Some zombie lies just won’t die. This from Jason Tolbert, discussing grassroots attempts to stand up against cuts in Social Security:
It is the standard playbook of the liberal groups who are now trying to argue that anyone who dares touch the subject of medicare and social security reform will try to make to work until you die.
The scare tactic has been used for too long to prevent any politician from addressing the fact that medicare and social security are going bankrupt. Refusing to deal with it is telling people my age (I am in my thirties) that you don’t care if we ever see a single benefit. Personally, I would rather wait until I am 70 to see benefits rather than not get any at all which is what would most likely happen if no one does anything.
Now, first off, Jason doesn’t cite any sources to back up his claim on the fiscal health of these two programs. So I will. First, Social Security is not going bankrupt.
If you define “bankrupt” as not being able to pay your obligations in full, then you might argue Social Security will be bankrupt come 2042, using projections from the Social Security trustees, or 2052, using estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
***
The system still will be taking in enough revenue to cover 75 percent to 80 percent of what is currently promised.
What’s more, even if benefits were reduced to that level, they still would be higher in today’s dollars than what current retirees are getting, according to CBO estimates.
Those minor long term problems, I might point out, could be easily fixed by raising the payroll cap on Social Security contributions so that folks like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates wouldn’t just pay social security taxes on their first 100,000 or so but also on the next 50 billion.
Now, Medicare of course is a little more shaky. But you know what? It’s looking a whole lot better today than it did a few years ago thanks to savings from President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Just goes to show you, there are solutions to our fiscal problems that are workable without sending successful social programs to the chopping block.
So yeah, zombie lies debunked.
Interestingly, one of the few sources Jason cites in all this is Tim Griffin, the unindicted felon who was recently caught citing a debunked article to back up his lies about his vote to eliminate Medicare.
So let’s recap.
Conservative plan for Social Security and Medicare? Destroy.
Conservative plan for dealing with unpopularity of that policy? Lie.
