Biased Accounts: Part II:
Truth About Social Security Reform Lost in Transition
Networks cite red-herring costs of
personal accounts without explaining what they mean.
By Amy Menefee [1]
May 17, 2005
Transition costs are cited frequently in the
media as a downside to Social Security reform. But reporters are
missing the fact that a transition to personal accounts wouldnt
mean new costs because Social Security is already made up entirely
of borrowed money.
Opponents of personal accounts argue that phasing in
the accounts would require up-front borrowing. This is true, but
its merely borrowing from a different source instead of todays
Social-Security-paying workers, as economists like Larry Hunter and
Jagadeesh Gokhale have shown. That wouldnt have the dire
consequences for the federal budget that personal accounts
opponents suggest, because it wouldnt produce new debt. On the
other hand, leaving Social Security as is would produce a shortfall
of $11 trillion, according to the Social Security Administration.
Media estimates for transition costs have ranged from
$750 billion to more than $4 trillion. Reporters often juxtaposed
these costs with mentions of the current national debt, as CBSs
Michelle Miller did on the Nov. 27, 2004, Evening News: Both
backers and critics of the plan predict the borrowing could run into
the trillions of dollars; this at a time when the nation faces a
record deficit.
Likewise, CBSs John Roberts said on the Dec. 9, 2004,
Evening News that reform would carry a whopping price tag. To
fund the transition to private accounts while paying current
retirees will cost an estimated $1 trillion to $2 trillion, Roberts
said. This became the standard line for broadcast reports on the
subject, though reporters failed to explain how the transition
would work.
In a new Business & Media Institute study on media coverage of
Social Security, sources interviewed by broadcast reporters
mentioned transition costs 23 times, while reporters added another
30 references of their own. These references promoted the idea that
these costs were a downside to reform, often coupled with the notion
that reform would add to the federal deficit.
Rarely did anyone reporter or source make the point
that Fox News Jim Angle did on the Feb. 15, 2005, Special Report
with Brit Hume. Angle repeated the estimates of $754 billion in
the first 10 years and $3 trillion or so after that, but he also
included the White House rebuttal: White House officials say that
wouldnt be additional debt, that it would simply shift existing
future debts forward, like paying off your mortgage early.
Larry Hunter, vice president and chief economist of the
Free Enterprise Fund and a senior research fellow with the Institute
for Policy Innovation, has written about the inaccurate argument
that transitioning to personal accounts would produce new debt. The
government is already borrowing money from todays workers to pay
retirees, with a promise that theyll get paid back some day. But,
Hunter said, its just that a promise.
If the government defaults on that bond, theres no
court in the land thatll force the government to pay, he said.
Borrowing money now to cover the costs of phasing in
personal accounts would simply mean borrowing from a different
source, instead of from workers, he said. And once the accounts were
in place, government borrowing would decrease.
You have reduced borrowing the minute you start
putting money into private accounts, Hunter said.
But reporters didnt get into the details of the
economics. They talked only of skyrocketing deficits. NBCs David
Gregory said the transition would create new debt, calling the
downside of the accounts a $1 to $2 trillion shortfall on the
Dec. 9, 2004, Nightly News.
CBS reporter Joie Chen also cited the trillions on
the Nov. 28, 2004, Evening News. She expounded on the debt idea:
Exploding the deficit could be politically precarious, but the
White House insists in the long run it will help Americans save.
There may be a huge debt left for future generations to pay, though,
well after the current administration is long gone.
Actually, personal accounts would not create additional
costs to the system, said Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jagadeesh
Gokhale. Restructuring the system, which Cato promotes, would be
refinancing debt that already exists because Social Security cant
pay all its creditors workers after 2041, according to the
Social Security Administration. After that date, the SSA projects
that the system will pay lower and lower benefits, with payouts
dropping in 2041 to 74 percent of the promised level and falling to
68 percent of scheduled benefits in 2079.
Personal accounts just makes that shortfall visible,
Gokhale said. Its not as though the cost wouldnt be there if we
didnt go to personal accounts.
The shortfall he mentioned is estimated by the Social
Security Administration at $4 trillion over the next 75 years and
$11 trillion further into the future. In other words, thats a
promise of benefits to future workers that cant be kept under the
current system.
Hunter said the information is out there for those who
would get to the bottom of the Social Security debate. If the press
reported simply and accurately on Social Securitys troubles and how
personal accounts would benefit workers, he said, Workers would
demand that Congress do it. Right now, Congress can hide behind the
deficit.
The Business & Media Institute examined the evening news
programs on all five major networks ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News
Channel and CNN between Nov. 15, 2004, and March 15, 2005. This
time frame covered the heart of President George W. Bushs proposal
to reform Social Security from soon after his re-election through
the launch of his 60 stops in 60 days campaign.
The study analyzed use of liberal and conservative
talking points, focusing on 125 stories mostly or completely devoted
to Social Security. Talking points on both sides of the issue were
coded, designated liberal or conservative, and tallied. If the
ratio of talking points for the two sides was greater than 1.5, then
that story was considered to reflect the position of the side with
the most talking points. Stories that had a 1.5-to-1 or less ratio
were categorized as neutral. Overall, liberal talking points
outweighed conservative ones by a 2-to-1 margin.
To read the first release from that study, Biased
Accounts,
click here [2]