Broder and the Post Make Up Numbers to Boost Social Security Attack

We all know that David Broder and the Washington Post really really want to see Social Security cut. Under current law, nearly $4 trillion (in 2007 dollars) will have to be raised through general revenue or borrowing to repay the bonds held by the trust fund between the years 2020 and 2046. This money would mostly come from the personal and corporate income taxes, which disproportionately are paid by higher income families.

In order to prevent this impending disaster, both Broder and the Post regularly bombard readers with stories of Social Security's impending collapse. Usually these stories focus on the cost of Social Security and Medicare, since it is useful to try to trick readers into believing that the problem of our broken health care system is a problem of demographics.

Of course, if this little trick is not sufficient to scare people into supporting cuts to Social Security they still have one other clever journalistic tactic: make things up. Broder told readers on Sunday that "by most official estimates, by 2034 Medicare and Social Security will eat up 20 percent of the gross domestic product -- equivalent to the entire federal budget of today."

Well, it's not clear where "most official estimates" come from, but the Congressional Budget Office projects the combined cost of these programs in 2034 will be 13.1 percent of GDP, 6.9 percentage points less than what Broder asserted. In today's economy, this gap would be slightly less than $1 trillion or about $3,300 per person.

--Dean Baker