On the New York Times On Fiscal Transparency
They support it:
The Congressional Budget Office reported on Tuesday that the government’s finances are deteriorating rapidly: the budget deficit for this year is expected to reach $407 billion, more than double last year’s shortfall, and to exceed $500 billion in 2009. The takeover of Fannie and Freddie, necessary though it is, will add to the deterioration. Airbrushing that away will only open the door to uninformed — or negligent — decisions on spending and tax cuts.
The White House says that the extent of the government’s control of Fannie and Freddie does not warrant including the companies’ operations in the budget. That is absurd. The government has seized the companies, firing their executives and installing new ones, offering to invest up to $200 billion in the companies if necessary, and most significant, making an ironclad promise to pay their trillions of dollars in obligations, if need be. [September 13, 2008]
Except when they oppose it:
If the $10 trillion figure is essentially bogus, so is the claim that Social Security is in crisis. [January 3, 2005]
In suggesting that 2018 is doomsyear, the president is reinforcing a false impression that the trust fund is a worthless pile of I.O.U.’s — as detractors of Social Security so often claim. [January 10, 2005]
Social Security takes in more money than it needs to pay current beneficiaries, and the excess is invested in the Treasury securities that Mr. Bush was discussing. They carry the same legal and political obligations as all other forms of Treasury debt, every penny of which has always been paid in full and on time. [April 7, 2005]
So the calls for honest fiscal accounting and reporting of the Social Security “trust fund,” which like any IOU from yourself to yourself is utterly worthless — was dismissed by the Times in editorial after editorial as (their terms) “silly” and “false” and “misguided” and all sorts of other pejoratives. But the Fannie and Freddie bailouts, which even under the worse case scenarios would be minuscule compared to the Social Security crisis, demands nothing less than the most transparent, plain-truth treatment.
Go figure — literally.
Previously:
–New York Times Continues “Ostrich-cizing” Social Security Reform
–Another NYT Social Security Lie: More Trust Fund Deception
–Social Security: NYT Repeats “Full Faith & Credit” Lie
–Treasury Acknowledges Social Security “Trust Fund” is Meaningless
Filed under: Economics & Finance, Social Security