Broken all the way down: Our national discourse is thoroughly broken—broken all the way down.
It's been this way for a very long time. The destruction has largely been the work of the "mainstream press corps," with a giant assist from decades of silence from our own "liberal" world.
In what way is our discourse broken? Consider three examples from the past eighteen hours:
Dana Bash on Social Security: Unlike many other cable players, CNN's Dana Bash is thoroughly competent.
Despite this fact, here's something she said during last night's Republican debate, at which she served as a moderator. The topic was Social Security:
BASH (3/10/16): Mr. Trump, you don't want to raise the retirement age, and you also don't want to cut benefits even for wealthier Americans. But according to the Social Security Administration, unless adjustments are made, Social Security is projected to run out of money within 20 years. So specifically, what would you do to stop that from happening?Specifically because she's competent, we were struck by Bash's statement.
In fact, Social Security is never going "to run out of money." Under current arrangements, iisn't possible for Social Security "to run out of money."
For that reason, there is no projection according to which Social Security will "run out of money within 20 years."
Social Security can't "run out of money." Presumably, Bash must know that her formulation is sloppy, misleading, unedifying—in a word, wrong. She has to know her statement is wrong, and yet, from a very high platform, she went ahead and made it last night.
Quickly, an explanation:
Major elites have spent the past forty years scaring people about the impending "bankruptcy" of Social Security. Again and again, our "journalists" recite the bogus frameworks these elites have invented and pimped. It's been a basic part of our mainstream "journalism" for decades now.
People like Bash work from these preferred elite frameworks. In the process, the public is propagandized again and again and again.
Candidate Trump on the public schools: This morning, Candidate Trump held a news conference at which Ben Carson endorsed him. In the course of his own remarks, Trump said the United States is last in the world on international test scores.
Or something like that! For some reason, CNN has posted its transcript for the second half of the Trump event, but not for the first half of the event. For that reason, we can't currently find a transcript or tape including Trump's exact words.
That said:
The United States isn't anywhere close to last in the world on international test scores. That said, major elites have spent the past twenty years making similar allegations—allegations which routinely fly in the face of mountains of basic facts.
As with Social Security, so with the public schools! Our major news orgs have uniformly agreed to repeat the bogus claims of these influential elites. Our "journalists" would jump off the Golden Gate Bridge before they'd present accurate information about international or domestic test scores, in contradiction of these preferred elite narratives and these standard bogus claims.
In the process, the public is propagandized again and again and again. The liberal world has never so much as raised a finger to challenge this ludicrous conduct. We liberals may be the least competent people in the entire known world.
Candidate Trump quotes Kasich: At this morning's event, Trump discussing next Tuesday's Ohio primary. In the process, he put one of his favorite dissembling techniques on vivid display:
TRUMP (3/11/16): I think I'll beat John Kasich, yes. I mean John Kasich has been an absentee governor. He's been an absentee—he's been campaigning for the last— He lived in New Hampshire. In fact, Chris Christie said that absolutely John Kasich was there much more than him, which is true. And John Kasich then went, as you know, to other states, to different states. Very big in South Carolina. He was there. He didn't win. Didn't win in New Hampshire, right? Didn't win in Michigan.Earth to those who care, and the number seems to be very few:
He guaranteed Michigan. He said, "I will win Michigan." And I thought he said, you could correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought he said, "If I don't win Michigan, I drop out," because Michigan's his neighboring state. And I won Michigan in a landslide. And he's— He was living there.
So John has been, you know, not really there. And John's got some innate problems...
Candidate Kasich never guaranteed that he would win the Michigan primary. He never said that he would drop out of the White House campaign if he failed to do so.
Trump was simply making that up, a standard practice for him. He gave himself a built-in excuse by including this silly disclaimer:
"I thought he said—you could correct me if I'm wrong—but I thought he said..."Trump thought that Candidate Kasich said that! The nation's intrepid campaign reporters can correct him if he's wrong!
To state the obvious, no one is going to correct Trump, whether about this latest false statement or about a hundred others. His endless misstatements and apparent lying have long been fully accepted as a basic part of the game.
No one is going to correct Candidate Trump. Beyond that, no one is ever going to offer accurate reports about international and domestic test scores.
No one is going to challenge Republican candidates when they say that Social Security is on track to go "bankrupt," as Rubio did last night. Also, Dana Bash isn't going to stop saying that the program is on track "to run out of money."
Our discourse has run on a stunning array of bogus claims dating back many years. These bogus claims involve an array of major policy matters and an array of major political candidates.
The extent of this garbage-can conduct is simply astounding. Massively, hugely, with few exceptions, the liberal world has lazily sat on its ascot and let this gong show roll on.
The repeated behavior of Candidate Trump has made a total joke of the discourse. That said, the mainstream press corps got there first, enabled every step of the way by our own money-grubbing gang of career liberal poodles.
The system has run this way for decades. Trump has only made this remarkable gong show just a little bit worse.
They can correct him if he's wrong! On Olympus, the gods roared with laughter.
Yes, Bob. The liberal world is to blame for Donald Trump.
ReplyDeleteMy GAWD!
If that's what you take away from this post, you can't be helped.
DeleteBob's own words:
Delete"The extent of this garbage-can conduct is simply astounding. Massively, hugely, with few exceptions, the liberal world has lazily sat on its ascot and let this gong show roll on.
"The repeated behavior of Candidate Trump has made a total joke of the discourse. That said, the mainstream press corps got there first, enabled every step of the way by our own money-grubbing gang of career liberal poodles."
Yep, don't blame Trump. Career liberal poodles got there first.
3:18. You are over-simplifying what he has said. Dig the nuance brother.
DeleteBob, acting like the Rachel he has attacked:
DeleteQuickly, an explanation:
"Major elites have spent the past forty years scaring people about the impending "bankruptcy" of Social Security."
"The United States isn't anywhere close to last in the world on international test scores. That said, major elites have spent the past twenty yearsmaking similar allegations."
Earth to those who care, and the number seems to be very few:
Bob Somerby does exactly what he attacks others for doing.
Actually it is simple. The MainStreamMedia for years has adopted framing for the debate about Social Security, for instance, in the exact manner those with right of center to far right of center agendas want it framed. Liberals don't get it, they should be accusing the MainStreamMedia of pro-corporate/pro-1% bias whenever their talking heads do that. It should be all "There you go again, you corporate shill" immediately and for weeks thereafter everytime time someone in the MainStreamMedia uses a deceptive term like "bankrupt" or "run out of money" when talking about Social Security.
DeleteLiberals, for decades, have allowed the debate on Social Security to be argued from as disadvantageous a place they would be at in the abortion debate if the MainStreamMedia was getting away with characterizing the proponents for one side on that issue as Pro-Life advocates, and the other side as their Pro-Death opponents.
This liberal has been doing exactly that for the past 40 years.
DeleteWhat's that you say? It doesn't count, since this liberal isn't allowed anywhere near the MSM?
No kidding. The whole point (Bob purposefully misses, so he can blame liberals) is real liberals aren't allowed anywhere near the microphones of the corporate-owned media.
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2016/01/supplemental-maddow-batters-beltway.html
DeleteWho are the unnamed? How long have they been working?
Back then Bob compared Rachel to Palin.
Today Bob proves it was Bobzini all along.
@9:51 PM,
Delete"The whole point" is, indeed, that a handful of liberals acting individually, or even in concert, "aren't [ever going to be] allowed anywhere near the microphones of the corporate-owned media."
That's why it's necessary for people who want to be part of a powerful movement liberalism(/progressivism/leftism) to recognize they need to coalesce around a leadership that understands getting back to a lost reality in which American liberalism used to get represented fairly and effectively in the society's MainStreamMedia, and therefore to the general population, is Job #1. This instead of relying on yet another generation of a liberal elite who ever focus on networking with and constructing their arguments for one another.
CMike,
DeleteYou mean "bring on the guillotines"?
1:18 PM,
DeleteI was thinking more along the lines of building a big listserv in advance of mounting a letter writing campaign to sponsors. Sorry if I wasn't being clear.
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ReplyDeleteBob is unconcerned about Social Security solvency, but he thinks he's really knowledgable. He's so unconcerned that he criticizes people who are, properly concerned. Bash might have phrased the question more precisely, but her general point is accurate: SS is not sustainable long-term at current assessment and benefit levels.
ReplyDeleteMore generally, the official 10-year federal budget shows growing deficits and a frightening growth in the National Debt. If the media understood this and explained it, then any candidate who ran on taqx cuts or benefit increases would be laughed out of the race. Every candidate would be addressing the combination of tax increases and benefit cuts that s/he was going to impose. Sadly, a candidate who took this sort of fiscally responsible position would have no chance of being elected.
Only if you ignore the $2.3 Trillion Social Security Trust Fund, can you make believe SS is broke.
DeleteAs for your second paragraph, the blame for that lays at the feet of Saint Ronald Reagan. He's the one who said we can run the country on not collecting taxes.
According to Bob, liberals are to blame for Trump. The elite are to blame for the bankruptcy myth of Social Security and the belief America is doing so poorly on tests.
DeleteAnd Bob can prove this with the help of energetic analysts and a magical rough rule of thumb.
What a sad old putz followed by a pathetic hndful.
Discourse is just a place drunks throw frisbees into metal nets now.
Delete"I took the initiative in creating the internet."
"According to the Social Security Administration, unless adjustments are made, Social Security is projected to run out of money within 20 years."
"I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal."
"Women in this country still make 77 cents on the dollar for what men make."
Which of the above statments is most true?
Which of the above statements has Bob Somerby written the most posts attacking?
Which of the above statements is untrue?
Which of the above statments has Bob Somerby writen the most posts defending?
Hillary Clinton apologized for her remarks about the Reagans having “started a national conversation” about HIV/AIDS, tweeting, “I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS. For that, I’m sorry.”
DeleteDavid, your deficit-scold trolling regarding the ss trust fund is so discredited - by people who actually know what they're talking about as well as by past events - and yet here you are again.
DeleteCan't you pretend knowledge yourself to another blog just for a week or two so regular comment readers and commenters can enjoy a brief respite from your consistently-wrongheaded bull*hit?
Bob,
ReplyDeleteTrump is a troll, a person whose goal is to disrupt a discussion or move it off topic. (Side note: the best trolls are the most entertaining ones.) Internet trolls are dealt with by warning and then banning them. That can't be done in real life, but surely the other Republican presidential candidates -- except for Kasich -- took the worst route, feeding and imitating the troll.
And yes, we have a broken discourse, but as you know, Trump was merely taking shark-like advantage of what had been broken already by years, a couple of decades really, of bad behavior by the mainstream media, first on the right and more recently on the left.
Fairleft,
DeleteYou are talking to a troll as blatant as Trump. Just ineffectual.
"our own money-grubbing gang of career liberal poodles"
ReplyDeleteIn fairness, Bob drops his bombs with skill.
I tend to agree with the author despite the insults in the comments section.
ReplyDeleteOn social security, the situation seems rather simple to me. It's regrettable so many in the Washington/NYC press corps have not taken the time to read a few paragraphs from the ssa's chief acturary:
"As a result of changes to Social Security enacted in 1983, benefits are now expected to be payable in full on a timely basis until 2037, when the trust fund reserves are projected to become exhausted.1 At the point where the reserves are used up, continuing taxes are expected to be enough to pay 76 percent of scheduled benefits. Thus, the Congress will need to make changes to the scheduled benefits and revenue sources for the program in the future. The Social Security Board of Trustees project that changes equivalent to an immediate reduction in benefits of about 13 percent, or an immediate increase in the combined payroll tax rate from 12.4 percent to 14.4 percent, or some combination of these changes, would be sufficient to allow full payment of the scheduled benefits for the next 75 years.
"Since the inception of the Social Security program in 1935, scheduled benefits have always been paid on a timely basis through a series of modifications in the law that will continue."
Thank you, Anon 2:31, for quoting the SSA chief actuary! This comes from the annual SSA Trustees' report. It's sad that elite pundits discuss SS without even reading this report.
DeleteAs an actuary myself, and having discussed this situation with former SSA chief actuary A. Haeworth Robertson, I can add a couple of points:
1. The method used to project SS into the future is optimistic. It doesn't project that lifespans will continue to lengthen. That's why the year when the Trust Fund is exhausted keeps becoming earlier with each new Trustees' report.
2. The 13% reduction in benefits assumes that all SS recipients get this full cut in 2027. However, cutting SS for those already receiving benefits would be radical. Past proposals to cut SS benefits have not affected those receiving benefits or withing a few years of retirement. If this group is spared, then everyone else will need a much bigger cut to achieve the same savings.
3. Given the large and increasing deficit, other tax increases will be needed. SS assessment increases should be looked at as part the entire budget.
Lets see what Dana Bash could have done to make her statement 100% totally accurate.*
DeleteBASH (3/10/16): Mr. Trump, you don't want to raise the retirement age, and you also don't want to cut benefits even for wealthier Americans. But according to the Social Security Administration, unless adjustments are made, Social Security is projected to run out of [reserve] money within 20 years [and will have to cut benefits]. So specifically, what would you do to stop that from happening?
*The same degree of accuracy, it should be noted, Bob often admitted Rachel Maddow had when she discueed the 77% pay gap before attacking her because some people might think she said something she never said.
Let's dial that accuracy rate up to 111%.
DeleteIf no adjustments are made even after the Trust Fund is depleted those who start drawing their benefits in twenty years will be receiving more than their counterparts in today's system. Here's Dean Baker making this point back in 2011 (he's repeated himself since then on this point many times but this link came up right away in a Google search and I'll settle for it) [LINK]:
[QUOTE] Even if no changes were made to Social Security, the trust fund could always pay close to 80 percent of scheduled benefits, says Baker, and while it would be unacceptable to pay people a smaller benefit than had been promised, the scheduled benefits for new retirees are projected to rise by 1 percent a year in excess of prices.
“This means that in 2036, the average scheduled benefit for a new retiree will be more than 25 percent higher than it is today,” Baker says. Even if no changes are made to the system, new retirees in 2036 receiving just 80 percent of their scheduled benefit would still be receiving a benefit that is larger than what retirees get today.
“In other words, there is no plausible story in which our children or grandchildren will have to worry that there won't be anything there for them.” [END QUOTE]
Bleak Warning: Social Security, Medicare To Gobble All Revenues -- Bipartisan Group Predicts Crisis By 2012
DeleteBy Robert A. Rosenblatt
Los Angeles Times: Seattle Times News Services
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group warned yesterday that entitlement benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and civil-service pensions are growing so fast that they will consume nearly all federal tax revenues by 2012, leaving the government with no money for anything else.
Democratic and Republican legislators on the special commission put aside normal political wrangling to agree on a startling portrait of a nation in which a handful of programs crowd out everything else.
When entitlements and interest on the national debt consume all revenues 18 years from now, said co-chairman Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., "there will be no money for national defense, for law enforcement, for the environment, for highways - that is a very stark finding."
Co-chairman Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., predicted that "the people who will get hurt the most are young working families" who will suffer a huge and ever-rising tax burden "unless we have the courage and foresight" to slow the growth in spending.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19940809&slug=1924541
So according to CMike and Dean Baker, all that whining about Obama proposing a "cut" in Social Security benefits by going to a different COLA adjustment in his evil "Grand Bargain" was, in fact, just false complaints about a lower future increase.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete10:54 PM,
DeleteA real increase in the baseline benefit level for new beneficiaries in the out years is an entirely separate issue from whether current beneficiaries are going to see the same real income in their Old Age insurance payments from year to year.
(By the way, Baker has explained that were the political class to adopt lower COLA calculations that would necessarily mean -as an accounting identity- that they would have to conclude real GDP is growing at a faster rate than is currently claimed and that would suggest the country will be better able to afford to take on additional government spending in both the near and long term. And any claim to get around this accounting identity, specifically, that the cost of living for the elderly is rising at a slower rate than for the rest of society is ridiculous.)
"As an actuary myself, and having discussed this situation with former SSA chief actuary A. Haeworth Robertson, who angrily told me to stop trolling him, I can add a couple of points: ...."
ReplyDeleteFTFY - NFO!
The FICA tax is paid on wages up to some limit, $113,700 in 2013, $117,000 in 2014. I don't know what the limit was last year or is this year. What if the limit is totally abolished, so all wages are subject to the FICA tax? What if dividends, interest, and capital gains were subject to the FICA tax? How would Social Security's finances look then?
ReplyDeleteUnder SS, benefits are based on amount paid in and limits. So, if the limit were raised or abolished, the extra income to SS would be offset, to some degree, by the higher benefits accrued by highly paid workers.
DeleteOf course, the government can, in principle increase SS taxes enough to cover any shortfall. Or, transfer money from the general fund to cover any SS shortfall.
Fronm ssa.gov-
DeleteHow is Social Security Financed?
Social Security is financed through a dedicated payroll tax. Employers and employees each pay 6.2 percent of wages up to the taxable maximum of $118,500 (in 2015), while the self-employed pay 12.4 percent.
In 2013, $726 billion (85 percent) of total Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance income came from payroll taxes. The remainder was provided by interest earnings ($103 billion or 12 percent) and revenue from taxation of OASDI benefits ($21.1 billion or 3 percent), and $4.9 billion in reimbursements from the General Fund of the Treasury - most resulting from the 2012 payroll tax legislation.
The payroll tax rates are set by law, and for OASI and DI, apply to earnings up to a certain amount. This amount, called the earnings base, rises as average wages increase.
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ReplyDelete