WSJ going down the tubes

Posted by Marc Hodak on July 21, 2009 under Collectivist instinct, Reporting on pay | Be the First to Comment

This was an amazing transition.  Here is the headline, sub, and lead:

Pay of Top Earners Erodes Social Security

Fund Expected to Be Exhausted in 2037

The nation’s wealth gap is widening amid an uproar about lofty pay packages in the financial world.

So, is this an article about Social Security?  Wealth distribution?  Or pay in the financial sector?

None of the above.  It appears to be a critique of tax policy.  I say “appears” because this article looks like a poorly edited complaint about how the affluent are not taxed enough in the opinion of the writer.  Here is the paragraph among this swampy muddle that comes closest to saying what she is really trying to say.

Social Security Administration actuaries estimate removing the earnings ceiling could eliminate the trust fund’s deficit altogether for the next 75 years, or nearly eliminate it if credit toward benefits was provided for the additional taxable earnings.

Translation:  If we take more money from the affluent, or reduce their benefits, we could eliminate the deficit in the social security trust fund.

No plausible actuarial basis is offered for these prescriptions, and no moral basis for why the government’s problem in managing SS becomes a justification for looting the income or wealth of the affluent.  Just a gentle suggestion that breaking a deal can help the side that wasn’t screwed.

Of course, the ultimate sleight of hand, here, is that the extra dollars brought in by raising or eliminating the earnings cap on taxes will actually help SS solvency.  Every dollar of those taxes will simply be spent on current projects, and future taxpayers will simply have a higher obligation to repay to the “Trust fund.”  Bernie Madoff must shake his head in amazement thinking, “What a piker I was.”

I thought that cancelling my subscription to that Democratic Party organ, the New York Times, would have done enough to lower my blood pressure.  I’m starting to give up on the WSJ, now.  What a shame.