November 05, 2015
The Washington Post got recent history badly wrong in the third paragraph of its lead front page article when it told readers:
“Three years ago, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Ryan, his running mate, faced withering Democratic attacks after endorsing dramatic overhauls of Medicare and Social Security that proved unpopular.”
Actually, Romney did not endorse an overhaul of Social Security in his 2012 campaign, although Ryan has long been on record as favoring privatization. Presumably, they chose not to raise the issue in the campaign since they knew it would be highly unpopular.
The piece also notes Governor Chris Christie’s characterization of himself as a “truth-teller” on Social Security and then reports on his plan to save the system money by means-testing benefits starting at $80,000 and eliminating them entirely for people with incomes over $200,000. The truth is that this cut would only reduce spending by 1.0-1.5 percent. Furthermore, it would effectively increase the marginal tax rate for people in this $80,000-$200,000 range by more than 20 percentage points.
Correction:
While Romney did not call for privatizing Social Security, he did propose raising the normal retirement age by two years to 69. He also proposed reducing benefits for middle and upper income workers from their currently scheduled levels.
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