politics

Time to Spring for a TiVo for Joe Klein

February 8, 2005

The saying goes that while the final version of history is written by the victors, the first draft is written by journalists. So far there are no winners in the Social Security battle being waged on Capitol Hill, so we’ll have to make do with what the journalists give us. And it may not be pretty. Already this week, Time‘s Joe Klein offers up a dubious revision (subscription required) of very recent history in his column about the Democrats and Social Security.

Klein writes:

Finally, there was the boorish and possibly unprecedented hooting of the President by Democrats during the [State of the Union] speech.

“No! No! No!” they shouted, inaccurately, when Bush asserted that the Social Security trust fund would, in a decade or so, start paying out more money than it takes in. If nothing is done, it surely will.

Beyond the fact that such “hooting” was far from unprecedented, Klein’s short-term memory must be playing tricks on him. Democrats did not start crying out “No! No! No!” when the president asserted that the trust fund would soon start paying out more money than it takes in. Rather, the Democrats accurately started calling out “No! No! No!” when the president inaccurately asserted that “By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt.” You can hear for yourself on the White House video of the address (Real Media or Windows Media) — the moment in question is about 15 minutes into the speech.

As we have pointed out (along with several other reporters and watchdog organizations), the Social Security system cannot go “bankrupt” in the legal sense of the word. What Social Security’s trustees predict will happen in the year 2042 is that the program’s trust fund will be empty. Nonetheless, the system will still take in enough money to pay out 73 percent of benefits due to recipients under current law. That is neither “exhausted” nor “bankrupt,” to use the president’s words. A more legitimate description would be a comparison with an individual who fritters away all his savings, and finds that he has only $73 of income for every $100 of bills coming due.

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Unfortunately, inaccurate columns like Klein’s are often catalysts for an echo chamber of misguided history. Fortunately, audio speaks louder than print.

–Thomas Lang

Thomas Lang was a writer at CJR Daily.