I praised the Post a couple of weeks ago for printing a coherent column by Robert Ball in support of protecting the current level of Social Security benefits. This was an extraordinary departure from its never-ending drumbeat of SS crisis news stories, columns, and editorials. Since that day, the Post has run a strange column by Ruth Marcus, a former editor, that seemed to attack Paul Krugman for changing his mind on Social Security. In another forum, I quipped about this column that "the UFOs have landed," referring to a nutty effort to discredit Social Security by claiming that more young people believe in UFOs than they will receive a Social Security check. Well, today the Post actually has the UFO story in its full glory. It appears in an oped column by Amity Shlaes which is apparently further payback for the Robert Ball column. It looks like we must pay a high price for this modest dissent from the Post's dogma on the SS crisis. On the substance, I am not quite sure why the opponents of SS believe that the effectiveness of their lies is a basis for gutting the program. This would be comparable to claiming that tens of millions of people believe that Saddam was responsible for September 11th, therefore we should invade Iraq. The fact that the public has been so terribly misled on the financial condition of its most important social program (even if they don't actually believe in UFOs) is a strong argument for putting off any changes until the public can learn the true facts of the situation. After all the basic issues about the SS program -- how much money it should provide in retirement, how much people should be taxed in their working years, and how late in life they should have to work -- are issues that should be decided democratically, not by people who control major media outlets. And the public cannot possibly make such decisions in an intelligent manner when they are being deliberately misinformed about the true financial status of the program.
--Dean Baker
