Pundits vs Facts

This is something of a rant, concerning what passes for news and accurate informantion on cable news channels.

Over the weekend, Charlie Cook (who is one of the best political observers around), did a segment on MSNBC on Medicare taxes vs. benefits. the following was put up in graphics concerning Medicare contributions:

Single man: $55,000 contribution, $161,000 benefit

Single woman: $55,000 contribution, $181,000 benefit

1 earner couple: $55,000 contribution, $343,000 benefit

2 earner couple: $109,000 contribution, $343,000 benefits

This is all well and good, but doesn’t take into consideration the time value of money. Some of us will have paid into the system for 50 years before retirement. As the quote below from the government indicates, there really isn’t a trust fund per se, however the government has dumped the excess into US government treasury securities, which pay interest. No one ever brings this up!

With an insurance policy, the insurer collects the premium, and invests the money. The law of large numbers dictates that not everyone will collect or many won’t live long enough to collect a major portion. The insurance industry collectively whines when a big payout hits, but is generally a very profitable business.

The government doesn’t even NEED to make a profit, and doesn’t! Pundits and politicians can’t leave the time value of money out of these outrageous claims they make about the systems going broke. (This doesn’t even address the social value of providing for a country’s elder population and covering medical care…which every other civilized country in the world does anyway!)

Here’s a quote about the so-called ‘trust funds’ from the Department of HHS:

<The U.S. Treasury Department tracks their financial flows through accounts that by law are labeled “trust funds.” The label “trust funds” can be confusing in that it may suggest that the money collected for the programs is somehow segregated and managed differently than other receipts. It isn’t. When received on a day-to-day basis, any revenue that comes in for Social Security and Medicare is commingled with other federal revenues, and any such revenue in excess of what is needed to pay each day’s program costs gets used for whatever other obligations the government has to meet. The excess is not invested outside the government, such as in stocks, corporate bonds, or securities of other nations. At the same time, the appropriate trust fund balance is increased by a corresponding amount by crediting it with U.S. Treasury securities, which is tantamount to the government investing in itself. It is one account of the Treasury giving credit to another — i.e., from the Treasury’s general fund to the Social Security or Medicare trust funds.>

Source:

http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/ss-mcare-trust05/index.htm

On the same topic of how leaving out facts shades the information we get, another pundit, (this time on CNN), states that post-recession, 37% of jobs created are in Texas. He does say as a qualifier that Texas is a low wage and low tax state. This is a bit of an understatement as Texas has NO personal income tax…NONE! They make enough off oil not to have ever had a personal income tax.

Having so-called ‘learned panels’ and pundits is one thing, but if they leave out giant swaths of fact, they need to be called out on it by hosts that are smart enough and well-educated enough to do so. This is a terrible example of spreading half truths and misinformation, and not even doing it on purpose…as one network on cable regularly does!

Speaking on the O’Reilly Factor on Fox, Gretchen Carlson incorrectly claimed that “about 35 percent of the in-state tuition people or students” at University of California schools “were illegals.” In fact, only 0.34 percent of undergraduates in the University of California system in the fall of 2008 were “potentially undocumented” students who received the in-state tuition rate. It’s amazing what essentially moving a decimal point a couple digits can do to stir people up.

Send emails to these networks and complain…do some of your own fact-checking with multiple sources. Be informed, the cable channels AREN’T going to inform you at this point!