9/28/07:

How inept is our multimillionaire press corps? Let's start with Russert's introduction of this topic at Wednesday's debate:

RUSSERT (9/26/07): And we're back at Dartmouth College talking to the Democrats. I want to talk about Social Security and Medicare.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve, the head of the Government Accountability Office, have both said that the number of people in America on Social Security and Medicare is going to double in the next 20 years--there are now 40 million; it's going to go to 80 million--and that if nothing is done, we'll have to cut benefits in half or double the taxes. That is their testimony.

Senator Biden, in order to prevent that, would you be willing to consider certain steps? For example, back in 1983, Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill, Patrick Moynihan and Bob Dole got together and changed the retirement age. It's going to be going up to 67 in a gradual increase.

Right now, you pay tax for Social Security on your first $97,500 worth of income. Why not tax the entire income of every American? And if you do that, you'll guarantee the solvency of Social Security farther than the eye can see.

"I want to talk about Social Security and Medicare," Russert said at the start of this segment. And then, just like that, for whatever reason, he switched his field to a (largely bungled) discussion of Social Security only. The absurdity of this approach should be obvious; everyone agrees that the real problem with future entitlements concerns the costs of Medicare, not of Social Security. Indeed, the former head of the federal reserve had said this to Russert just three days before the self-impressed burgher led Wednesday evening's debate. On Sunday morning's Meet the Press, Alan Greenspan laid out the shape of the entitlement problem, as even the Greenspans now limn it:

RUSSERT (9/23/07): Do you believe either political party has stepped up to the crisis we face with Social Security and Medicare in the coming years?

GREENSPAN: I do not.

RUSSERT: How big a crisis will that be?

GREENSPAN: Social Security is not a big crisis. We are approximately 2 percent points of payroll short over the very long run. It's a significant closing of the gap, but it's doable, and doable in any number of ways.

Medicare is a wholly different issue... We're going to double the size of the retired population, and by all of the analysis I go through in the book, it's very evident to me that we are not able to actually deliver on the Medicare we are promising . . .

The problem lies with Medicare, Greenspan said, voicing an utterly standard analysis. But for whatever reason, Russert quickly turned Wednesday's segment into a discussion of Social Security. He blathered ahead with his typically useless data about the number of future recipients--and about the typical age of death back in the mid-1930s. None of these facts are even slightly relevant to a real discussion of Social Security, as pundits have made clear many times, especially during 2005, when Bush's privatization plan hit the deck. (Duh. These useless facts are already part of the future funding formulas!)

Then there was Russert during President Bush's '05 Social Security destruction campaign, which mainstream Democrats and their kept bloggers successfully side-tracked. Here are three Howler excerpts on Russert:

1/19/05:

How did Russert approach Rahm [Emmanuel] on Social Security? The fabled attack-dog was instantly yapping. Here was his opening question:

RUSSERT (1/16/05): Let me turn to Social Security and put a quote up on the board."...the looming fiscal crisis in Social Security. ...If nothing is done by 2029, there will be a deficit in Social Security trust fund, which will either require...a huge tax increase in the payroll tax, or just about a 25 percent cut in Social Security benefits."Do you agree with that?

Of course, Russert's question didn't make too much sense. No one agrees with the quoted statement, because the statement's use of the year 2029 identifies it as a blast from the past, when SS trustees were citing that year as the year when the system's trust fund would expire. In fact, this quotation came from a speech by Bill Clinton on February 9, 1998. So why was Russert quoting the speech? Because today, most Dems say (correctly, in our view) that there isn't a "looming crisis" in Social Security. Russert wanted to play "gotcha" with Rahm, catching him in a contradiction with something his former boss said.

To clarify the above, Media Matters writes, in More Social Security misinformation on Meet the Press:

Clinton's claim that "there will be a deficit in Social Security trust fund" by 2029 accurately reflected the estimate of the 1997 report of the Board of Trustees of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds (OASDI). But, as the Board of Trustees noted in its 2004 report: "Assumptions are reexamined each year in light of recent experience and new information. This careful review and updating of the assumptions on an annual basis helps ensure that they provide the Trustees' best estimate of future possibilities." According to the 2004 report, the Social Security trust fund will be able to fully pay promised benefits until 2042*. The estimated date is 2052, according to a June 2004 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

1/10/05:

In the mainstream press corps, conservative spin has long driven the SS debate, and yesterday's Meet the Press proved no exception. Indeed, Tim Russert raised the SS question . . . And guess what! Russert recited the spin-driven speech he always recites when he tackles SS. He listed gloomy, irrelevant facts taken straight from the pseudo-con spin shop:

RUSSERT (1/9/05):Albert Hunt and Katty, the situation is, when Social Security began, there were 16 workers for every retiree. There are soon to be two workers for every retiree. We have 40 million people on Social Security now.

When the baby boomers retire, there'll be 80 million. Roosevelt said eligibility 65, which was genius, because if you made it to 65, you were on Social Security for a month or two and that was it. Life expectancy's now 78, 79, 80 years old, so you have twice as many people on the program for fifteen years. The president says that's a crisis. Democrats say it's not a crisis, we'll find a way to grow our way out of this and make some changes that would tweak the system.

Who's right?

As usual, Russert recited gloomy facts which made SS sound unsustainable. The hardest-right spinner could hardly do better. Indeed, Russert has only made one concession on this topic over the years. He used to say there were forty-two workers for every retiree back when Social Security began (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 12/8/04). Now he offers a different irrelevant fact. It was sixteen to one, he now tells us.

Yes, Russert's gloomy, irrelevant facts come straight from a pseudo-con spin-shop.

12/8/04:

Why do American citizens think there's a "looming crisis" in Social Security? One answer is fairly obvious--big press honchos constantly say so. Consider Sunday's Meet the Press, for example. Senator Harry Reid dared to say that he opposed Soc Sec private accounts. In reply, Tim Russert put it on cruise control, serving up the scary speech he has delivered ten thousand times in the past:

RUSSERT (12/5/04): But, Senator, there are now forty million people on Social Security. In the next twenty years, there's going to be eighty million. Life expectancy used to be 65 years old. It's approaching 80. If you have twice as many people on these programs for fifteen years, you've got to restructure them in some way, shape, or form. What is your solution?

REID: Tim--

RUSSERT: What is your alternative?

Poor Harry! The solon got to say one word--"Tim"--before the humble son of Buffalo challenged him boldly again.

Russert delivers this ominous speech the way other life-forms take air. He'll interject his (selective) facts into almost any discussion.

Deforming, cutting and/or killing Social Security was a long-term campaign for Russert, going back at least to early 2000:

1/17/00 [Daily Howler is discussing the 1/6/00 GOP presidential candidates forum]:

Russert's final word: Most striking by far in this forum was Russert's treatment of Social Security. The topic arose 30 minutes along in a question to McCain. . . . Predictably, Russert asked Bush to critique McCain's answer, and Bauer forced his way in for a comment. But, though Keyes and Forbes were trying to speak, Russert held up his hand, talked over the top of them, and said this before starting the forum's next segment:

RUSSERT: We've all agreed the candidates will get a chance to question one another. Just for the record, Mr. Bauer, if nothing is done, benefits must be reduced by a third or the taxes doubled by the year 2035. More to come, more to come.

This is Russert's view of the facts, but it's surely not the view of several candidates. The idea that Russert should establish "the record" on this seminal issue provided the debate's most remarkable moment. Our analysts cheered when Keyes finally said, "I begin to wonder when Mr. Russert will declare his candidacy." But Russert's notion--that candidates should be silenced so journalists can speak--was all too expressive of moderator outlook in the dispiriting succession of performances by moderators we have seen since these forums began.

On Social Security, Russert leaves an anti-populist, anti-journalistic legacy.