 23
Savings 24
Other(vol.) 5
DK/NA 3
Well, that's interesting. Setting aside pensions (which is the real crisis), non-retired people are pretty close to 100% wrong about what post-retirement finances actually look like.
And then there are my two favorite questions, the first from the NYT/CBS poll, the second from the pro-war WaPO/ABC poll:
When George W. Bush talks about making changes to the Social Security system, who do you think he is trying to help more — average Americans, or Wall Street investment companies?
Average American 40
Wall Street companies 50
Both(vol.) 2
DK/NA 8Who do you trust to do a better job handling Social Security: George W. Bush or the Democrats in Congress?
Bush 37%
Democrats 50%
(VOL) Both equally 2%
(VOL) Neither 8%
DK/No opinion 3%
You'd think those answers would make it in to a story all about our psyches and predictive powers and how to get us to believe that we should dismantle the most successful social insurance program of all time. Except this story isn't really about all of that. It's an ad for the people in favor of dismantling the most successful social insurance program of all time.
John Tierney is my personal Newman. There's talk of him replacing Safire on the op-ed page, which is good news, since he seems incapable of writing anything but his opinion, or maybe some Ketchum-approved version it. We'd all be better off if the NYT made an honest man of him. Or, you know, as close as he can get.
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