National Review editor Rich Lowry accuses Social Security’s defenders of “dishonesty” on grounds so spurious I can’t quite tell what they’re supposed to be. Certainly he doesn’t point to any statements that he alleged are inaccurate. My favored approach to calling people liars is to quote what they’ve said or written and then explain why it isn’t true.
For example, one running thread of Lowry’s argument is that Bush’s plan is all about cutting the benefits of someone like Rick Hilton, Paris Hilton’s super-rich father. In fact, benefits would be cut for anybody earning over $20,000 a year. Average wage earning making around $36,500 would take a very substantial hit. As it happens, that’s approximately what I make, and while I’m pretty comfortable on that salary, I’m by no means rich. I’m also 23, share a house with a roommate, and don’t have any kids to support. People raising families on salaries in the $30,000-$60,000 range are hardly living high on the hog or setting up trust funds for their kids.
But the dishonesty runs much deeper than that. Social Security taxes are capped at $90,000 of payroll income, so people like Rick Hilton who make lots and lots of money already pay no more in taxes and receive no more in benefits than do folks who probably count as rich in some sense in some parts of the country and who are still living definitively middle class lifestyles in your high cost of living regions. The Hiltons of the world are basically irrelevant to this debate.
