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Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post was on Washington Journal this morning, and responded to two very good callers' questions with total misinformation.
And he did it very authoritatively, while getting the facts completely wrong. The callers were completely right, and the Washington Post's economics correspondent told them very forcefully they were totally wrong.
1.A caller mentioned Bush's prediction in 1978 that Social Security would go bankrupt in something like ten years IF PRIVATE ACCOUNTS WEREN'T ESTABLISHED.
Weisman shockingly stated that Bush's prediction was "absolutely correct." He pointed to the adjustments made in the 80's, but ignored the fact that those adjustments DIDN'T ESTABLISH PRIVATE ACCOUNTS.
Bush was not "abosulutely right" or even "relatively right." He wasn't right at all, he was absolutely wrong. Private accounts were NOT established, and SS did NOT go bankrupt.
3.A caller mentioned Bush's use of Social Security employees to promote his political agenda on SS. Weisman said he didn't see what all the fuss was about, and smugly uttered the totally incorrect statement that the employees were directed to use materials that did not mention privatization.
In fact, the caller (who unfortunately was off the air when Weisman incorrectly contradicted her) had referred to a C-span program which I happened to have seen, it was hearings by the Democratic Policy Committee, where SSA employees testified that SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED THE NECESSITY OF PRIVATE ACCOUNTS.
I saw it with my own eyes. The talking points included the necessity of private accounts as a way to avoid insolvency.
The one thing these two gross factual errors by Weisman have in common is that they both willfully ignore the private accounts factor as they rewrite history. If I were a suspicious person, I'd think someone was trying to slip something past me.
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