Labor & Employment Law

Social Security Fearmongering

By Tula Connell

When the report by the Social Security Board of Trustees came out last week, it found Social Security is strong for the long term. But that’s not what you’d hear from some corporate media outlets. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) points out that CNN coverage has been especially egregious, with Wolf Blitzer asserting that Social Security has reached “the financial tipping point.”

Other CNN talking heads painted a similar dire picture. We know they have cushy retirement pensions?why do they want to kill retirement funding for the more than 64 percent of America’s retirees who depend upon Social Security as their sole source of income? FAIR is urging people to contact CNN’s Situation Room and tell them what we think about their coverage: situationroom@cnn.com.

No less than the grandson of President Franklin Roosevelt has weighed in on the future of Social Security. Writing today at Huffington Post, James Roosevelt tackles the fear-mongering about Social Security head on:

Understanding that the public will not succumb to a frontal assault on Social Security, Tea Party supporters, Libertarians and other critics advance their radical agenda by creating a “mythology of fear,” trotting out themes of a program that is “in crisis,” “bankrupt,” “broke,” and, in the wake of the Madoff scandal, even a “Ponzi scheme.” They then position themselves not as wanting to eliminate Social Security but as wanting to “save, “strengthen,” and “protect” Social Security by privatizing it.

Describing the trustee’s findings that Social Security is solvent, Roosevelt goes on to say that “Social Security does not need to be saved.”

The fact is, Social Security has been the most successful government program of the past 75 years. Today, 53 million Americans receive Social Security benefits each month. No other program in American history?has touched more lives and families and brought more financial stability to households?including those of its most ardent critics.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on August 12, 2010 (boomark / email).