The job of a newspaper, asserted journalist Finley Peter Dunne, is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
The Wisconsin State Journal reverses that calculus when it peddles what AARP terms a "myth" in order to scare people into undermining Social Security.
The State Journal says that U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, deserves praise for coming up with a plan to steer billions--perhaps trillions--of federal tax dollars into the coffers of the Wall Street speculators and insurance industry profiteers who want to privatize America's Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Ryan's so-called "reform" plan is best understood as a scheme to benefit major campaign contributors to the congressman and his political cronies.
If implemented, the Ryan plan would leave the vast majority of Americans with fewer retirement benefits, less access to quality health care and less security. Taxpayers would end up owing more and getting less in return for their commitments.
Yet the State Journal says, "U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., deserves support for proposing a sweeping reform of how the nation pays for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and health insurance."
That statement ought to make Wisconsinites angry.
Why should people be upset that a newspaper that endorsed George Bush for president and Dave Magnum for Congress is promoting radical privatization schemes?
Because the paper is fostering the lie that, without Ryan's so-called reforms, "America will not have the money to keep paying the costs of its social insurance programs as the retiring baby boomers draw upon them."
AARP specifically dismisses this claim as a "myth."
"Those who argue that Social Security needs a dramatic reorganization begin with this premise: the system is failing; Social Security isn't sustainable in its present form. From there, the argument goes that what's best for the country is some form of privatization," explain the AARP analysts. "So, is Social Security about to go bust? Not by a long shot. In fact, Social Security is in better shape today than at any other time since it was enacted in 1935. That's because of some judicious adjustments suggested in 1983 by a commission set up by Ronald Reagan and headed up by Alan Greenspan. Since then, trust fund reserves have gone from nearly zero to $1.6 trillion."
That does not mean that Social Security won't be stressed by the mass retirements of baby boomers and their children and grandchildren.
But the truth is that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid can be preserved with reasonable reforms--like requiring the wealthy to pay Social Security taxes at the same rate as everyone else. As AARP says, "We can strengthen Social Security by making small adjustments, just as we've done in the past. These include raising the cap on wages subject to Social Security (currently you're taxed on income up to $90,000) and investing part of the Social Security surplus in other vehicles that pay higher interest than Treasury bonds do."
So why aren't Paul Ryan and the Wisconsin State Journal telling the truth?
Well, why did the congressman and the newspaper back Bush for president?
Because, unlike the vast majority of Americans, they don't see Social Security as a sacred trust. Rather, they see it as a source of "free money" for the same corporate welfare pigs that are always trying to feed at the federal trough. And they're more than willing to toss Medicare and Medicaid into the same trough.
In a country that defends the right to be wrong, that is the State Journal's right--just as it is the right of politicians like Paul Ryan to misappropriate the word "reform."
But the State Journal's editors abuse their freedom-of-the-press privileges when they lie to the people of Wisconsin with the purpose of scaring us into allowing a raid on the federal treasury--and the retirement security of working Americans--in order to enrich the worst sort of profiteers.
