How Congress lies to the public

The is the first of a series of articles about the techniques used by Congress to lie to the public. Although the public complains about being deceived, lied to and so on, no one has written about exactly how it’s done. So this is part one, or what I think will be a very long series of articles. If the public understands the techniques used on them, they won’t be as easy to fool as they are and they’ll be fewer lies. The more truth the better.

I had to laugh that the Democrats are out to hoodwink the public yet again, this time with the lie of omission. It’s simple and effective, until you think about what they are proposing.

This article is about how Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tom Harkin leave out a few facts of their latest proposal to keep Social Security going. In essence, they want to raise the cap on taxable wages, and possibly increase benefits. The fact is the increase, the fuzzy part of the proposal is “increasing the benefits.” It’s kept vague to push through the factual part, and then possibly providing a token increase to some recipients (lower income), decided at a later time. Maybe.

Today the Social Security cap is $113,700, meaning that if you make twice that, $227,400 a year, you only pay Social Security taxes on your initial $113,700 of income. The Democrats want to raise that so that the cap is lifted and you’ll pay taxes on every dime you make. That extra income will keep Social Security from going under for decades longer.

At first glance it sounds reasonable, assuming that you don’t pay attention to how the Social Security Trust Fund is raided and given IOUs by our government.

In fact, the proposal is a lie of omission. How? The Democrats make no serious mention of increasing the retirement benefits beyond where they are capped today or who will get them. I very much doubt that it will include doubling them for the people paying twice the Social Security taxes.

In other words, if you have always paid the maximum into Social Security, you can expect the maximum retirement income due at your retirement age. The problem is that if you are forced to pay twice the taxes on your $227,400, than your $113,700 earning counterpart it’s almost certain that you’ll both receive exactly the same monthly Social Security benefit. That possible increase that they suggest will be forgotten about after the cap is lifted.

It’s a deceptive sleight of hand to squeeze more taxes from the producers to support the Democrat base. A lie of deception. It’s often what isn’t said that’s more important than what is.

I hope that the Republicans spot the lie and block the attempt in the Senate and House.