CBS & CNN launch propaganda to privatize SS

[Moses]

www.fair.org/activism/cbs-cnn-social-security.html


CBS, CNN Mislead on Social Security

December 13, 2004

The debate over Social Security privatization could very well be the most important domestic story of the coming year. Unfortunately, recent media discussions of the topic are built on flawed assumptions and inaccurate information.

"Social Security is in trouble," announced CNN reporter Bruce Morton on the December 9 broadcast of NewsNight with Aaron Brown, adding: "Politicians like South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham know it." Though that's the starting point for the segment, the "trouble" that Social Security faces might not be nearly as bad as the "solution" offered by politicians like Graham.

According to its own trustees reports, Social Security will be able to operate just as it does now until 2042; another projection from the Congressional Budget Office forecasts 10 additional years of solvency. Not bad for a program in "crisis."

What's more, the "bankruptcy" of Social Security has been moving steadily into the future; in 1997, the program was expected to run short of funds in 2029, or 32 years; now, in 2004, the trustees say they won't need more cash until 2042-- gaining 13 years of projected black ink in just seven years (Political Animal, 12/13/04).

But CNN offered none of these caveats; the only sources in the report were Michael Tanner of the libertarian Cato Institute and Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition-- both of whom support some form of Social Security privatization. Another guest was a 27-year old who suggested that Social Security would not be around for her when she needed it.

With such a one-sided debate, reporters turn to calling various
privatization schemes "reform," and they suggest that something must be done. As Morton put it, "Fixing the system will have to hurt, somehow. But not fixing it may hurt worse."

Before the segment, CNN anchor Aaron Brown commented: "We expect in the days ahead to take a good, hard look at Social Security reform, privatization and the rest. This is, if you will, the trillion-dollar elephant in the room." One hopes that CNN will take a "hard look" at the facts regarding Social Security, and include a broad range of opinions on the fiscal health of the program, as well as the faulty assumptions thatare used to support the case for privatization.

CBS Evening News, on the other hand, profiled one man in its December 9 report on Social Security: Tad DeHaven, whose on-screen ID was "National Taxpayers Union." According to reporter John Roberts, he is a "poster child for Social Security reform: 28 years old, a college graduate, in the
work force for six years, getting married next May, expected to retire in 2042. That's the year Social Security goes broke."

For starters, that is not when Social Security "goes broke." According to the conservative estimates of its trustees report, Social Security would still be able to pay about 73 percent of its obligations after 2042. And as economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic & Policy Research frequently points out, "the projections show that the program will always be able to pay a higher real benefit than that received by current retirees" (Economic Reporting Review, 12/6/04), since future benefits are
projected to be more generous than those given to today's seniors.

But while CBS viewers learned a fair amount about Tad DeHaven's personal life, they weren't given a crucial bit of information about his professional career: the National Taxpayers Union is a conservative Beltway group dedicated to Social Security privatization, and DeHaven has also worked at the like-minded Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation (Political Animal, 12/10/04). So when Roberts noted that DeHaven "is fully on board the plan to establish private accounts for Social Security" and
"argues doing nothing is not an option," that shouldn't have been a surprise.

Why was CBS using a figure closely associated with the privatization side of the debate in a "man on the street" interview? Whatever the reason, the end result was clear: a report that sorely needed to be balanced.

[Moses]

www.nytimes.com/2004/12/31/politics/31benefit.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position

December 31, 2004

Social Security Underestimates Future Life Spans, Critics Say
By ROBERT PEAR

...."Life expectancy will make a very big difference in the fiscal viability of Social Security, but the agency's projections of longevity appear too conservative," said Prof. Samuel H. Preston of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the nation's leading demographers.

Dr. Preston said the agency assumed that "past advances in life expectancy are unrepeatable, even though the medical research establishment is routinely producing important breakthroughs that reduce the incidence or fatality of a variety of diseases."

Richard M. Suzman, associate director of the National Institute on Aging, a unit of the National Institutes of Health, said: "There is a long history of government actuaries and statisticians underestimating future gains in life expectancy. The United States is unfortunately well below the outer limits of life expectancy. Other countries are doing much better. That gives us an indication of the potential room for improvement."

Tables published by the government's National Center for Health Statistics show that life expectancy at birth was 47.3 years in 1900, rose to 68.2 by 1950 and reached 77.3 in 2002. The latest annual report of the Social Security trustees projects that life expectancy will increase just six years in the next seven decades, to 83 in 2075. A separate set of projections, by the Census Bureau, shows more rapid growth.

....Last year an expert panel advising the Social Security Administration found "an unprecedented reduction in certain forms of old-age mortality, especially cardiovascular disease, beginning in the late 1960's."

The panel said Social Security was wrong to assume a slower decline in mortality rates among the elderly in the next 75 years. Rather, it said, the government should assume that mortality will continue to decline as it did from 1950 to 2000.

Ronald D. Lee, a professor of demography and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, said: "I foresee death rates of the elderly in the United States continuing to decline at the same pace they have declined since 1950. ....

Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said, "Increases in life expectancy at 65 have been a major contributor to the rising cost of Social Security." Future increases could strain pension plans and individual retirement savings, as well as Social Security, she said.

"The United States is the richest major country in the world in terms of per capita gross domestic product," Dr. Munnell said. "And life expectancy is clearly associated with income."

She added, though, that "if you focus on life expectancy at age 65, the U.S. falls in the middle of the pack."

One reason, she said, is that "the United States is not so rich relative to its peers if you look at the average income going to the lowest 40 percent of the population."