The intellectual hooligans at the Center for American Progress are up to old tricks. Here's how they present President Bush's Social Security plan in today's edition of their Progress Report newsletter:
LEG ONE – SOCIAL SECURITY: The first leg of retirement security is Social Security. President Bush's new plan to privatize Social Security will mean a benefits cut for many Americans. (No wonder so many Americans are against his plan.) Under the Bush plan, millions of American workers will see their Social Security checks shrink dramatically. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, under Bush's plan, by 2055, Social Security benefits for medium earners "would drop 66 percent, or two thirds, compared to the current benefit structure." Instead of seeing $1,844 a month, someone making $36,600 a year would receive a mere $626. The cut is even higher for middle-class Americans making a little more: under the Bush plan, workers making $59,000 today will see their Social Security benefits slashed by 87 percent in 2055. That means instead of a monthly Social Security check of $2,441, their benefit would be just over $300. (Here are more details on how the president's plan will hit American workers.)
They quote the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, linking to this paper to support their claim that benefits would drop 66 percent for medium earners and 87 percent for a worker who makes $59,000. But they never make clear that these figures refer only to cuts in the defined Social Security benefit for workers who opt in to private accounts. Those workers would also receive benefits from their private accounts. Look at how much clearer CBPP is about what the statistics represent:
Once again, CAP is carefully following the White House playbook: say things that aren't quite false, but are deeply misleading.
For more on their pattern of deception, make sure to read:
-my previous blog posts about them
-my Spinsanity column about the way the Progress Report distorts quotations
-the pathologically dishonest response from CAP to earlier Spinsanity articles by Ben Fritz (here and here)
-our discussion of CAP in All the President's Spin
Great blog. It's nice to be here! Fantastic blog: http://weblogs.digital.udk-berlin.de/tim/archives/002117.html , Revelations of John
Posted by: Kelly Ronald | September 10, 2005 at 10:36 AM