Parade Magazine's Propaganda Parade Against Social Security (Dean Baker)

[chill_wind]

Parade Magazine's Propaganda Parade Against Social Security
November 21, 2009

Parade Magazine decided to subject tens of millions of readers of its Sunday newspaper insert to an anti-Social Security diatribe headlined: "Can We Save Social Security?" Since Social Security is not in any real danger this headline would be like saying "Can We Save Apple or the New York Yankees?" It should not be hard, since all three are quite healthy at moment.

The article then wrongly asserts that: "lawmakers agree that something needs to be done—and fast. They even agree on the broad outlines of a solution." The article presents absolutely zero evidence for either part of this assertion. There is no on the record statement showing that either members of Congress agree that something must be done fast or on what should be done.

(snip)

The piece also implies that there is a consensus around raising the retirement age and that people oppose raising taxes for "ideological" reasons. There is zero evidence for either proposition. Most likely people oppose raising taxes primarily because they don't want to pay more taxes. There is obvious reason to believe that there is any greater issue here. And, many people strongly oppose raising the retirement age since this would primarily hit less affluent workers.

More: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press

Beat The Press
Dean Baker's commentary on economic reporting

[Ikonoklast]

1. I would imagine that the average age of a Parade reader is close to ninety-seven.

I wonder if anyone that reads it remembers what they read fifteen minutes later.


Just trying to scare their target audience.

[Big Blue Marble]

2. I am calling you on your ageist comment.

But you are right about the age of the average readers. I am sure it
mostly includes the group who already benefiting from SS.

[chill_wind]

3. ..

[depakid]

4. More from America's culture of lies

Not certain how the nation will ever approach issues when the public dialogue has degraded to this extent.